One of the things that have been brought out lately is a
report that was filed by environmentalists in 2005 that predicted that exactly what happened--would. At the time, and ever since, at least until this week, this problem was ignored or blown off by both state and federal authorities who were in a position to address it. That's the problem with so much of the infrastructure everywhere; it's easier to kick the can down the road to future taxpayers than it is to spend the money now, whether it's the dams, the roads, the bridges, or the hundred year-old sewage systems--anything that's not really sexy enough to get the public enthused about paying for it immediately.
Of course, when something happens,
then there's time and money to fix the problem. But for this dam, and this problem, the issue of water overflowing the emergency spillway onto bare dirt was identified, and a reasonable solution was proposed. Just like homeowners put things like this under the downspouts of their rain gutters so the water doesn't dig a big hole:
Like the saying goes, there's never enough time to do it right the first time, but there's always time to go back and fix it.
