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Popular Mechanics Article: 50 States, 50 Things America Must Fix Now 4

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The Wisconsin picture is a spot that was one of my favorite fishing holes when I lived in Milwaukee. Surprisingly vibrant urban fishery with trout, salmon and pike.
 
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For Kansas the dams on the lakes are in the article, but living in Kansas long term issue are the lakes behind the dams. The lakes are silting up. In 30 years the dams will be an odd feature for the prairie land where the lakes used to be.
 
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Silted up shallow lakes is a good resource for soil to cover eroded land. Look at the sand pits in central Kansas along the river for how to harvest this resource.

But this is something that someone can make a profit on. So it's not really a big government issue to fix.
Unless you like government trash service (over priced, not very efficient, and does not compete well with for profit companies).

And maybe that's the key on some of the issues, make them a profit motive for companies to fix.
 
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"(over priced, not very efficient, and does not compete well with for profit companies)."

For profit companies simply nickel and dime you to death. Just look at what the airlines have stopped offering for "free" and now, there are certain airlines where they charge you to carry the clothes you need to wear at your destination. Utilities are doing that sort of thing as well; their "responsibility" ends at the far end of their meters, and anything else will cost you. They still provide pilot light servicing for free, but I can't imagine that staying that way.

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I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! faq731-376 forum1529 Entire Forum list
 
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Pilot lighting is a marketing requirement. By doing so they get a chance for an on-site inspection, which means a chance to detect a gas leak. Blowing homes to bits is a negative advertising event for a gas company, so I think that service will last a while.

On an historic note - the electric light bulb was invented to counter gas explosions in cities. If the gas pressure dropped, the gas lamps would stop burning and if no one was home or noticed, when the pressure came back the dwelling had a good chance of going boom! I think this was before ethyl mercaptan was introduced, so gas leaks were in no conventional way detectable.

 
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If taxes are too low, exactly what is enough? Ask and the only answer is MORE, MORE, MORE.

Actually there are safety requirements for gas utilities, which is why they light pilots. IT's REQUIRED, by law. And that cost is added to your gas bill, in a round about way.



 
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"With 6,087, Kansas trails only Texas for the most dams in the nation."

Well, that was a fun fact, but I'm scratching my head wondering what counts as a dam. Wikipedia lists only 24 reservoirs in Kansas. I know of a handful of other named dams/lakes, and I'm sure there are... maybe a few hundred I've never heard of? Even that sounds like a stretch. We don't have enough dam-worthy creeks and rivers to support 6,087 dams. They must be counting every homemade pasture dam and large road ditch to get to that number!
 
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Actually Kansas has a large number of dams on smaller valleys (because Kansas is flat), to slow down water flow to prevent flooding. The fact that they are small is why there is so many of them.

But to call them dams is a...well jump... to say the least, because many of them have small culverts in them, as to limit water flow exiting the small valleys.

These are by no means lake type of dams, like I suspect you are thinking. They are flood control dams, so they normally hold no water.

Most watering ponds are owned by ranchers, who take care of them, not the state. But if they pay a fee the state will put fish in them.

But the types of dams in Kansas could be a lesson in flood control that other places could learn from.
 
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[URL unfurl="true" said:
http://www.damsafety.org/media/Documents/STATE_INFO/STATE_DATA_CALL/NID_MethodologyManual.pdf[/URL]]
Federal law and the ASDSO Model State Dam Safety Program define a dam as “any artificial barrier,
including appurtenant works, which impounds or diverts water, and which (1) is twenty-five feet or more
in height from the natural bed of the stream or watercourse measured at the downstream toe of the barrier,
or from the lowest elevation of the outside limit of the barrier, if it is not across a stream channel or
watercourse, to the maximum water storage elevation; or (2) has an impounding capacity at the maximum
water storage elevation of fifty acre-feet or more.
This definition does not apply to any such barrier which is not in excess of six feet in height, regardless of
storage capacity or which has a storage capacity at maximum water storage elevation not in excess of
fifteen acre-feet, regardless of height, (PL 92-367; Dam Safety Act of 1972) unless such barrier, due to its
location or other physical characteristic, is likely to pose a significant threat to human life or property in
the event of its failure.” (PL 99-662, Water Resources Development Act of 1986).
Click to expand...

This does show that Kansas has in excess of 5000 dams based on the above criteria:
gfx_dams_by_state.png


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Speaking of earthen dams in Wisconsin, back in October, 1968, while an Army ROTC cadet, we went on an inspection trip to Wisconsin and Minnesota to see some of the flood control projects being done on the Upper Mississippi River basin by the Army Corps of Engineers (ours was an Corp of Engineers ROTC battalion) and one of the stops was in Spring Valley, WI, situated on the Eau Galle River, approximately midway between Minneapolis, MN and Eau Clair, WI. Here the Corp was building what was to become the one of the largest earthen dams in the world, designed to control flooding on the Eau Galle River, a tributary of the Mississippi. Here are a couple of photos I took back in 1968:

Spring_Valley_Dam_01_kozoez.jpg


This shows the dam nearing completion (taken with a Minolta SR-1)

Spring_Valley_Dam_02_spgfwk.jpg


And this photo shows the Eau Galle River and what was to become the Eau Galle Reservoir (AKA Lake George), which can be seen in the image below, taken from Google, showing what the area looks like today:

Spring_Valley_Dam_03_kh6eer.png


Note the size of the dam compared the town of Spring Valley (pop approx 1,400) just below it.

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