Philadelphia District
Dams & Tropical
Depression Ivan
Assigning a Value to Flood Protection
Damages Prevented by Philadelphia District flood control projects
So exactly how much worse would it have been? What greater damage would Ivan have inflicted without the protection of dams and levees already in place?
Incorporating hydrographic and demographic data into an economic forecasting model, every year the Philadelphia District calculates “damages prevented” for seven federally constructed flood control projects (the five dams, plus two levee systems now maintained by local authorities in Allentown and Bethlehem ).
The result is a very sound estimate of the additional financial cost that would have been incurred had these projects never been built.
In the following table, note that the benefits from Tropical Depression Ivan alone are almost half the lifetime total for Allentown, more than a third for Beltzville Lake and Jadwin Dam, and close to a fifth for all projects combined.
(All figures are expressed at equivalent October 2004 price levels.)
| DAMAGES PREVENTED (dollars) | ||||
Project |
1st Year of Operation |
Watershed |
|
Cumulative Lifetime thru Sept. 30, 2004 |
Francis E. Walter Dam |
1961 |
Lehigh |
$15.3 million |
$133.1 million |
Beltzville Lake |
1972 |
Lehigh |
$7.8 million |
$19.5 million |
Allentown Flood Control |
1960 |
Lehigh |
$18.1 million |
$39.1 million |
Bethlehem Flood Control |
1964 |
Lehigh |
$1.5 million |
$19.3 million |
Blue Marsh Lake |
1978 |
Schuylkill |
$2.0 million |
$42.0 million |
Prompton Lake |
1960 |
Lackawaxen |
$2.2 million |
$11.9 million |
Jadwin Dam |
1960 |
Lackawaxen |
$5.1 million |
$11.8 million |
TOTAL |
|
|
$52.0 million |
$276.6 million |
Damages Prevented by Philadelphia District Flood Control Projects
Ivan Photo Gallery
09 / 19 / 2004
Aerial and ground views of Delaware River flooding in Yardley
Photos courtesy of Anthony Bley and Edward Voigt, US Army Corps of Engineers
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