What must a North Carolina dam emergency action plan contain?

A description of potential emergency conditions including security risks, the actions to be taken in response, notification procedures for warnings and evacuations, and a downstream inundation map depicting areas affected by dam failure and sudden release of the impoundment.

Does a dam inundation map require a licensed professional engineer in North Carolina?

Generally no. Downstream inundation maps do not require a licensed professional engineer except for dams associated with coal combustion residuals surface impoundments.

North Carolina dam safety

Does My Dam Need an Emergency Action Plan in North Carolina?

Q: Does my dam need an emergency action plan in North Carolina?

Yes if the dam is classified high hazard (Class C) or intermediate hazard (Class B). G.S. 143-215.31(a1) requires an emergency action plan within 90 days after classification, updated within one year of each prior approval. Class A low hazard dams do not require one.

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

If NCDEQ has classified your dam as high hazard (Class C) or intermediate hazard (Class B), yes — and the clock started when the classification was made. The requirement is in G.S. 143-215.31(a1), not in 15A NCAC 02K, which is where most secondary sources look and come up empty.

Answer

Class B and Class C dams require an approved emergency action plan. The plan is due within 90 days after the dam is classified, and must be updated and resubmitted within one year of the prior approval — every year, not once.

Class A (low hazard) dams do not require an EAP under this subsection.

Where the requirement actually comes from

This trips up owners and engineers alike. North Carolina's dam safety rules live in 15A NCAC 02K, and people reasonably go looking there for the EAP requirement. It is not there. The obligation is statutory — G.S. 143-215.31(a1), within the section on supervision over maintenance and operation of dams. Citing 02K for an EAP requirement is a common and checkable error.

What the plan must contain

G.S. 143-215.31(a1) specifies the required contents:

A description of potential emergency conditions, including security risks.
The actions to be taken in response to those conditions.
Notification procedures for issuing warnings and carrying out evacuations.
A downstream inundation map depicting areas affected by a dam failure and sudden release of the impoundment.

The inundation map does not generally require a PE

What the statute says: downstream inundation maps generally do not require preparation by a licensed professional engineer.

The exception: dams associated with coal combustion residuals surface impoundments, where a licensed PE is required.

What this means in practice: an owner can prepare a compliant map for many dams. Whether they should is a separate question — the map drives evacuation decisions, and a defensible breach model behind it is worth what it costs.

Tools: breach peak discharge and reservoir routing to develop the failure hydrograph.

Who receives the plan

Filing is not the end of it. The Department distributes copies to the appropriate regional offices, and the Department of Public Safety distributes the plan to local emergency management agencies — which is the entire point of the document. Information constituting sensitive public security information stays confidential and is exempt from public records disclosure, including plans for certain electric power suppliers and local-government-owned dams.

The compliance picture in North Carolina

North Carolina has 2,338 dams where an emergency action plan is required by statute — 1,678 Class C and 660 Class B. Of those, 1,161 have no EAP recorded in the National Inventory of Dams. That is a 50% gap against a statutory requirement.

North Carolina EAP status where a plan is statutorily required — NID extract 2026-8-28
Class	Dams	No EAP recorded	Gap
Class C (high hazard)	1,678	635	38%
Class B (intermediate)	660	526	80%
Total required	2,338	1,161	50%

Most of that gap is privately owned. Of the 2,338 dams requiring a plan, 1,731 are in private ownership — typically recreation and farm pond dams whose owners often do not know the dam is regulated at all, let alone that it carries an annual filing obligation.

Statutory history

G.S. 143-215.31 dates to 1967 (c. 1068, s. 9) and has been amended repeatedly — most recently by S.L. 2025-94, s. 19. Earlier amendments include 1993 c. 394, 1995 c. 184 and c. 439, S.L. 2014-122, 2015-7, 2015-241, and 2017-102. If you are working from a secondary summary written before 2025, confirm it against the current text.

Am I Class B or C? →

The classification criteria that trigger this requirement

Dam Breach Peak Discharge

Failure hydrograph for the inundation map

Reservoir Routing

Route the breach through downstream storage

Data source. Dam counts, hazard classifications, condition ratings and EAP status are computed directly from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers National Inventory of Dams national extract, stamped 2026-8-28. NID reflects what state and federal programs have reported to USACE; it can lag a state program's own records, and an "EAP Prepared: No" flag means no plan is recorded in NID rather than proof that no plan exists. Figures here are computed from the raw extract, not quoted from secondary reporting.

Scope. This page is general information about North Carolina dam safety regulation, current as of 2026-08-28. It is not an engineering opinion about any specific structure and it is not legal advice. Requirements change when the General Assembly amends the Dam Safety Law or the Environmental Management Commission amends the rules — always confirm against the current text of the statute and 15A NCAC 02K, and contact the NCDEQ Dam Safety Program for a determination that binds.