{
  "id": "2005-septemberoctober-looking-anew-at-dams-taxes-bridges",
  "slug": "2005-septemberoctober-looking-anew-at-dams-taxes-bridges",
  "url": "https://dwillis.github.io/uplink/article/2005-septemberoctober-looking-anew-at-dams-taxes-bridges.html",
  "year": 2005,
  "month": "September/October",
  "monthNum": 9,
  "headline": "Looking anew at dams, taxes, bridges",
  "kicker": "FIRST VENTURE",
  "author_name": "Lee Davidson",
  "author_title": "special projects reporter",
  "affiliation": "Deseret Morning News",
  "summary": "A veteran journalist returning to local reporting discovers how computer-assisted reporting (CAR) dramatically streamlines investigative work, using a dam safety story updated from 20 years prior as a practical example of how databases and spreadsheets accelerate research.",
  "keywords": [
    "journalism",
    "databases",
    "reporting"
  ],
  "topics": [
    "Investigative Methods",
    "Data & Databases",
    "Government & Politics"
  ],
  "technologies": [
    "Excel",
    "Access",
    "Google",
    "World Wide Web"
  ],
  "full_text": "My children say I am ancient. They may be right, because I now see how much older than computer-assisted reporting I am.\n\nThe realization came as I made some first ventures into CAR by essentially updating stories that I wrote 20 years ago - then without the help of computers - about the conditions of local dams and bridges, and about those who fail to pay property taxes.\n\nIt is much easier to dig into these stories with computers, even for a CAR rookie like me who must ask my teenage and twenty-something kids how to fix computer crashes and burps. I feel like the caveman who discovered that hunting with a spear beats hunting with rocks (I also envy the true CAR experts who hunt with the equivalent of rifles and bazookas).\n\nAfter 17 years as the Washington, D.C., correspondent for the Deseret Morning News, I recently returned to Utah as the newspaper's special projects reporter. Because I had limited knowledge of CAR, my editors sent me to an IRE and NICAR Boot Camp in January.\n\nOne of the boot camp training exercises used data from the National Inventory of Dams compiled by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Using a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet, I saw how quickly I could sort and count dams by inspection date, river, nearby cities - and whether they are \"high hazard,\" meaning people would likely die if they fail.\n\nIt brought back memories of 20 years ago when I sat in the state engineer's office for days poring over paper records for a time-consuming but good project about the most dangerous dams in Utah.\n\nI decided to update my old story by testing my new CAR skills. At that moment, the National Inventory of Dams was a couple of years out of date. (The IRE and NICAR Database Library has updated data that it provides to journalists for a fee; see www.nicar.org/data/dams/).\n\nBecause I wanted to see, in part, whether Utah was regularly inspecting high-hazard dams, I surfed the Web to find a more current and local version of the database. A Google search for Utah dams led me to an online database at http://des.utah.gov/nathaz/damsafety.htm It had the same information as the national inventory and is updated monthly. Plus, it has links to online inspection files.\n\nI copied and pasted data from the state Web site into my own Microsoft Excel spreadsheet for sorting and counting.\n\nI called the state dam safety engineer to tell him I was updating my old story, and wanted to interview him (as I did his predecessor long ago) about which dams he felt were the most dangerous. He told me his office maintains another database - unavailable online - that gives a numerical safety rating for each dam. He e-mailed it to me as an Excel file, and I could quickly see which dams the state considered \"unsafe\" because they did not meet current guidelines.\n\nSorting allowed me to see how many unsafe dams were upstream from major Utah cities and to make lists of the worst dams. I discovered that the engineer's office also had a database about dam failures in the state and what caused them. I obtained a copy, which helped make a nice graphic.\n\nSome lessons learned on my first CAR story:\n\n1. Every reporter could easily do a story about the condition of local dams.\n2. Look online for databases kept locally.\n3. Ask local officials for databases they maintain for internal use.\n\nContinuing the theme of updating old stories, I also decided to look online to identify local officials who fail to pay property taxes on time. Twenty years ago, I did that by sorting through paper lists at the county assessor's office and hoped I could recognize names of prominent people. Occasionally, I got lucky.\n\nI found this time that Salt Lake County lists all tax delinquents online. Again, I copied and pasted information from the online database into an Excel spreadsheet, and then imported it to Microsoft Access database manager.\n\nNext, I made another table of information about all known elected officials living in Salt Lake County by searching government Web sites. I included, when available, their addresses, birth dates, spouses and businesses. I then joined the databases by name to find possible matches. After making phone calls to weed out bad matches, I found three officials, including U.S. Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, who were delinquents.\n\nBut I found a much better story once I started playing with the data. I developed lists of businesses and individuals that were the biggest delinquents, often owing hundreds of thousands of dollars. I mostly used Excel, creating pivot tables for amounts owed, and sorted to see the highest amounts.\n\nI realized that even healthy businesses, especially real estate developers, were often choosing not to pay property taxes because penalties and interest are so low in Utah. Several delinquents confirmed that on the record, including the manager of two hotels owned by Bennett that had racked up nearly $400,000 in back taxes.\n\nI also wrote a story about the condition of bridges in Utah, another story that I had done some 20 years ago with paper records.\n\nThe Federal Highway Administration provides bridge summary data by state online in Excel format at www.fhwa.dot.gov/bridge/britab.htm. After downloading and sorting the data, I asked the Utah Department of Transportation for its more detailed database of the 506 \"deficient\" bridges in the state. The data included a deficiency rating from 0 to 100 for each bridge, which allowed quick identification of the worst bridges by Excel sorting.\n\nThe big lesson is, don't be a dinosaur. Dare to do some CAR work. Start with the basics and improve your skills. Maybe update some of your old stories. If an ancient like me can do it, anyone can - just ask my children who will verify that quickly and firmly.\n\nContact Lee Davidson by e-mail at lee@desnews.com.",
  "provenance": {
    "extracted_by": "anthropic/claude-sonnet-4-6",
    "extracted_at": "2026-07-05",
    "verified": true
  },
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  "html_url": "https://dwillis.github.io/uplink/article/2005-septemberoctober-looking-anew-at-dams-taxes-bridges.html",
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