Emery Mills Dam Repair

Here’s update #4 from Alex Hammerle on the Emery Mills Dam project. Thank you Alex!

 

As of last Thursday, the boring and grouting of the original 16 planned locations was completed.  The engineers had planned for an additional 9 locations that would be bored and grouted if necessary.  After reviewing the field notes and data, the engineers relocated the 9 secondary locations and added a tenth.  These were completed yesterday, and the boring/grouting contractor has cleaned up and left the site.  I haven’t received the field notes from these 10 holes, but I’ve been told that some additional voids were found and filled.  The dam will be a much more solid mass now and the leaking through the dam should now be minimized.  Of course, we won’t know completely how successful we’ve been until we raise the water to the summer level next May.

·         The next steps in the project will be to re-surface the rip rap on the upstream side and to install a cap on the top of the dam.  This earthwork will be done over the course of next week, and we are still on schedule for beginning to raise the lake to the normal winter level on November 23.  If recent weather is any indication of what’s to come, it won’t take very long for us to get the water restored to the normal winter level.  The erosion and sedimentation controls that were installed before work on the dam began will be removed when the risk of erosion is over.

·         The final part of the project will be to cap the road.  The road bed was constructed with fairly large stone which was suitable for getting the earth moving and boring/grouting equipment in and out, but is difficult to walk on.  The cap will be made with material that won’t wash into the water, but will provide a much smoother surface.  This will probably be completed by the end of the month, but there’s a chance that it may run into the first few days of December due to scheduling around the Thanksgiving holiday.

 

I am planning to do a final update when the project is complete.  As always, please don’t hesitate to contact me if you have any questions.

 

Alex