After 60 years, the design flood for the Bluestone dam changed requiring a modest raise and a number of other improvements totaling some $130 million thus far and another estimated $200 million in improvements still to go. Check out the size of these anchors being use to anchor the dam foundation into bedrock. This is just one of 150 anchors. The article also discussed how the rock strength parameters used to design the dam 60 years ago were developed using the state of the practice at the time, new rock strength parameters are lower using current design standards. [Source: The Charleston Gazette. Image: Charleston Gazette]
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Remediation begins on Center Hill Dam, Tenn.
LANCASTER — Months of explosive blasting are expected to begin at the site of Center Hill Dam next week as the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers prepares to begin construction work at the aging dam in Lancaster.
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"The blasting will be to excavate a platform for construction, about 40 feet wide and will look similar to a road cut through a hill," [Corps Project Manager Linda Adcock] said. "Just the nature of how we grout, and moving equipment back and forth on the current slopes, which are as much as 40 percent and greater, is just really difficult. So for these reasons, for safety, quality, the accuracy and the consistency of the drill holes are much better done from a platform, they proposed this road cut type of a platform."
The drilling is for grouting remediation of the dam foundation. Story from Herald-Citizen, Cookeville, Tennessee.