The North Carolina Dam Safety Program provides oversight to more than 3,000 dams statewide, working to provide for the certification and inspection of dams to reduce the risk of failure of dams; to prevent property damage, personal injury, and loss of reservoir storage; and to ensure maintenance of minimum flows of adequate quantity and quality below dams.
Donor Name: North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ)
State: North Carolina
County: All Counties
Type of Grant: Grant
Deadline: 06/19/2026
Size of the Grant: Not Available
Grant Duration: Grant Duration Not Mentioned
Details:
Objectives
The objectives of the program are to:
- Provide financial assistance for the repair, modification, or removal of eligible dams.
- Protect the state investment by requiring operation and maintenance of the project following completion of rehabilitation.
- Reduce the potential consequences to loss of life, interruption of use or service of public utilities, or to property downstream of high hazard potential dams.
- Reduce the overall number of high hazard potential damsthat pose an unacceptable risk to the public.
- Reduce costs associated with dam rehabilitation through the deployment of innovative solutions and technologies.
Priorities
The North Carolina Dam Safety Grant Fund priorities are the construction activities or design & construction activities related to the rehabilitation of eligible dams. Projects proposed for funding will be prioritized based on factors that emphasize the reduction of overall risk. To be considered for funding, applications for rehabilitation must be accompanied by plans that address all applicable deficiencies and bring the dam to satisfactory condition.
Eligibility Criteria
To be considered eligible for funding under this program, the following requirements must be met:
- The dam must be classified as high hazard (Class C) regulated by the North Carolina Division of Energy, Mineral, and Land Resources under the North Carolina Dam Safety Law.
- The dam must have one or more existing, unresolved Notice of Deficiencies (NODs) or Dam Safety Order (DSO).
- The dam must have damage directly resulting from Hurricane Helene, in a disaster declared county, that is to be addressed within the scope of work.
- Applications for rehabilitation (construction-ready projects) must be accompanied by complete plans submitted by a Professional Engineer registered in North Carolina that address all applicable deficiencies and bring the dam to satisfactory condition in compliance with the North Carolina Dam Safety Law of 1967. An Opinion of Probable Cost (OPC) as specified. must be provided with a complete breakdown of all unit costs.
- Applications for rehabilitation (design-construction projects) must be accompanied by conceptual plans which consist of a site assessment and preliminary design plans submitted by a Professional Engineer registered in North Carolina that address all applicable deficiencies and bring the dam to satisfactory condition in compliance with the North Carolina Dam Safety Law of 1967. An Opinion of Probable Cost (OPC) as specified in Section 3.C. must be provided with a complete breakdown of all unit costs.
- The grant funds shall only be used to address deficiencies and shall not be used to perform routine maintenance of a dam, to modify a dam to produce hydroelectric power, to increase water supply storage capacity, nor make any other modification to a dam that does not primarily improve the safety of the dam or eliminate the hazard potential of the dam. Federally owned or operated dam structures are not eligible.
For more information, visit DEQ.
