# DamWatch USA

> Public, unofficial U.S. dam atlas, learning center, source directory, REST API, RSS/Atom publisher, and read-only MCP server.

Canonical: https://dam.platphormnews.com
Version: 1.0.0
Creator and author: Michael Barbine (BigNerdLoLz)
Publisher: PlatPhorm News
License and attribution: https://dam.platphormnews.com/license

## Use this service for
- Curated educational profiles of landmark U.S. dams, failures, and removals.
- Bounded, paged live queries to the public USACE National Inventory of Dams FeatureServer.
- Finding official, research, and community dam-data sources with cautions.
- Learning hazard potential, condition, ownership, regulation, hydropower, safety, and removal concepts.

## Key routes
- Map: https://dam.platphormnews.com/
- Sources: https://dam.platphormnews.com/resources
- FAQ: https://dam.platphormnews.com/faq
- About: https://dam.platphormnews.com/about
- License: https://dam.platphormnews.com/license
- Docs: https://dam.platphormnews.com/docs
- API: https://dam.platphormnews.com/api/dams
- Network evidence: https://dam.platphormnews.com/api/network-status
- OpenAPI: https://dam.platphormnews.com/openapi.yaml
- MCP: https://dam.platphormnews.com/api/mcp
- RSS: https://dam.platphormnews.com/rss.xml

## Safety
This service is not an official record, regulator, monitoring system, or emergency alert service. Verify safety-critical information with the owner, regulator, and local emergency authorities. Hazard potential is not failure probability or condition.

## Data contract
REST success: { "ok": true, "data": {} }
REST error: { "ok": false, "error": { "code": "", "message": "", "details": {} } }

GET /api/dams defaults to the curated set. For the live inventory, use source=nid with optional state, q, hazard, limit, and offset. The live page limit is 500. The upstream URL is fixed; arbitrary URL proxying is not supported.

## Canonical capability inventory
- Public read capability classes: 9
- Protected action classes: 9
- MCP methods: 8
- MCP tools: 5
- MCP resources: 4
- MCP prompts: 2
These values are derived from the same registries used by health, docs, MCP metadata, and well-known discovery.

## MCP
POST /api/mcp accepts JSON-RPC 2.0 object or batch. The canonical method, tool, resource, and prompt counts are returned by GET /api/mcp and /.well-known/mcp.json from the same registry. All tools are real and read-only.

## Network evidence
GET /api/network-status performs bounded public checks against the canonical PlatPhormNews root graph, base sitemap index, and BrowserOps trust validator. Missing registry entries and unavailable upstreams are reported honestly as pending or degraded.

## Source catalog
- National Inventory of Dams (Official federal): https://nid.sec.usace.army.mil/
- NID Public Feature Service (Official federal): https://geospatial.sec.usace.army.mil/dls/rest/services/NID/National_Inventory_of_Dams_Public_Service/FeatureServer
- National Dam Safety Program (Official federal): https://www.fema.gov/grants/mitigation/learn/dam-safety
- State Dam Safety Program Directory (Official state gateway): https://damsafety.org/states
- Projects & Facilities Database (Official federal): https://www.usbr.gov/projects/
- USACE Dam Safety Program (Official federal): https://www.usace.army.mil/Missions/Civil-Works/Dam-Safety-Program/
- Hydropower Licensing and Dam Safety (Official federal): https://www.ferc.gov/hydropower
- Water Data for the Nation (Official federal): https://waterdata.usgs.gov/
- The National Map — Hydrography (Official federal): https://www.usgs.gov/programs/national-geospatial-program/national-map
- National Dam Removal Database (Community / unofficial): https://www.americanrivers.org/threats-solutions/restoring-damaged-rivers/dam-removal-map/
- National Performance of Dams Program (Research): https://npdp.stanford.edu/
- Global Reservoir and Dam Database (GRanD) (Research): https://doi.org/10.7927/H4N877QK
- OpenStreetMap (Community / unofficial): https://www.openstreetmap.org/
- Wikidata (Community / unofficial): https://www.wikidata.org/

## Feed and API integrations
- USACE NID FeatureServer (ArcGIS REST API, integrated): https://geospatial.sec.usace.army.mil/dls/rest/services/NID/National_Inventory_of_Dams_Public_Service/FeatureServer
- USACE CWMS Data API (REST API, linked): https://cwms-data.usace.army.mil/cwms-data/
- Reclamation Information Sharing Environment (REST API and downloads, linked): https://data.usbr.gov/
- USGS Water Services (REST API, linked): https://waterservices.usgs.gov/
- USACE Dams RSS directory (RSS directory, linked): https://www.usace.army.mil/Resources/Contact/RSS/
- Bureau of Reclamation RSS newsroom (RSS directory, linked): https://www.usbr.gov/main/multimedia/rss.html
- FERC accepted filings feed (RSS feed, linked): https://ecollection.ferc.gov/api/rssfeed

## Trust and auth
Web dashboard, public-safe discovery, browser-based operations, trusted-domain discovery, standard route compliance, Vercel metadata capture, trace inspection, and agentic workflow discovery are intentionally supported for public read-only debugging and operator workflows. Mutating, administrative, ingestion, replay, fork, remediation, deployment, sync, test-triggering, reporting, and write actions require PLATPHORM_API_KEY.
No mutation is currently exposed. Future protected actions use only PLATPHORM_API_KEY via Bearer authorization or X-PlatPhorm-API-Key. Secrets never belong in URLs, logs, traces, baggage, feeds, discovery documents, screenshots, or public responses.

## Trace status
W3C traceparent and tracestate are accepted and echoed with public-safe PlatPhorm request identifiers. Cross-site request propagation is implemented. Central trace-store export is not configured, and health reports that component limitation separately from overall service health.