# Privately Owned Dams

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/privately-owned-dams/792227>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [July 27, 2017, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/privately-owned-dams/792227 "2017-07-27T02:28:11Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Mrdeals](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ea666f/32.png) [@Mrdeals](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mrdeals)\
**Post date:** [July 27, 2017, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/privately-owned-dams/792227/1 "2017-07-27T02:28:11Z")

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Was listening to the radio and a story came over about this dam in Wisconsin. This guy purchased the dam from the city back in 1985. Fast forward to 2017, he is being sued left and right, he isn’t letting enough water in the lake for boaters. When it storms he isn’t letting enough water out.

I guess my question is, are privately owned dams normal?

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**Author:** ![SuperAbe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f17d59/32.png) [@SuperAbe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SuperAbe)\
**Post date:** [July 27, 2017, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/privately-owned-dams/792227/2 "2017-07-27T02:48:47Z")

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Apparently, yes: [56.4% of all dams in the US are privately owned](https://www.fema.gov/dam-ownership-united-states).

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**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\
**Post date:** [July 27, 2017, 11:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/privately-owned-dams/792227/3 "2017-07-27T11:44:58Z")

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[The Johnstown Flood of 1889](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnstown_Flood) involved failure of an improperly maintained privately owned dam. There were 2,209 deaths from the flood.

[QUOTE=Wickipedia]  
After the flood, survivors suffered a series of legal defeats in their attempts to recover damages from the dam’s owners  
[/QUOTE]

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**Author:** ![Isilder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/cc9497/32.png) [@Isilder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isilder)\
**Post date:** [July 27, 2017, 12:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/privately-owned-dams/792227/4 "2017-07-27T12:30:44Z")

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Whats unusual about this case ?

> [@](#):
>
> However, the DNR now contends that Pheiffer was not granted a permit to operate the dam because the village in 1985 mistakenly sold the dam to a private citizen. Over half of the state’s dams are privately owned but in this particular case, the sale of the dam to a private citizen by the village was prohibited under state statute, said Meg Galloway, the DNR’s chief of dams and flood plains.

The sale wasn’t legal, thats whats unusual. The owner, a Mr Pfieffer (not anyone famous) bought it for $1000 and wants to sell it for a million. Seems that he isn’t breaking any rules to run the levels down to any level he wants, and in fact reduces his liability for failure to prevent floods by keeping the dam level low. He also gets to sell electric power. So it seems he can set the levels to annoy the residents, so as to force them to buy it at his price.

Chuck says he wants to be paid for his repairs he has made, and so $1,100,000 is a fair price. The village says that the dam needs repair work and its actually not worth anything, and $100,000 is just compensation to Chuck for , $1 or $100,000 , its like a token amount. Just an amount to get the sale going.

But the authorities can also demand he performs safety analyis, and threaten to send him bankrupt with the actual safety work required to keep it safe.

So its not usual for a villages water frontage recreational dam to be the hands of one individual like that… he’s not engineering the site… he’s just a handy man not an engineer…