Berkeley Lake: New FEMA funds for dam still not enough
FEMA has informed Berkeley Lake that the agency will pony up more money to repair the city's deteriorating dam.
But Mayor Lois Salter notes the agency's revised scope of work still amounts to a fraction -- about $1.3 million -- of what the city says is a $4 million repair bill. The dam sustained two cracks -- one discovered six months ago, the other on March 8 -- following September's floods.
In addition to the slope failures, the city contends the 500-year storm battered the internal drain system. The Federal Emergency Management Agency maintains that system was a "pre-existing condition."
"They are still refusing to accept what is obvious both to our engineers and to those from Piedmont Geotechnical Consultants – that the whole structure was damaged in the storm," Salter wrote Tuesday in a message posted on the city's Web site.
Salter noted Wednesday that the revised project worksheet still isn't final, but that the city will appeal once it receives those documents.
