A new paper from GEI Consultants and Palladium argues that infrastructure owners may be overlooking millions of dollars in social, ecological and economic value.

For decades, decisions about aging dams in the United States have followed a familiar script. Owners either invest in rehabilitation to keep a structure operating or remove it to reduce risk and meet regulatory requirements. The debate is typically framed around safety, compliance and cost.

In a new paper co-authored by Jesse Morrill-Winter, Senior Risk Consultant at GEI Consultants, and Meg Kauthen, APAC Senior Sustainable Infrastructure at Palladium, the team argues that this framing misses something important: value.

The paper, Dam If You Do, Dam If You Don't: Reframing Dam Removal Decisions by Learning from Other Industries and Value Systems, asks a deceptively simple question. What if a dam's future were assessed not only by the risks it poses, but by the value that could be created when it is transformed?

"Most dam disposition decisions are still approached as an end-of-life problem," Kauthen says. "We're asking decision-makers to think about them as an asset transition opportunity."

Looking At the Whole Asset

The United States is home to more than 92,000 dams, many of them built decades ago and requiring significant investment to maintain.

When decisions about those assets are made, dam owners typically rely on detailed engineering analysis and risk assessments. Those tools are essential, Morrill-Winter says, but they only tell part of the story.

"Risk should inform decisions, not determine them," he says. "We have highly sophisticated methods for understanding structural risk, but far less rigorous approaches for understanding the value that might be unlocked through restoration, redevelopment or repurposing."

That gap became the starting point for the paper.

Rather than focusing solely on dams, the authors looked beyond the sector for examples of how other industries manage aging assets and closure decisions.

Lessons From Mining and Beyond

One of the paper's most striking observations is that industries such as mining have already confronted similar challenges. When large mines approach closure, leading companies increasingly evaluate future land use, ecological restoration, community outcomes and economic transition alongside compliance obligations.

The goal is not simply to close an asset safely. It is to understand what comes next.

"Mining has spent years developing approaches to closure that account for social, environmental and economic value," Kauthen says. "There are important lessons there for infrastructure owners who are making decisions about assets reaching the end of their operational life."

The paper points to examples ranging from BHP's community-led closure planning in Australia to watershed stewardship initiatives led by companies such as Nestlé and landscape restoration programmes supported by Unilever.

Each takes a broader view of value than traditional infrastructure assessments typically allow.

Beyond the cost of removal

This shift in thinking is particularly relevant when considering dam removal.

When a dam is removed, the discussion often centres on project costs and risk reduction. But the authors argue that the land, waterways and surrounding communities continue to generate value long after the structure itself has gone.

A restored floodplain may reduce downstream flood risk. A reconnected river can create new ecological and recreational opportunities. Former reservoir land may support agriculture, conservation projects or new forms of development. Those benefits are often acknowledged, but rarely measured alongside engineering costs.

"If we're prepared to quantify liabilities, we should also be prepared to quantify opportunities," Morrill-Winter says. The paper argues that ecosystem services, future land use, cultural value and community benefits deserve the same analytical rigour traditionally applied to structural assessments.

A Broader Framework For Decision-Making

At the centre of the paper is a practical proposal: a four-lens framework for evaluating dam futures. Rather than assessing projects solely through an engineering lens, the authors suggest that owners should also evaluate economic, ecological and social outcomes.

That means asking not only whether a dam can be rehabilitated, but whether rehabilitation represents the best long-term outcome for the surrounding landscape and community. "It's not about advocating for removal in every case," Kauthen says. "It's about making sure we're evaluating the full range of value that exists within these decisions."

The framework draws on examples including ecological restoration efforts on Washington State's Elwha River and the recently completed Klamath River project, where Tribal nations played a central role in shaping the future of the river.

Together, those examples demonstrate how infrastructure decisions can generate benefits that extend far beyond a project's original footprint.

Seeing Opportunity Where Others See Liability

For the authors, the implications reach beyond the dam sector. As infrastructure ages and climate pressures intensify, governments, regulators and asset owners around the world will face growing numbers of transition decisions.

Those choices should be guided by a more complete understanding of value. "When we only evaluate cost and compliance, we end up with safe answers," Morrill-Winter says. "When we account for environmental, social and economic value as well, we open the door to better ones."

In that sense, the paper is less about dams than it is about a broader question facing infrastructure systems everywhere: how do we move from managing liabilities to creating value?