News Article

Dam safety starts with the owner

Denver Water dam safety engineer recently audited Alaska’s efforts to ensure its dams are safe.

Drive by a reservoir in Colorado and most people see a stretch of water sparkling in the sunshine. Some might see a precious water supply gathered in the spring runoff and stored until it’s needed.

Erin Gleason sees the dam holding the water in place.

A woman in an orange safety vest and hard hat stands to the side of a concrete dam. — Erin Gleason, one of Denver Water’s dam safety engineers, at Strontia Springs Dam. Photo credit: Erin Gleason.

Gleason, a dam safety engineer, has spent more than 20 years working on dams in the public and private sectors. She worked on dam safety for the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and the state of Colorado, before joining Denver Water's dam safety team in 2016.

“Dams are really complex, engineered structures. You have to take into account the force of the water, which wants to flow down the river or canyon, and of the earth or concrete that’s holding the water back, and the other environmental factors and how they affect the reservoir and the dam — it’s all connected,” said Gleason.

A woman in a yellow safety vest stands in front of a gray hilly landscape and blue sky. — Erin Gleason, a dam safety engineer at Denver Water, in summer 2025 visited an active gold mine near Fairbanks during a trip to Alaska to audit the 49th state’s dam safety program. Photo credit: Erin Gleason.

At Denver Water, Gleason and her colleagues review documents and designs related to the utility’s 20 dams as well as projects that are planned in and around those dams. She talks to the utility’s on-site operators if they see anything on or around a dam that may be out of the ordinary. And she visits the dams for regular inspections.

As a member of the peer review committee for the Association of State Dam Safety Officials, or ASDSO, Gleason was part of a three-person team that went to Alaska in July 2025 to audit the 49th state’s dam safety program.

“Alaska has a good, well-established dam safety program, and asking ASDSO to audit their program — like we did — is a voluntary request. It’s an indication of how seriously they take dam safety in their state and making sure their dams are regulated to help ensure they don’t fail,” Gleason said.

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"The reviews are a thorough audit of programs in 25 different categories — from their budget and staffing levels to the oversight and authority a program has. The review team writes a report comparing the state program to what the Federal Emergency Management Agency sets out as a ‘model’ program and makes recommendations. And they did great,” she said.

To review Alaska’s dam safety program, the team spent days studying documents and talking to Alaska’s dam safety staff about their jobs. The team also flew from the program’s main offices in Anchorage, Alaska’s largest city and home to about 40% of the state’s population, to Fairbanks about 350 miles to the north.

A woman in a light jacket stands in front of a mounted mammoth tusk while holding a large bar of gold. — Gleason holds a bar of gold mined near Fairbanks, Alaska, under a mammoth tusk uncovered by the mine’s operations. Photo credit: Erin Gleason.

There, the review team visited an active gold mine operation that uses a series of ponds and dams to hold the mine’s tailings, the residual left after the precious metal is removed.

Gleason said reviewing Alaska’s program was a fascinating opportunity to look at how another state oversees its dams, and, for her, the trip reinforced the fact that dam owners are a crucial part of any state’s safety program.

Watch this video with Erin Gleason, the design project manager for the new spillway built at Ralston Reservoir, talking about the project:

“The dam safety community is very small, and it covers many different science- and engineering-related disciplines — geology, geotechnical engineering, hydrology, hydraulic engineering, structural engineering,” Gleason said.

“Regulators are there to make sure the owners are doing the right thing, but ultimately, it’s up to the owner to ensure the dam is safe.

“A strong, safe dam starts with the owner. And here at Denver Water, we work hard to ensure our dams are strong and safe. I’m proud that we have an excellent dam safety program.”