A $200,000 homeland security grant is expected to help ensure safety around scores of dams across Kentucky.
The federal funds will help state officials begin research into new monitoring and flood warnings for people downstream.
Kentucky has some 960 regulated dams along its waterways with about 200 state or local government-owned.
Division of Water Director Peter Goodmann says the homeland security money is focused on ways to better manage risks downstream from dams.
“What kinds of things can we do on the dam instrumentation on and in the dam? How well does that work? And then how do you translate that into some sort of downstream warning system?” posed Goodman.
Goodmann says there are about 300 high-hazard dams in Kentucky. He says that doesn’t mean they are at risk of failure, just that if there is a significant breaching of the dam, loss of life is likely.
