Was it successful?

I received this question from "jerry" on the blog about the dam remediation project. In case there are others with questions I thought perhaps a recap might be helpful.

The dam remediation project is a three phase project. Except for some re-landscaping and adjustment to the new valve, Phases I and II are complete, and yes they were successful.

Phase I was the installation of a 30" pipe through the dam with two new valves. The new downstream valve has given us only very minor problems, however the upstream valve failed and was replaced with a sluice gate valve which has work well. Now that the lake is nearly at normal pool level this valve requires minor adjustment by divers, this will be done shortly. All this was necessitated because the original 40+ year old valve through the dam just wore out, and today one is required to have two valves rather than one.

Phase II was broken into two parts. The first was the re-sloping of the dam, the dam was made fatter and therefore stronger. The second part was the installation of grout into the dam and its bed rock to reduce the amount of leakage through the dam itself. Leakage through an earthen dam is a fact of life. However beyond certain limits it can wash away material and weaken the dam, the grout will reduce the flows.

As stated above, one can state that Phases I & II were successful.

The engineering on Phase III has begun with actual work completion projected for the end of next year, 2011. This final phase of the project includes increased spillway capacity and slight heightening of the dam to handle worse case flood conditions as dictated by FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency).

I trust that this answers the question.