Lake Pend Oreille's Albeni Falls Dam gate issue is long-term problem

OLDTOWN — “So what I’m hearing tonight is — the dam’s broken, it’s not safe to operate, and we don’t have the funds to fix it,” a community member said at the Albeni Falls Dam meeting held last Thursday.

The meeting, held by U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, was prompted by the April discovery of defects on spillway Gate 3 at the dam.

During a maintenance inspection in June 2023, the gate was removed to repair cracked welds and repaint it. However, the gate ended up remaining removed when further defects were discovered after a more in-depth inspection.

Ultrasonic testing was completed on the gate prior to the paint removal in an attempt to detect any abnormalities, but nothing was discovered until the paint was fully stripped from the gate. Defects — holes in the steel — were found on the two primary girders of the gate and exist throughout the length of each. 

“Essentially, what the flaw is — the steel is delaminating,” Kathryn Sanborn, USACE Seattle district commander, said.

All 11 gates — 10 main gates and one spare — were constructed and put in the same year the dam was completed in 1955. Although the gates had an average expected lifespan of 50 years, they have outlived that expectancy by almost 20 years.

Sanborn said the defects have likely been there since the gates were built.

To mitigate the risk of catastrophic failure of any of the gates, USACE will be moving the gates as little as possible until full diagnostics have been completed on each gate. This means the gates will remain either fully open or fully closed as much as possible to lessen the heavy pressure on different portions of the gates.

If a gate were to fail in the near future, Sanborn said lake levels would rise quickly and begin plummeting between July and August.

“This is exactly what we’re trying to avoid,” she said.

USACE’s goal right now is to have lake levels to 2,060 by mid-June and 2,062 by the end of June. Depending on external factors, such as the weather, those levels could be reached sooner or later.

“Refilling Lake Pend Oreille isn’t a matter of if, it’s a matter of when,” said USACE Upper Columbia Basin senior water manager Leon Basdekas.

These plans, added Sanborn, are only for this summer. As of right now, staff expect drawdown in the fall to look normal. As for next year, there are too many unknowns to make a guess at what things will look like, she said.