Monday letters: Dam owners should pay for damage | The State

While the great deluge of 2015 would have resulted in flooding, it was made even worse by the failure of private dams.

Since the owners of these private dams are negligent for failing to comply with state regulations concerning their maintenance, why are state and local officials not pursuing legal action against them to recover the considerable costs of repairs to roads, bridges and other public infrastructure? Why should we the taxpayers have to bail out these dam owners?

Pursuing legal action would be good public policy and send an important moral-hazard warning to private and selfish interests not to expect exemptions from laws that the rest of us have to obey or public funding to correct their own errors and misjudgments.