The cost to rehabilitate U.S. dams has reached $70 billion, according to a 2019 update to a report by the Association of State Dam Safety Officials. Nearly $66 billion of that total is tied to state and local dams, with the remaining $4.78 needed for federal dams.
About 15,600 of the more than 91,400 dams inventoried in the report are categorized as “high hazard” (17 percent), carrying a rehabilitation cost of nearly $23 billion. By comparison, when the report was first compiled in 2003, high hazard dams required an estimated $10 billion.
