Minnesota Dam Failure Highlights Nationwide Danger

In an article for the Washington Post, Michael Goldberg describes the failure of the Rapidan Dam near Mankato, Minnesota, which partly collapsed on Monday, causing power outages and damage including at least one destroyed home. “Water levels peaked Monday at 34,800 cubic feet per second, and Blue Earth County officials issued an imminent threat warning. Those figures make this flood the second largest in the dam’s history,” Goldberg notes.

The failure wasn’t a shock to local officials. Even prior to the dam experiencing one of its highest floods on record later that year, a 2019 assessment found that a failure of the dam would result in property loss. 

“After the 2019 flood, ice jams formed in a narrow bend of the river downstream of the dam from January through March 2020. These jams continued to build and caused water to rise and flood, a 2021 study found.” A 2023 assessment of the dam, which was built in 1910, found it in “poor condition.”

“Aging, unsafe dams are ticking time bombs,” the article notes. As Goldberg explains, “Dams are often built to last 50 years, and like other infrastructure, they deteriorate with age.” Dams like the Rapidan around the country are aging far beyond their projected lifespan, putting downstream communities in danger.