The Water Resources Development Act (WRDA) of 2013 (S. 601) is expected to hit the U.S. Senate floor this week. Despite breezing through committee by a unanimous vote, the legislation may face opposition by lawmakers who do not understand the value of water infrastructure investment and those wishing to tack on non-germane amendments.

Dams generally serve the primary purpose of retaining water, while other structures such as floodgates or levees (also known as dikes) are used to manage or prevent water flow into specific land regions. The average age of the 84,000 dams in the U.S. is 52 years old. The nation’s dams are aging and the number of high-hazard dams is on the rise. Many of these dams were built as low-hazard dams protecting undeveloped agricultural land. Both are in sad shape and rated a D for dams and a D- for levees by the American Society of Civil Engineers who are the engineers who build them. If they go, homes and vast stretches of land will be flooded and the environment literally drenched.

Dams generally serve the primary purpose of retaining water, while other structures such as floodgates or levees (also known as dikes) are used to manage or prevent water flow into specific land regions. The average age of the 84,000 dams in the US is 52 years old. The nation’s dams are aging and the number of high-hazard dams is on the rise.

Colorado Parks and Wildlife will start a two-year construction project this summer to repair the dam at Beaver Creek Reservoir. If work proceeds as planned, the 4,400-acre-foot reservoir will be filled again by summer of 2015. Problems with the 100-year-old dam structure were discovered in 2010.

Colorado ranks third in the number of high-hazard dams in need of repair, according to a report released Thursday by the Center for American Progress. Colorado officials are aware of dam safety problems and have taken steps to either restrict storage in substandard dams or improve the dams.

Hydropower or water power is power derived from the energy of falling water, which may be harnessed for useful purposes. Since ancient times, hydropower has been used for irrigation and the operation of various mechanical devices, such as watermills, sawmills, textile mills, dock cranes, and domestic lifts since ancient times. It is one of several renewable power sources.

Forests, and tropical forests in particular, play an important role in the global water cycle. Delft University of Technology PhD researcher Ruud van der Ent (TU Delft, The Netherlands) has recently shown that evaporation from the Amazon forest is more than 50% responsible for the rainfall in Peru, Bolivia, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay and southern Brazil, where it feeds crops and rivers.

Humans have been building reservoirs and dams for thousands of years. Over the past few decades, their construction has spiked as our need to harness water -- critical in flood control, irrigation, recreation, navigation and the creation of hydroelectric power -- has grown.

A recent report finds that alterations to the natural state of rivers, such as the long-term presence of major dams and non-native species, and changes in water flow is altering the natural landscapes and cultural heritage found in national parks in the southwest.

Of the nation’s 85,000 dams, more than 4,400 are considered susceptible to failure, according to the Association of State Dam Safety Officials. But repairing all those dams would cost billions of dollars, and it is far from clear who would provide all the money in a recessionary era. The impact of a dam failure would be enormous.