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NEWS BRIEFS
Ky. dam went uninspected for decade
LEXINGTON, Ky. (AP) — A leaking dam in Letcher County that hadn’t been inspected by state regulators for more than a decade points to a larger potential problem in eastern Kentucky, dam safety officials said.
There are likely thousands of old sediment ponds at surface mines that the state dam inspection office doesn’t know about, Marilyn C. Thomas, an environmental engineer with the state Dam Safety Section, told the Lexington Herald-Leader.
Many are so small the agency wouldn’t inspect them even if it knew where they were, and they represent little danger. But others might pose a potential hazard to people and property.
“These things are all over the place,” said Scott Phelps, supervisor of the state dam-inspection program. “That’s what scares me the most — we’re going to have one of these things turn loose.”
In Letcher County, some residents feared the leaking earthen dam could collapse and flood homes. The agency that oversees surface mining had released the dam from oversight, and the separate state agency that inspects dams didn’t know it existed.
“It was just sitting up there deteriorating,” Thomas said.
