One state agency is asking lawmakers to give it greater power to go in and fix aging or failing dams — even on private property — before catastrophe strikes.

The state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection has proposed a dam safety bill for the Connecticut General Assembly to consider that, if adopted, would make it illegal for any entity to maintain a dam in condition "that might endanger life or property." The proposed legislation would also empower the DEEP commissioner to order private owners of dams around the state to fix any safety issue in a timely manner.

According to DEEP officials, there are about 4,000 dams in Connecticut, many of which are privately owned by businesses, land trusts, or even municipalities.

"It does clarify our authority to go in and, potentially, take action to put a privately owned dam into safe condition," said Emma Cimino deputy commissioner of the DEEP Environmental Quality Branch, which oversees the Dam Safety Office.

If approved, the legisation would also apply to situations where the governor has issued a "civil preparedness state of emergency" on specific dams, levees or other water control infrastructure.

The bill, which had a public hearing before the legislature's Environment Committee on Friday, would also grant DEEP the authority to immediately act to abate, repair or alleviate the dangerous condition of the dam "by any means," including but not limited to stabilization or repairs to the structure.

"This gets difficult with privately owned dams," said Cimino, citing that it might take days to get emergency intervention approvals. "In certain circumstances there may not be days that we have" before the structure fails and property downstream floods.

In submitted testimony to the committee, DEEP said the bill would enable them to take action to protect public safety when a dam poses an imminent risk and eliminates uncertainty in cases where DEEP needs to act quickly.

Importantly, the bill makes it explicit that DEEP would be allowed to seek cost recovery from the owner for any money it spends to address imminent, substantial threats to public safety.

The bill comes several months after the Fitchville Pond Dam "partially failed" in Bozrah, causing flooding and evacuations. That dam had a history of missed and failed inspections and had a designated rating of being in "poor" condition by the DEEP Dam Safety Program.

The agency cited climate change's impact as a factor in proposing the legislation. Climate change is anticipated to increase the severity of rainfall, which is an obvious problem for aging dams.

Connecticut holds over 4,800 dams making it one of the most densely dammed states in the nation per river mile.

Environmental groups support the agency's bill. The Long Island Sound River Restoration Network in submitted testimony said that poorly maintained dams that have "outlived their useful life are at risk of failing." In addition to the safety and injury risks posed by these failures, many dams have, over time, trapped polluted sediments behind them. The network pointed out that this would pose an additional long-term health risk to the area's ecosystem.

Environmental groups urged the state to make it explicit in the proposed law that DEEP would have the authority to remove old dams, rather than just restore them. They pointed to successful dam removal and remediation projects, like the Lilly Pond Dam in New Haven, that improved river health and mitigated flooding.

The Connecticut Water Works Association also supported the bill, citing the long and lengthy permit approval process for repairing or altering dangerous dams. They said that this would help them resolve the budgetary problem of not having durable financing for repairs by expediting the rate at which repairs could be done.