Do dam permit requirements differ between North Carolina and South Carolina?

Yes, and the difference is the conjunction. North Carolina exempts a dam under 25 feet OR under 50 acre-feet; South Carolina exempts a dam under 25 feet AND under 50 acre-feet. A 20-foot dam impounding 200 acre-feet is exemption-eligible in North Carolina and jurisdictional in South Carolina.

Does Georgia regulate significant hazard dams?

No. Georgia runs a two-category scheme and regulates only Category I dams, where failure would result in probable loss of human life. There is no middle tier: a dam below that threshold is Category II and outside the programme entirely rather than subject to lighter requirements.

Which southeastern states require emergency action plans for significant hazard dams?

North Carolina and South Carolina both cover the middle tier. North Carolina requires plans for Class C and Class B dams under G.S. 143-215.31(a1); South Carolina requires them for high and significant hazard dams under 49-11-210. Virginia requires them for high hazard structures, and Georgia only for Category I dams.

Dam safety

Dam Safety Requirements Compared: NC, SC, GA and VA

By Michael Flynn, PE · water resources & dam safety engineer

Four adjacent states, four different answers to the same questions. If you practise across a state line in the Southeast you are carrying at least one assumption that is correct where you learned it and wrong next door. These are the provisions where that actually happens, each read from the state's own statute and administrative code rather than from a compilation.

The three that catch people

1. South Carolina's size exemption is conjunctive. A 20-ft dam impounding 200 acre-feet is exemption-eligible in North Carolina and jurisdictional in South Carolina — same two numbers, different conjunction.

2. Georgia has no lower tier. A dam below the loss-of-life threshold is outside the programme entirely, not inside it with lighter duties.

3. Virginia can regulate a six-foot dam, and its emergency action plan must be public on request — close to the opposite of North Carolina's posture.

Is the dam regulated?

The threshold test is where the four states diverge most, and the conjunctions matter more than the numbers.

Jurisdictional and exemption thresholds
State	Size test	Conjunction	Consequence override
North Carolina	Under 25 ft or under 50 ac-ft → exempt	OR — easier to be exempt	Unless the Department finds failure could cause loss of life or significant property damage
South Carolina	Under 25 ft and under 50 ac-ft → exempt	AND — harder to be exempt	Department may still regulate where failure may cause loss of life
Georgia	25 ft or more or 100 ac-ft or more → size met	Size and probable loss of life both required	Category II dams are outside the programme entirely
Virginia	25 ft and 15 ac-ft, or 6 ft and 50 ac-ft	Two independent prongs	Agricultural structures under 25 ft or under 100 ac-ft excluded

The same dam, four states

Structure: 20 ft high, 200 acre-feet, one occupied dwelling downstream.

North Carolina: meets the size threshold (under 25 ft), so exemption is available — but the dwelling downstream means the Department's consequence finding almost certainly removes it. Likely jurisdictional, Class C.

South Carolina: fails the size test outright (200 ac-ft is not under 50). Jurisdictional, no exemption argument to make.

Georgia: 200 ac-ft clears the 100 ac-ft size threshold, and a dwelling in the failure zone makes it Category I. Regulated.

Virginia: clears both prongs comfortably. An impounding structure, and high hazard given the dwelling.

Point: all four end up regulated, but only in South Carolina and Virginia is that obvious from the size numbers alone. In NC and GA it turns on the downstream finding, which is where the engineering work goes.

How the states classify hazard

Three of the four run a three-tier scheme; Georgia runs two. The tier names do not line up, which matters when you are reading a report written in another state or comparing against federal inventory data.

Hazard classification crosswalk
Consequence	North Carolina	South Carolina	Georgia	Virginia	NID / FEMA
Loss of life likely	Class C	High	Category I	High	High
Damage, loss of life unlikely	Class B	Significant	—	Significant	Significant
Minimal damage	Class A	Low	Category II	Low	Low

Georgia's blank cell is the whole point. There is no middle tier. A dam that would be Class B in North Carolina or Significant in South Carolina is Category II in Georgia — unregulated. That is not a lighter set of duties; it is no duties. Conversely, the moment an occupied structure appears in the failure zone, the same dam becomes Category I and picks up the full programme at once.

Who has to file an emergency action plan

EAP obligation compared
State	Applies to	Authority	First due	Recurring duty
North Carolina	Class C and Class B	G.S. 143-215.31(a1)	Within 90 days of classification	Update within one year of prior approval
South Carolina	High and significant	§ 49-11-210	With the permit application for new or enlarged dams	Annual update, evaluation and affirmation
Georgia	Category I only	391-3-8-.11	With the permit application	Annual update recommended, not required by rule
Virginia	High hazard	§ 10.1-605	As a condition of the O&M certificate	Annual exercise of the plan, not merely an update

Two things worth pulling out of that table. First, both Carolinas cover the middle tier — a good deal of secondary writing treats emergency action planning as a high-hazard-only obligation, and in NC and SC that is wrong. Second, the recurring duty escalates left to right: Georgia recommends, North Carolina requires an update, South Carolina requires an affirmation that the plan is current and effective, and Virginia requires you to actually exercise it.

Confidentiality runs opposite ways. North Carolina exempts sensitive public security information in an EAP from public records disclosure. Virginia requires the plan to be posted online and made available to the public within five business days of a request. If you are adapting a plan template across that line, the disclosure posture is not a detail — it changes what belongs in the document.

Inventory, for scale

The four states in the national inventory — NID extract 2026-8-28
State	Dams	High hazard	No EAP recorded	Gap
North Carolina	3,687	1,678	635	37.8%
South Carolina	2,440	679	168	24.7%
Georgia	5,412	556	60	10.8%
Virginia	2,712	452	37	8.2%

Note that the EAP gap column uses the national high-hazard basis for comparability. In North Carolina and South Carolina, where the obligation also covers the middle tier, the real compliance gap is larger than this column shows — the method note on the national data page explains why the comparison is drawn that way.

Read each state in full

North Carolina →

Class A/B/C, 143-215.25A exemptions, EAP

South Carolina →

49-11-110 et seq., R.72-2

Georgia →

Safe Dams Act, 391-3-8, Category I

Virginia →

10.1-604 et seq., 4VAC50-20

Scope. General information, read from primary sources and current as of 2026-08-28. Not an engineering opinion about any specific structure and not legal advice. Only states whose statutes and rules have actually been read appear in this comparison; the other 46 carry inventory data and a citation rather than a summary of requirements. Confirm against current text before relying on any row here, and contact the relevant state programme for a determination that binds: NCDEQ · SCDES · Georgia EPD · Virginia DCR.