On Monday August 29th the city of Newport held a town hall meeting and gave a tour of the Big Creek Dam at the water plant to discuss the dam project with local residents and invited members of the neighborhood to update them on the status of the Big Creek Dam replacement project. Mayor Sawyer pointed out the critical need for water within the city. Water is critical to not just residents but also to businesses such as the fish plants, hotels and the aquarium. The dam was built in 1954, and is in great need of replacement. The cost of replacement is now estimated at $80-million with an additional $5 million added per year. The two Big Creek Dams on the Big Creek Reservoirs contain the city's sole water supply.
According to Aaron Collett city engineer the major concerns with the Big Creek Dam are seepage at the upper dam. In addition to concerns of complete failure in the event of a earthquake but the seepage is causing damage as well. Water is coming through the dam in places where there should not be any water leaking through. While an earthquake is obviously a major threat to the loss of these dams, the structure of the upper dam itself is subject to potential catastrophic failure. Collett said the city is monitoring this but it adds urgency to the situation. The state’s dam safety engineer has now labeled the dam “unsafe.”
Complete failure of the Big Creek Dams would cause a loss of water for an indefinite period of time and result in loss of life and financial losses quickly exceeding the cost of the proposed project to resolve the issue. Without water for business and industry, a significant number of jobs would be lost, resulting in many people leaving the region, perhaps permanently. The Big Creek Dams project as proposed would build a roller-compacted concrete dam between the upper and lower reservoirs. This dam would be higher than the existing dams and would hold the volumes currently stored in the lower and upper reservoirs combined. The project would take three to four years to construct. A new roadway leading to the area would also be built.
By enlarging the upper Big Creek Reservoir and replacing it with a dam that will sustain seismic activity, the risk of dam failure will no longer be a hazard. Local citizens who attended the town hall meeting and took a tour of the dam expressed concern, especially regarding the seepage. If the dam were to fail water would flood the area west all the way to Highway 101 west to the ocean, putting homes and lives at risk. The city has been closely monitoring the situation and has been patching the problem areas and checks it for seepage and prevent more material from moving.
Mayor Sawyer said $60 million has been authorized for the Big Creek Dam Replacement Project in the Water Resource Development Act of 2022 as approved by the U.S. House of Representatives. Congressman Schrader was successful in including this, as his only request, in the WRDA bill. The Senate bill was approved prior to the House bill and does not include this same authorization.
This fall, both chambers will select conference representatives to the differences between the two bills. It is recommended that a delegation from the city make a trip to Washington DC at the end of September to meet with elected officials, the Corp of Engineers, and others to advocate for this authorization to be included in the final WRDA bill that will be presented to the President for signature.
The proposed delegation will include Mayor Sawyer, City Engineer Aaron Collett, Representative David Gomberg, our State Legislative Consultant, Jenny Dressler, Tia Cavender from Dig Deep Research and city manager Spencer Neble. The Newport city council authorized a delegation to travel to Washington DC in the last week of September to meet with legislators and agency personnel funding for the Big Creek Dam.
