For Sponsors
Sponsor Toolkit
Templates you can put your own name on. Built for sponsors who have to get something in place and don't have a staff engineer or an attorney on call.
Development rules
What to require when a developer wants to build near your structure — what they submit, what it costs them, and what you review.
Many sponsors have no development rules on the books at all, and no obvious place to start. The most useful starting point is a policy another district already adopted and lives with.
Example: Policy for Encroachments within District Easements
Lower Brushy Creek WCID's adopted policy, covering what a landowner or developer may and may not do inside a district easement, what they must submit, and how the district reviews it. Use it as the model for your own: adapt the terms to your structures and have your counsel review it before adoption.
Download the example policy (PDF)Refreshing easements
Title companies are not searching far enough back to find easements recorded in the 1950s, 60s and early 70s.
When an abstractor misses an easement, it lands at the bottom of the list instead of the top — or does not appear at all. Several districts have refreshed their easements to put them first in any title search. The language they used is reusable.
Notice of Inundation Easement — template
A fill-in-the-blank notice you can record against the tract so the easement shows up first in any title search, not last. Supplied as Word so you can put your own district and legal description into it.
Download the template (Word)Have your own counsel review it before recording. Two presentations in the library also go through this — search it for “easement refresh”.
Read the full easement refresh process (PDF) →
Dam safety & public awareness
Material for explaining to landowners, neighbors and local officials what a flood control structure does and why it matters.
The Association of State Dam Safety Officials publishes the material TAWS points sponsors to. These three short videos are the ones worth sending to a board member, a landowner or a county official who asks what the structure actually does.
Maintenance of Dams
What routine maintenance on an embankment actually involves, and what happens when it slips.
Watch on YouTubeDam Overtopping
Why overtopping is the failure mode that matters most, and how a structure is designed against it.
Watch on YouTubeDams & Extreme Rainfall Events
How rainfall beyond the original design assumptions changes the risk picture for an older structure.
Watch on YouTubeASDSO also publishes the Journal of Dam Safety, which covers maintenance, overtopping and extreme rainfall in more depth.