Army engineers' boss visits troublesome dam

The boss of the Army Corps of Engineers paid a visit this week to the agency's most-monitored dam, after detecting shifting and suspending repairs in the area where the dam's earthen section wraps around its concrete part.

Jo-Ellen Darcy, "newly appointed by President Obama" as assistant Army secretary for civil works, toured Wolf Creek Dam, which impounds 101-mile-long Lake Cumberland on the Cumberland River in Southern Kentucky, reports John Thompson of The Russell Register. "Asked whether she had concerns over the safety of the dam, she said, 'It’s not concerning, I think it’s being cautious.'" (Read more)

"Instruments indicated that the work was causing movement within the largest cave that is below that area of the dam," reports Greg Wells of The Times Journal, the other Russell County weekly. "Cracks in the blacktop of the roadway above that area of the dam have been widening slightly and that added to concerns." (Read more)