What is the dam problem?

Answer 1

There is no dam problem. Dams are carefully inspected several times per year and walk throughs are conducted by staff daily. Those dams that are found to be unsafe are fixed quickly.

Now, if you are talking about dam builders, then yes, they are a problem sometimes. Beavers are prolific dam builders. These rodents can be a nuance to property owners and farmers with their dam building and flooding of perfectly good property. A couple of good busy dam beavers can soon turn acres of arable land into a real swamp. Just try to break one of their dams, the dam beaver are rebuilding the minute you turn your back, sometimes they are working to repair the dam at the same time you are breaking the dam. You might say they are dam persistent. Then there's the Tinker's dam. In the olden days, pots were literally made of tin. Since it was a relatively cheap material, the itinerant tin smith would regularly come through the neighborhood to repair these pots and pans. Using a bit of clay, he would make a "dam" of it around the hole. Given that tin is liquid when melted, the tin would be poured into the hole and the dam would stop the spread of the tin to the whole outside surface of the pot. It made a convenient patching process.

But the dam, after it was used, was totally useless. It couldn't be used for clay any more because it was contaminated with the tin, so it was thrown away. So the expression "I would give a Tinker's Dam about it" was born for something totally useless. Dam problems can be interesting, can't they?