Earthen Dam Repair Urged Across North Texas

A publicly funded repair has erased 11 years of slumps and slides and returned the 39-foot-high earthen mound to its original state at a private lake in northwest Collin County.

The almost $578,000 project has stabilized the dam and assuaged the Wilsons, who long have called it a safety threat and an eyesore – and who joined neighbors in suing Collin County to restore or remove the structure.

But the one-time fix leaves unsettled the multimillion-dollar question of who will pay for future repairs and improvements to the dam near Celina and to hundreds of others aging across Texas.

The federal government has built almost 2,000 of the dams in Texas (about 11,000 nationwide) in the past 50-plus years to help control flooding and reduce soil erosion. Dallas and its six surrounding counties have 316 of them, including 99 in Collin County and 85 in Ellis County.

Full Story