The current Dam Safety Regulations need a complete review and should be revised to be more in accordance with realistic safety requirements for other infrastructure,  such as Roads. The Virginia Department of Transportation is encouraged to  place a safety sign on a dangerous curve rather than rebuild the road, perhaps because our budgets do not  allow for 100% safe roads. Dam Safety has largely been placed on the landowner and thus the safety standards have been outrageously overstated. For example, the Probable Maximum Precipitation requirements suggest that in many cases all streams and roads would be flooded, and impoundments would just not matter.

Please carefully consider the following:

Funding should be from the Commonwealth, not the landowner. Most dams were built with Government assistance, whether for grist mill power, agriculture, or other Government Programs. Landowners should not have to bear the burden of previous Government mistakes.

Standards of safety, such as rainfall amounts, are unrealistic and need to be corrected.

Risk of dam failures needs to be revised. I believe four deaths have been attributed to dam failure in recent years. Highway deaths were over 1,000 just for 2022.

Thank you for the opportunity to comment. I was unable to find the comment information and only heard about it from a friend, despite being on the various mailing lists of DCR.