Looking for defunct dams in Washington State

[TheScienceHelp]

Hello!
I am a middle school teacher and have a student doing a project collecting data on defunct dams in Washington State, but no such list appears to exist. Does anyone know of any organization (or even any individual dams) in Washington State that we could look at?
Thanks!

[Anthon Allred]

Define "defunct dams".  If dams are not currently maintained to store or divert water, they can be removed by deliberate action, or they can remain in place to slowly deteriorate, possibly to breach at the worst possible time.  In most States either the Dept. of Natural Resources or the Dept. of Environment (or equivalents) have dam safety units that attempt to identify and/or track dams and grade their condition, similar to what is done with bridges.

Tony Allred Jr.

On 10/30/2025 4:29 PM, TheScienceHelp wrote:

Hello!
I am a middle school teacher and have a student doing a project collecting data on defunct dams in Washington State, but no such list appears to exist. Does anyone know of any organization (or even any individual dams) in Washington State that we could look at?

Thanks! --
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[Anthon Allred]

Also, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers might maintain lists.  The 1889 Johnstown Flood was the start of the recognition of a need for some process to regularly track and evaluate dams.

Tony Allred Jr.

[pyo...@runbox.com]

This page for the Pacific Northwest may help. There's a link to a Washington state page near the bottom. https://tool.aquaticbarriers.org/regions/northwest/

AW recently posted about a national low-head dam inventory, https://www.americanwhitewater.org/content/Article/view/article_id/l2cpMtvlZaEXlfg79zM03/. However, for my area I found it's missing quite a few, and I suspect your student may be looking for larger dams. Hope this helps,

Philip