by KYW's Tony Romeo

Calling it a “statewide crisis,” Pennsylvania’s auditor general has released a study on the condition of the state’s dams and levees.

Pennsylvania auditor general Jack Wagner (right) has released a list of 66 high-hazard dams deemed “unsafe”:

"The most common structural deficiency in these high-hazard dams involved inadequate spillways. Spillways permit the release of excess water, to relieve pressure on dam walls.”

He says that high-hazard dams are those dams that, in the unlikely event of a structural failure, could cause loss of life or property:

“The public needs to know that dam safety is not an isolated or situational problem but is a statewide crisis that must be addressed.”

Wagner also said that at the time that the audit was completed in September 2006, almost 600 of the state’s nearly 800 high-hazard dams operated without an adequate emergency plan.
 
Since then, however, the state Department of Environmental Protection says that 65 percent of the state’s high-hazard dams are now in compliance.

Among the 66 high-hazard dams deemed unsafe are those at Broomall's Lake in Delaware County, Pa. (top photo) and the Loch Alsh reservoir in Montgomery County.