Lessons Learned: Static Liquefaction

A lesson to be learned from the May 19, 2020 failure of Edenville Dam, MI, is that static liquefaction needs to be considered as a potential failure mode for water dams that include loose sands or silts in their embankments or foundations. Although static liquefaction has been identified as a significant concern for tailing or mine waste dams over the past few decades, it has generally not been considered an issue of concern for water storage dams—dams constructed for the purpose of storing water on a permanent or temporary basis. The failure of Edenville Dam and the Independent Forensic Team’s (IFT’s) conclusion that static liquefaction was the primary cause of the failure (France et al., 2022) has changed that thinking. However, the profession is currently (August 2024) challenged by a lack of widely accepted protocols for assessing the risk of static liquefaction.