As dams crumble, states can't keep up with inspections and repairs; look up your local dams

"The number of deficient dams in the U.S. — those with structural or hydraulic issues that increase the risk of failure — is rising dramatically, outpacing the rate at which they can be fixed. But as austerity continues across governments, funds for inspection and upkeep are static or shrinking in most states," Jim Malewitz of Stateline reports. Last year, there were just 422 full-time state employees overseeing more than 87,000 dams in the entire country. Of those dams, 11,388 were listed as "high-hazard," which means they are likely to fail and cause deaths. Many dams exist in rural areas, where rivers have been dammed to create water supplies for urban areas. (Interior Department photo: employees inspect leaking dam)

There's little help on the way from state legislatures, and dam safety advocates hope federal legislators will pick up the slack. When it returns after the election the U.S. Senate will be asked to reauthorize the 2006 National Dam Safety Act, an annual $14 million program that expired a year ago. That program helped states retain staff, educate dam owners and buy essential equipment.

Most dams were built before 1970, including more than 2,000 that are more than 100 years old, and are very prone to damage that could cause failure. State dam inspectors have a hard time keeping up. Alabama doesn't have a safety program, leaving its more than 2,000 dams un-inspected. South Carolina employs fewer than two full time-equivalent workers to oversee its 2,380 dams.

With so many dams to inspect, states classify them by estimated hazard, but changing demographics can lead to faulty classifications. "Suburban development has pushed into rural areas where engineers long ago planned dam construction with only agriculture in mind," Malewitz explains. "Those dams were considered low-hazard; failure meant only flooded land -- not inundated homes or businesses or threatened lives." (Read more)

To look up dams in your area on the Corps' National Inventory of Dams, click here.

Forest Service suspends 'burn out' policy in West; shift requires it to fight every fire

The U.S. Forest Service has temporarily suspended a long-standing policy of allowing small fires in the West to burn out, according to a memo from the agency's deputy chief of forestry. Nathanael Massey of Environment & Energy News reports that "while the memo acknowledges the necessity of employing fire as a tool of restoration, noting that suppression of all fires 'is not a desirable approach in the long-run,' it cites the need to protect life and personal property -- as well as budgetary concerns -- in its decision." The current elevated fire risk, he writes, is a result of higher-than-average temperatures and a profusion of fuel, the product of nearly a century of fire suppression policies. (Wildlandfire.com photo)

The decision, while not a direct reversal of policy, does represent a departure from that practice of natural restoration, said Jennifer Jones, a Forest Service spokeswoman. "We realize that we are making some trade-offs here," she told Massey. "We're working within short-term fiscal restraints, and that almost always requires making tough choices." The Forest Service's suppression budget was cut 6.3 percent this year, she added, while the country has experienced a rise in fire severity.

Real truth about crime: Breathe easy, you're safer than you think

A lot of what you think about crime, writes John Roman of the Urban Institute, is just not true. Too much television, too many headlines and too much thinking it was better when you were little have made feel unsafe. "Fact: if you are under 40, on average you are safer now than you have ever been," Roman reports. Suburbs are safer than cities, yes, but "The trend is better for cities than suburbs. At the peak of the crime wave in 1991 there were 138 homicides in Prince George's County and 479 in Washington, D.C. Last year, there were 82 homicides in PG (down 40 percent) and 132 in DC (down almost 75 percent)."

Roman notes that the public also likes to believe that "there are two typical types of offenders: One is the brilliant loner psychopath who commits serial crimes and can’t be caught without the aid of large task forces, luck, and equally brilliant loner detectives. Fact: most criminals are far less educated, poorer, and sicker than the average American. Type two is the ruthless, soulless gang-banger who can only be contained (but never defeated) by armies of police. Fact: gang members are typically teenagers, generally in a gang for about a year before voluntarily leaving, and commit as many crimes against their fellow gang members as others. "

In taking apart the statistics, Roman has found astonishing facts that fly in the face of a lot of our perceived fears: "The FBI estimates that in 2008 a total of 155 children were kidnapped by strangers, thus a child is about 5 times more likely to drown than be kidnapped (and) of the almost 15,000 homicides in 2010, perhaps one percent were victims of a serial killer." (Read more)

CDC says 4% of Central Appalachian surface miners tested have black-lung disease

Nearly 4 percent of surface coal miners who work in Central Appalachia who were tested for a study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have black lung disease, compared to 2 percent of all U.S. surface miners and 3.2 percent of underground coal miners. (Getty Images photo)

Though the study didn't test Kentucky separately from the 14 other states assessed, Laura Ungar of The Courier-Journal in Louisville asked about it and found that "13 of 230 Kentucky surface miners tested — or 5.7 percent — had black lung," she reports, quoting Cara Halldin, a CDC epidemic intelligence service officer, as calling that number " a disproportionate burden."

It's not clear why the incidence is higher in Central Appalachia than other parts of the country, but Halldin suspects it has to do with "more years spent mining, area geology or the safety culture at mines," Ungar reports. One study showed miners who work in Central Appalachia typically work 28 years in the mines while non-Appalachian miners work average 20 years.

Black-lung disease, or coal workers' pneumoconiosis, is the result of miners repeatedly inhaling the dust that comes from extracting coal. That dust occurs whether the miner is under- or above-ground. "Coal mining is really, really dusty. Don't matter what you do, you're in the dust," said John Bud Ritchie, a retired surface miner who has black lung disease. "It's real rough. You can't hardly keep the dust down on hot days."

The federal exposure limit for "respirable dust" in underground and surface mines is 2 milligrams of coal dust per cubic meter of air. That limit was set in 1969, along with a law that set up "a surveillance system for assessing prevalence of black lung among underground coal miners," Ungar reports. "But the requirement for surveillance doesn't extend to surface miners." Haldin said, "Industry should recognize this is a problem and their workers are at risk and bring down the levels." (Read more)

In the wake of the CDC study, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health is offering free black-lung screenings in Eastern Kentucky, Hazard, Ky.'s WYMT-TV reports. The screenings will be at various locations in Eastern Kentucky throughout the summer and will be confidential. They will include a work history questionnaire, chest X-ray and a spirometry test, with the whole process lasting about 25 minutes. NIOSH will provide participants with results of their screenings, and will not release information to the public or give it to coal companies. For a list of when and where the screenings will take place, click here.