NATCHEZ, Miss. – State dam regulators are requiring Adams County supervisors to come up with a plan to correct the hazardous Robins Lake dam they worry will break and flood nearby residents.
Remediation options include rebuilding the dam or eliminating it along with the small lake it retains. Engineer Hayden Kaiser told the county board Thursday that the earthen structure is classified as a “high hazard” dam by the state Department of Environmental Quality.
Whatever steps taken will be expensive with uncertainties who pays and where the money comes from.
With the recent heavy rains, the dam has become more eroded and more imperiled to break. “It is a safety hazard, and there are people downstream,” Kaiser said.
Robins Lake is located about 10 miles south of Natchez and west of U.S. 61 and Lower Woodville Road between the Cloverdale and Sibley areas. About 15 property owners are directly impacted by the deficient dam, according to Adams County officials.
The privately built Robins Lake dam has a road on it that the county board took ownership of several years ago to maintain. That has raised questions about the county’s responsibility for the dam underneath the road.
DEQ’s dam safety division is demanding the county have a plan in place for correcting Robins Lake dam in June or face sanctions by the state, said county board attorney Scott Slover.
Adams County board President Ricky Gray said DEQ is being heavy-handed in imposing such mandates on the county. “I don’t think they have the authority to tell us we need to spend (millions of dollars),” he said.
The least expensive alternative is to drain the small lake, remove the dam and replace it with road crossing, said Kaiser, who estimated the cost at about $1 million.
The more expensive measure is to reconstruct the dam to ensure the impoundment can handle the lake water. Estimated cost: about $3 million.
Adams County Supervisor Wes Middleton pointed to the many uncertainties and complications the board is grappling with to resolve the Robins Lake dam dilemma. “There are a lot of unknowns,” he said.
With Robins Lake dam’s “high hazard” classification by DEQ, its “failure may cause loss of life, serious damage to homes, industrial or commercial buildings, important public utilities, main highways or railroads,” according to the state dam safety agency’s assessment.
Adams County supervisors have expressed fears that a breach of the dam could gush water all the way to U.S. 61 a few miles away.
