By BILL MARDIS, Editor Emeritus
Commonwealth Journal
Somerset —
Engineers say Wolf Creek Dam appears to be stable and rehabilitation is expected to resume next week in a 600-foot area where work has been suspended since March. A preliminary report from laboratory tests of samples taken from a critical area in the dam indicates no deep instability within the earthen structure. Engineers with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers also have concluded that widening surface cracks in the roadway across the dam were caused by movement of the sheetpile wall, a steel interlocking structure used by contractors to hold vertical dirt on the dam side of the main work platform. As a result of the preliminary findings, contractors next week will be allowed to resume grouting and preparation of a work platform in Critical Area 1. This critical area is one of two in the 4,000-foot-long earthen section of the dam where grouting has not been effective. Apparent earth movement in Critical Area 1 and cracks in the roadway triggered a work suspension in a 600-foot section in March. The work suspension was extended through August 31. Fred Tucker, public affairs officer for the Corps’ Nashville District, said General John W. Peabody, the Corps division commander in Cincinnati, was briefed August 23 on the preliminary report and that he (Peabody) concurred with Corps engineers that there is no deep instability in the earthen section of the dam. A final report will be issued, “ ... probably in a month or two,” according to Mike Zocolla, chief of the Corps’ Design Division. David Hendrix, project manager, said there has been no change in the December 2012 projected completion date for the dam rehabilitation project. However, Hendrix cautioned that this estimate could change based on new information. Wolf Creek Dam, plagued with seepage problems since completed in late 1950, was declared in high risk of failure early in 2005. The Corps decided at that point a major rehabilitation of the dam was necessary. The lake was lowered more than 40 feet in January 2007 to ease pressure on the structure and facilitate the repair work. A $584 million contract was awarded to Treviicos-Soletanche JV, a French-Italian firm, to insert a concrete diaphragm wall through the length of the earthen section of the dam and about 100 feet into the limestone bedrock. Corps engineers say this will be a permanent fix for the mile-long dam that impounds Lake Cumberland.