Portland Cement Association Commemorates ‘National Dam Safety Awareness Day’

Skokie, Illinois (May 31, 2019)—The Portland Cement Association (PCA) has announced the re-establishment of a geotechnical experts group supporting cement-based solutions for water resources to coincide with “National Dam Safety Awareness Day” and providing a boost to the technical support available for dam safety nationwide. PCA is a concrete resource, providing guidance for dam-safety officials to help address the complex and expensive problems that plague our nation’s water infrastructure, including dam maintenance and reliability.

“America deserves safe, strong and resilient water infrastructure—our economy depends on it,” said PCA President and Chief Executive Officer Michael Ireland. “Water infrastructure built with concrete is long-lived, has a low lifecycle cost, and is resilient to man-made and natural disasters.”

According to the American Society of Civil Engineers 2017 Infrastructure Report Card the average age of the 90,580 dams in the United States is 56 years, and the number of deficient high-hazard potential dams has climbed to an estimated 2,170 or more.

Cement-based solutions, such as roller-compacted concrete, mass concrete, soil-cement, deep soil mixing, jet grouting, concrete-slurry walls and concrete mats have a long history of water infrastructure applications that have been employed on projects with cost-saving and long-lasting results.

For more information, visit cement.org.