In 1979 Three Mile Island experienced a partial meltdown of one of its reactor cores due to a coolant system failure and operator error. The actual reactor vessel, though internally damaged, held, and the additional layers of protection offered by the containment structure also held, but were not even needed. Nobody died, nobody was injured, no property outside the plant was damaged. To this day, many hold it up as an example of the horrors of nuclear energy.
Meanwhile, a form of “renewable” energy around the country has been destroying homes and snuffing out lives from the very beginning with little fanfare.
The Lake Delhi dam was built in the 1920’s as a hydroelectric generating facility. In the late 1960’s, the facility began to show its age and the operator didn’t have the capital to replace or refurbish the turbines, leading to most of the electrical generating capacity going offline in 1973. Had the Delhi dam been a nuclear facility, the owners would have been required to have a fund set aside for its decommissioning, thus assuring that it would not be left a derelict hulk that endangers the community.
But it wasn’t nuclear, so there it sat, turbines rusting and no power being produced. Instead, operations of the dam were turned over to the “Lake Delhi Recreational Association,” who apparently had no interest in generating electricity and was not at all equipped to maintain or repair the dam. The former hydroelectric dam, which held back a ten mile long lake seems to have sat under the control of the equivalent of a neighborhood association, and received little if any maintenance or inspection.
Although hydropower is a good economic and renewable source of energy, no government subsidies jumped in to repair the dam and thus several private attempts to repair the dam and put it back into service generating power went bust over the years.
Finally in 2008, it seemed that the plant would be brought back online. It had the potential to generate electricity, but since it was not wind or solar, it took a while to get regulatory approval to even begin the refurbishment for power generation. Yes, that’s right, the process to just get approval to begin refurbishment takes years!
By 2010, it looked like the plant was about ready to come back online. Unfortunately, as it was being refurbished it was discovered that the years of neglect had not been kind to the Delhi dam and was in worse shape than anyone could have imagined. Sediment had built up against the dam, at least one gate was severely damaged by a past flood and the integrity of the dam was called into question. In 2009, the Federal Government allocated 2.5 million for critical repairs on the dam, in part because of the safety issue it presented. The state of Iowa came up with another one hundred thousand dollars to begin a dredging and improvement plan last April.
But apparently, it wasn’t enough, because this morning, this happened:

Right now, how much damage this dam failure has caused remains unknown. Details are sketchy, but officials are already calling it “catastrophic.” At least a few homes are already reported destroyed and upwards of 700 could be in danger. At least fifty homes have already reported some level of damage and the flood has also been blamed for extensive power outages. Due to evacuations, it is hoped that deaths will be avoided.
The dam was not a nuclear facility, however, so don’t expect to read about this on the front page of the newspaper. In fact, don’t expect to read about it on the second page either. It may not even make the first section of your newspaper and if you don’t live in the US, it likely won’t make it to your newspaper at all. After all, it’s just a dam and those fail all the time. Small consolation to those whose lives have been washed away.
At least it was only water and not coal ash.