2006 – Some Lessons Derived from the Surveillance of the Dams of the Snowy Mountains Scheme
Steve Donker
When undertaking a program of quantitative surveillance of dams the potential to make expensive decisions based on inaccurate and/or inappropriate data always exists. The implementation of a ‘quality’ based system of quantitative surveillance as identified in the ANCOLD Guidelines On Dam Safety Management 2003 can reduce the likelihood of making these inappropriate decisions.
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2006 Papers
2006 – A Summary Of Major Dam Safety Deficiencies Identified By The Initial U.S. Army Corps Of Engineers’ Screening Portfolio Risk Assessment Program
Learn moreJeffrey A. Schaefer, Ph.D., P.E., P.G. and David M. Schaaf, P.E.
In 2005 the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) developed and implemented a Screening Portfolio Risk Assessment (SPRA) process for Dam Safety. The screening process considered loading frequency, an engineering rating to estimate a relative probability of failure, and both human life and economic consequences of failure. The results were utilized as a tool to help prioritize funding for dam safety modification projects and required studies. Three multidisciplinary cadres evaluated what was considered the worst 10% of the USACE’s dam projects in 2005 and the next worst 10% in 2006. The dams evaluated included flood control, navigation, and multi-purpose dams. Approximately seventy facilities were evaluated each year.
As a result of the aging of the USACE’s dam portfolio and the state of the art at the time of design and construction (mostly 1940’s-50’s), significant dam safety deficiencies exist at many USACE dams. This paper summarizes the major deficiencies identified from the SPRA process. Examples, including foundation seepage, karst development, embankment stability, gate deterioration, liquefiable foundations, and inadequate spillway capacity are provided along with discussion on which deficiencies contribute the greatest risk.
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2006 Papers
2006 – Water Corporation Dam Instrumentation and Monitoring Practice
Learn moreMichael Somerford, Alex Gower
The Water Corporation is the principal dam owner in Western Australian with a portfolio of 95 dams. In the absence of dam safety legislation in Western Australia the Corporation has adopted a policy of self regulation. This paper presents how the Corporation’s dam safety policy has been implemented with respect to dam instrumentation and monitoring. It includes a summary of the type of instruments used and experiences with automated data collection systems. The paper concludes that the Corporation does not see a need for a dam instrumentation guideline, however a document summarising current Australian practices and experiences would be of value.
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2006 Papers
2006 – Corporate Governance for Dam Safety
Learn moreS. Frazer
Ensuring compliance with the Regulator’s requirements is a cornerstone consideration for any water corporation in planning its risk minimisation strategies against dam failure. With the increased focus on due diligence and corporate governance however, there are emerging themes that are of equal importance for a water corporation in planning protections against its core risks to dam safety.
These considerations include:
- documenting and implementing plans and strategies to ensure corporate compliance with the Regulator’s requirements and updating these in line with legislative and policy changes;
- Documenting and implementing the corporation’s defences to the common law duty of care for public liability, including keeping up to date with the latest case law development locally and internationally in interpreting implications in respect of damage to property and injury and loss of life in relation to dam failure.
- Adopting behaviours and practices that bear out a compliance culture – is the current dam safety assessment and training “best practice” and is this enough to defend a claim? What is reasonable in economic and practical terms to ensure defensibility?
- ensuring the Board, Executive and other Officers are informed of operational decisions and incidents and their advice is implemented;
- arranging and maintaining appropriate insurances if available for public liability and property damage, as well as protections for directors and officers, both past and current. •
- Developing and implementing a policy for disclosure, document management and retention that will support investigation for legal proceedings purposes; including providing privilege for relevant legal advices.
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2006 Papers
2006 – An Overview of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Screening for Portfolio Risk Assessment for Dam Safety Program
Learn moreDavid M. Schaaf, P.E., Jeff Schaefer, Ph.D., P.E., P.G
The United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) has an inventory of over 600 dams. The main purpose of many of these dams is for flood control, but there are a significant number of dams primarily used for navigation. Additional benefits at many of these projects are provided through hydropower generation, recreation, and irrigation for farmers. Many of the dams are quite old and represent an aging infrastructure across the inventory. In addition, leaner budgets relative to the need for repairs across the aging system require that USACE invest wisely in order to efficiently use available funds to reduce the greatest risks across the inventory. Previously, individual projects with perceived deficiencies were evaluated separately by the responsible district. This evaluation was not compared in any programmatic way to other USACE dams being evaluated for deficiencies.
In order to improve the process of making risk-based decisions across the entire spectrum of USACE dams, the Screening for Portfolio Risk Assessment (SPRA) for the USACE Dam Safety Program was initiated during the summer of 2005. This effort represents the first level of a multiple phased effort to bring full scale risk assessment to the decision-making regarding making investment decisions associated with dam safety by linking engineering reliability with economic and life loss impacts on a relative scale. The SPRA effort involved the development of a tool for evaluating the relative life and economic risk of dam failures for a variety of deficiencies across the inventory of USACE dams. This paper will focus on the basic aspects of the evaluation tool as well as the process by which the screening was completed.
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2006 Papers
2006 – Specialist Dam Safety Instrumentation for Identifying and Monitoring Earthquake Damage at Aviemore Dam, New Zealand
Learn moreP Amos, N Logan and J Walker
There are a number of geological faults in close proximity to Aviemore Power Station in the South Island of New Zealand, including a fault in the foundation of the 48m high earth dam component of the power station. Possible movement of the Waitangi Fault in the earth dam foundation is of particular concern for dam safety, and the effects on the dam of a fault rupture has been the subject of detailed investigation by the dam’s owner Meridian Energy Ltd. These investigations have concluded that the dam will withstand the anticipated fault displacement related to the Safety Evaluation Earthquake without catastrophic release of the reservoir.
The identification of damage to the dam following an earthquake and monitoring of the dam to identify the development of potential failure mechanisms are important for determining the post-earthquake safety of the power station. The first stage of the post-earthquake response plan is the quick identification of any foundation fault rupture and damage to the dam to enable immediate post-earthquake mitigation measures
to be initiated, such as reservoir drawdown. Following initial response, the next stage of the postearthquake monitoring programme for the embankment dam is longer term monitoring to identify a changing seepage condition due to damage to the dam that might lead to a piping incident. Such an incident may not occur immediately after an earthquake, and it can be some time before the piping process becomes evident.This paper presents some key instrumentation installed at Aviemore Dam and included in the emergency response plan for the post-earthquake monitoring of the embankment dam.
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