Independent Dam Safety & Risk Advisor for Owners and Agencies

When Dam Safety Risk Assessments Become Complex and Costly

If your organization has limited experience with dam safety risk analyses, the process can quickly become complex, time-consuming, and expensive — often exceeding $100,000.

From selecting the right engineering firm to interpreting results and defining actions, each step influences the quality of decisions and outcomes — and can significantly affect both safety and resource allocation.

What the Process Typically Involves

• Developing a detailed scope of work

• Selecting and managing engineering firms

• Coordinating data transfer and inspections

• Identifying and evaluating potential failure modes

• Participating in multi-day risk workshops

• Developing technical documentation and final reports

• Interpreting results and defining follow-on actions is a significant undertaking - and the value depends on how well the process is guided

My Role: Experienced Advisor in Your Corner

I work alongside of dam owners and agencies as an independent advisor throughout the risk analysis and assessment process—helping to ensure the work is well-scoped, technically sound, and focused on outcomes that genuinely improve safety.

I represent your interests in technical discussions, helping to ensure that decisions are grounded in sound engineering judgment, practical consideration, and your organization’s priorities.

• Helps select the right expertise for your specific dam and risks

• Defines scopes that are focused, appropriate, and effective

• Represent your interests during risk workshops and technical discussions

• Provide independent perspective to challenge assumptions when needed

• Strengthen the quality and completeness of risk characterization.

What I Bring That Others Don’t

Experience from over 150 dam safety risk analyses as an owner, regulator, and consultant.

Developer of dam risk policies and procedures for two large agencies. Insight into how risk analyses should be performed and how to optimize them for dam types, sizes, and safety programs.

Direct involvement in dam failures and incidents. And knowledge of less common but credible potential failure modes.

Perspective across the geology/geotechnical/hydrologic/structural disciplines— recognizing gaps at their interfaces.

Working for 30 years with or for major dam owners, agencies, and regulators.

Earned confidence to challenge technical methods and conclusions constructively

Experience identifying both overlooked risks and avoiding unnecessary data collection and analyses that do not change decisions.

What Actually Improves Dam Safety

Risk analyses don’t reduce risks, actions do.

My role is to ensure that risk assessments lead to outcomes that meaningfully improve dam safety—not just increased confidence in the analyses.

My experience with dam failures and incidents - and how and why they occur - helps ensure that risks are not overlooked and that nothing slips through the cracks, while also guiding effort toward what genuinely improves safety.

Supporting Credible, Defensible Decisions

Dam safety decisions often involve significant resource commitments and must be clearly justified to senior leadership.

As independent advisor, I help ensure that risk-informed decisions are well-supported, clearly reasoned, and grounded in both technical understanding an practical judgement.

My involvement can strengthen the credibility of your analyses and recommendations with senior executives—supporting more confident resource allocation and decision making

How I Support You

• Scoping and procurement of dam safety risk analyses

• Owner/regulator representation during risk workshops

• Independent review and strengthening of risk analyses

• Advisory support for risk-informed decision making

• Assistance in defining practical, defensible, follow on actions

Experience You Can Rely On

Decades of experience in dam safety, including roles of dam owner, regulator, and consultant.

Participation in over 150 risk analyses.

This experience includes working closely with leading engineering firms and participating in real world dam failures and incident investigations—providing perspective grounded in how dams actually perform and how decisions are made

Let’s Talk About Your Dam Safety Challenges

Whether you are managing the risks of one dam, the risks of a fleet of dams, starting a risk assessment, or need perspective on ongoing work, I can help you move forward with clarity and confidence.

Request a consultation: Mark Baker, mark@damcrest.com 720-447-0437