But all these guys think they were built for them to fish, they think their tax dollars pay for those dams.

GBRA Does not make sense in time to engineer and costs of repair. the design is done. it worked for ninety yrs. the materials corroded and failed after ninety years. real damn simple. build new gates on the same design with better materials and repair all the dams.

Easy to say, not so simple to do!
I'm sure they don't have millions lying around in a bank somewhere that they can pull out and start the repairs that will be needed to repair the Dunlap and Wood dams, but not to mention the others that are a ticking time bomb.
Just a couple of years ago they were having to deal with, how do we fund the lake Wood dam?
If they found funding difficult for those repairs, they surely will have a hard time finding the funds for the Dunlap dam, or should any of the others in the chain fail.
It's not just about one gate that failed, as the others will have to be replaced as well.
As you said, they've been around 90 years and I'm going to bet that they never planned ahead on those kind of major repairs of a complete dam failure happening, and never gave much thought to put enough money aside in todays dollars, but rather never giving complete failure a second thought, and instead those who went before them just kicked the can down the road, and more than likely used a large amount of funds for hiring, raises, retirement packages, and new office buildings, while only worrying about the next coffee break.
I would not want to be in those shoes and making some tough decisions that will have to be made on how to come up with the millions in repairs.
You can't put all the blame on those running GBRA as 90 years ago there were no dams, and infrastructure doesn't last forever so it has to be maintained or it returns to the earth.

I guess they need to have a special district tax of $5k or more a year for all the property owners along the river below Canyon. It would be the dam maintenance fee.

Going to be challenging to fund when each dam is reported to cost $15 to $35 million and the annual budget of GBRA is $50 million.

Revenues come from selling water and treating wastewater. Appears as though electric generating is close to break even.
Their website states that they do not have ad valorem taxing authority like some of the other quasi governmental agencies in the area.
Maybe they can sell bonds but they must be to repay with a reliable income stream (pardon the pun).

It is interesting that their mission statement does mention tourism and supporting the local economies in their service district.

Sad situation, but somewhat indicative of nationwide infrastructure conditions as is relates to bridges, roads, etc. Our government finds it difficult to maintain what we have when population growth requires new roads, bridges, water lines, etc.

The cost for building a public boat ramp on Lake McQueeney has never happened and that cost would be minimum. Why would anyone believe that the money will be spent to repair these dams?

The cost for building a public ramp on McQueeney is not the issue. It is the home owners association that does not want non-owners on the lake. In my opinion the wrong dam broke.

^^^yep^^^