4-24-13 —     The contrast is remarkable.

   August 15, 2005

    The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced during a somber gathering  at The Center for Rural Development that Wolf Creek Dam is leaking  uncontrollably and is in high risk of failure. They said acomplete  rehabilitation of the mile-long structure that impounds Lake  

Cumberland is necessary.

      April 19, 2013

    The job is done. The mood has dramatically swung upward.

    "Hallelujah! Tell the world to come on in! The water's fine!" That's  

the way Congressman Hal Rogers, R-Somerset, put it during an applause-

interrupted, celebratory Wolf Creek Dam Completion Ceremony in the  

Russell County Schools auditorium/natatorium.

    "This is a great day!" Rogers exclaimed. "We can announce with  

certainty that Wolf Creek Dam is safe; that all the people below the  

dam are safe." Rogers is chair of the powerful House Appropriations  

Committee through which came funds for the $594 million repair project.

    "This is a start of a new chapter in the history of Wolf Creek Dam,"  

commented Brigadier General Margaret Burcham, commander, Great Lakes  

and Ohio River Division, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. She said the  

rehabilitation project " ... restores our confidence in the integrity  

of the dam."

    "It is considered a model project ... the largest project of its  

kind in the world," said Burcham." Nothing has so much potential to  

provide so much protection for so many people."

    Marchetta Sparrow, secretary, Kentucky Tourism, Arts and Heritage  

Cabinet, said "More Lake, More Fun" is the theme the cabinet will use  

to draw the Ohio Navy back to its favorite waterway.

    "What they have done here is vital to the economy of the  

commonwealth," said Sparrow. "Tourism puts food on the table for a  

lot of families."

    lled the lake an economic engine for growth in the Lake Cumberland  

area. "It means so much to the economy of the region," he said.

    "This is a monumental occasion for both local and downstream  

communities that rely on the dam for economic and water management  

benefits," said Lt. Col. James A. DeLapp, commander of the Nashville  

District.         He reviewed the Corps' already announced plans to allow  

the level of Lake Cumberland to rise 20 feet for this summer's  

tourism season and then to historical operational levels at 723 feet  

above sea level in Summer 2014.

Mike Zoccola, lead engineer for the rehabilitation project and chief  

of the Corps' Civil Design Branch, said the rehabilitated Wolf Creek  

Dam, according to Corps' policy, must be treated as a new dam.

    "We raise the water in increments rather than put the entire  

pressure against the dam all at once," Zoccola explained. He said  

originally they through about raising the water level 10 feet at a  

time, "but they let us raise it 20 feet for this summer."

    The water level yesterday morning was at the 701-foot level. It will  

be maintained between 700 and 705 feet this summer and then raised  

another 20 feet to the 723-foot level by Summer 2014.

    Praise was heaped on Treviicos-Soletanche Joint Venture, the general  

contractor for the rehabilitation project. Jerome Stubler and Stefano  

Trevisani, the companies' chief executive officers, each made remarks  

during the completion celebration.

    Bill DeBruyn, resident engineer at the dam, said earlier the total  

project required 290,000 cubic yards of concrete. According to our  

calculation, a cubic yard of fresh concrete weighs about 3,700  

pounds, so a total of 1,073,000,000 (one billion, 73 million) pounds  

of concrete have been inserted in the dam.

    That is enough concrete, according to DeLapp, to build a sidewalk 5  

feet wide and four inches thick from Russell Springs to Washington  

D.C.  Pyle Concrete Company of Columbia built a plant on U.S. 127  

across from Lake Cumberland State Park to supply concrete for the dam  

project.

    Problem was, when Wolf Creek Dam was constructed before and  

immediately after World War II, cavities in the limestone base were  

packed with clay. Over time, the clay washed out, leaving caverns,  

some 40 feet tall, inside the dam.

    Two huge sinkholes in the electrical grid below the dam and muddy  

water in the tailrace during the late 1960s signaled a near breach of  

the structure. Cities along the Cumberland River, from Burkesville to  

Nashville, got nervous and there was talk of mass evacuations.

    A too-short barrier wall and extensive grouting (pumping liquid  

concrete in the dam) during the 1970s provided a temporary fix, but  

the leaks continued.

    An outside panel of experts in 2005 declared Wolf Creek Dam in high  

risk of failure. In August 2005, the Corps announced publicly that a  

complete rehabilitation of the dam was necessary.

    The first grouting contract was let in 2006 and, in January 2007,  

the water level was lowered 40 feet to ease pressure on the dam and  

facilitate the rehabilitation project. Treviicos-Soletanche JV, an  

Italian-French corporation, was selected as general contractor in  

July 2008 to insert a permanent barrier wall in the dam to make it safe.

    The wall, fashioned with overlapping 50-inch holes filled with  

concrete, extends 275 feet from a created work platform on the  

upstream side of the dam to about 100 feet into the limestone bedrock  

beneath the dam. The project is of a scope never before done in the  

world.

    The earthen section of the dam is bolstered with two additional  

walls: A shorter barrier wall extending about 15 feet into the  

limestone bedrock was installed during the 1970s following the near  

breech of the dam during the late 1960s, Also, remaining in the dam  

is a protective concrete embankment wall fashioned with 6 feet-by-9  

feet concrete panels to stabilize the earthen embankment while the  

most recent wall was inserted.