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Association of State Dam Safety Officials (ASDSO)
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September 24-27
Orlando, FL
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"Dam Safety 2005"
will include exhibits, workshops and training sessions
discussing dam failure and spillway hydraulic analyses and
rehabilitation and repair legislation and funding efforts. ASDSO will donate a portion of
conference proceeds to Hurricane Katrina Disaster Aid.
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www..damsafety.org/
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Solid
Waste Association of North America (SWANA)
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September 25-29
Austin, TX
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"WASTECON
2005," SWANA's premiere annual conference, will feature
technical tracks on issues ranging from collection and transfer,
landfill management and e-waste to recycling, waste diversion
and waste-to-energy.
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www.swana.org/sections/wastecon/ |
Florida State Brownfields Association
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October 9-12
Jacksonville, FL
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The annual conference will include topics ranging from federal
partnerships and construction considerations to indoor air quality
and innovative treatment technologies.
The event will include Gannett Fleming
exhibiting activities.
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www.floridabrownfields.org |
Pennsylvania Stormwater Management Symposium
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October 11 - 13
Villanova, PA
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This Villanova Stormwater Urban Partnership Symposium will cover
topics ranging from Best Management Practices and Act 167 to
strategies and law; and will include a presentation by Project
Specialist Francis Albright on
"Creating a Municipal Authority to Manage Stormwater Issues."
For more on our firm's recent
municipal authority activity, read our
papers/presentations.
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www.egrfaculty.villanova.edu |
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Railroad
Environmental
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October 25-27
Urbana-Champaign, IL
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Conference
featuring sessions on industry issues ranging from air quality,
storm and wastewater and environmental management systems to
risk, liability and remediation.
The event will include Gannett Fleming
exhibiting activities.
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www.cee.uiuc.edu/research/railroad/RREC |
^back
to top^
Dams/Fish
Passages:
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^
Paul Schweiger |
Paul Schweiger is a Senior Project Manager and
Professional Engineer responsible for designing and preparing reports,
contract plans and specs for dams, fishways
and flood control projects. He also performs water supply planning
studies and safe yield investigations for complex water supply systems.
Paul was the project manager in charge of the
Sunbury, PA, fish passage project designed to
accommodate approximately 500,000 American Shad annually.
A Technical Advisor to the
Natural Resources
Conservation Service (NRCS), he has recently written papers on the
Olivenhain RCC Dam Geomembrane Facing System (see RCC and synthetic membrane
design under news); and on low-head dam fish
passage facilities for rivers in the northeastern U.S.
The
NRCS Small Watershed Rehabilitation Program will ultimately extend
the service life of flood retarding structures beyond their initial lifespan of
50 years. For more on our firm's Arizona project efforts to initiate a
federal cost-share component to this program read our dam assessment and
rehabilitation news article.
. . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Dams/Geotech:
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^
Art Walz |
A Senior Water Resources
Professional Engineer
with over 40 years of experience, Art has applied his vast geotech engineering expertise on both international projects and
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) assignments.
Art served our firm as an
independent technical reviewer of grouting activities at
Mississinewa Dam, IN, for the USACE
Louisville District. He is also a former Principal Advisor and
Consultant to the USACE Civil Works geotech engineering program.
|
ICOLD
spans more than 75 years, reaches over 80 countries and includes
around 7,000 members. Its mission is
focused on dam safety and sustainability. |
Art was recently elected
U.S. Vice President of
The International Commission on Large
Dams (ICOLD). He
has served on ICOLD's Advisory Committee and chaired its
committee on Public Awareness.
Art is also a past-president of
the United States Society on Dams (USSD).
. . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Southeast
Environmental:
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^
Rob McMullen |
Based in Gannett Fleming's Miami, Fl, office, Robert McMullen
has been appointed Director of Environmental Services . . .
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^back
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Technology
Corner:
Vertical
Slot Fishway |
overview:
A vertical slot fishway consists of a
series of pools created by the installation of baffles at
regular intervals between the walls and the flume. Narrow
slots, adjacent to either one or
both walls, extend vertically over the full height of the
baffle. Water flows through the slots creating small drops
which dissipate energy through circulation around an axis
perpendicular to the flume floor.
size:
Vertical slot fishways are capable of
passing large numbers (and most species) of migratory fish. The
pools are sized to accommodate the design population of the
fish. The minimum water depth in a pool is 4 feet and the
average depth is 6 feet.
project experience:
The newly designed vertical slot fishway
on the Susquehanna River at Sunbury, PA, has 10-foot by 12-foot
pools that are 6-feet deep. This fishway was designed to pass
600,000 adult American shad and 4 million river herrings per
migration season. The peak day shad passage capability is 48,000
American shad. Each 720ft3 pool acts as a resting
pool
and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service method was used to size
the structure assuming that migrating fish spend 3 to 5 minutes
in each pool.
operating considerations:
Vertical slot fishways are capable of
operating with wide fluctuations of headwater and tailwater
conditions without significant manipulation of gates, stoplogs
or baffles to account for varying flow conditions. The design
and construction of a vertical slot fishway is more complicated
and expensive than other common types of fishways.
Read our related
fish population
articles or contact
Paul Schweiger, PE,
[ bio ]for more information.
|
Mission Statement:
|
"To provide timely
industry news and information while sharing related Gannett
Fleming activities." |
Notes:
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Award-Winning Planning
The West Newton, PA, Downtown Waterfront Master Plan
has been named the Best Revitalization Plan by the
Smart Growth Partnership of Westmoreland County. The Plan previously won the
Pennsylvania Planning Association’s 2004 Outstanding Plan Award . . .
Dam
Engineering Accomplishments
Assessments and Rehabilitation
As
an initial step in the NRCS Small Watershed Rehabilitation
Program, our firm is planning and assessing engineering
activities for several Arizona dams. The structures can eventually be rehabilitated and
modified to comply with current dam safety criteria from both the NRCS and the
Arizona Department of Water Resources.
|
Geotechnical and dam engineering
assessments for several Arizona
flood control dams and a levee are underway for Coconino, Graham and
Maricopa Counties. |
 |
Activities range
from hydrology, hydraulics, geologic and structures assessments to failure modes
and effects and alternatives analyses.
Contact Project Manager,
Dean Durkee,
Ph.D., PE, for more information.
RCC and Synthetic Membrane Design
California's
Olivenhain and Salt Springs Dams were both featured in a recent issue
of "HydroPower & Dams" (see papers/ presentations
for a Salt Springs abstract). Olivenhain is a vital part of the San Diego
County Water Authority's $1 billion emergency storage project; while Salt
Springs is the first 100-meter-high concrete-faced rockfill dam:
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Olivenhain Dam
Parsons-Harza and Gannett Fleming
JV/ San Diego County Water Authority, CA |
Salt Springs Dam
Carpi/
Gannett Fleming/ Pacific Gas & Electric Company, CA |
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Features: |
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RCC dam design, mix design and
materials testing
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Upstream and downstream facing systems
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Geomembrane lining for seepage control
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Thermal stress analyses
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Highest and largest
RCC gravity dam in North America
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Evaluation of leakage/seepage -
existing and post-rehabilitation
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Geomembrane system for seepage control
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Concrete face rockfill dam
rehabilitation under cold-weather conditions
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Significant leakage
reduction for pool levels above elevation 3,790
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Re-establishing Fish Populations:
Fish Passage Engineering
The most common barriers to fish migration are low-head dams
that range in height from a few feet to 20 feet. Most of these dams are
currently used for municipal water supply systems and recreation.
|
Projects |
L
o
c
a
t
i
o
n |
C
l
i
e
n
t |
T
y
p
e |
| Massachusetts' Ipswich
Fish Ladder and Upper Sandwich Dam and Fish Ladder . . . |
| Catch the
fish for more
project information
. . . |
|
Our firm's
fish passage engineering project experience is diverse and extensive. In
addition to the Vertical Slot Design, our solutions
have included Pool and Weir, Denil and Alaskan Steeppass-type fishways.
Contact Fish
Passage Engineers, Paul Schweiger, PE [
bio ];
Dean Durkee, Ph.D., PE; or
Terry
Hampton, PE for more information. Also surf our
regs/programs section for a related article on effective design.
Sunbury Inflatable Dam
A state-of-the-art fish ladder design will enable fish
to navigate a man-made barrier through a multi-million dollar, fully automated
passage. The structure, to be constructed on a low-head inflatable dam
on the Susquehanna River, is part of the Sunbury, PA, Flood Control
Project. . .
Nutrient Reduction
Financing
|
Funding Reality |
| The 2003 report entitled "The Cost
of a Clean Bay" estimated the capital cost of new programs necessary
to restore the Bay to be $19 billion. Pennsylvania's share is
estimated to cost $8.2 billion, or roughly twice the entire annual
budget for all environmental programs in the state. |
Removing the Chesapeake Bay
from the Clean Water Act’s list of impaired waters by 2010 is a massive
undertaking requiring enormous clean up costs. Our firm has analyzed the
cost impacts for various communities in Maryland and Pennsylvania.
Maryland has recently
initiated a “flush tax,” which will assist in funding the mandate.
Pennsylvania’s Governor Rendell announced on September 14th that another $50
million in funding will be administered by the PennVEST program for nutrient
reduction and CSO problems. While these funds will be of benefit, local funding
through user rates will have to support the majority of the required
improvements.
Read our
Papers/Presentations section for more
information.
Trading
Nutrient trading (NT) can be a
cost-effective solution to problems associated with nutrient discharges to
surface waters. The NT premise is that a party facing relatively high pollutant
reduction costs could compensate another party to achieve a less costly
pollutant reduction with the same or greater water quality benefit. This
can be most effective if a point source (e.g., a wastewater treatment plant)
purchases nutrient reduction credits from a non-point source, like a farmer.
PADEP announced that the
availability of trading will begin in September; however, the draft policy to
implement the program is still in the final stages of development. The process
will be business-like in that parties can buy and sell nutrient credits to meet
their 2010 nutrient reduction goals.
Re-establishing Fish Populations:
Effective Design
|
current initiative |
| More than $100 million has been
spent over the last 50 years to re-populate migratory fish in the
Susquehanna River alone. |
Various owners
and regulatory agencies have spent a lot of time and money to restore migratory
fish since the construction of downstream hydroelectric dams. The
long-term commitment of their effort is
evident in the increasing populations of wild Shad returning to the Susquehanna
River (see our related Sunbury, PA, project case history).
|
design factors |
| Collecting site-specific data and
understanding fish species targeted for passage (including physical and run size, swimming ability, other species
competing for space and passage timing) are critical success factors. |
In order to
wisely use their resources, owners and regulators must incorporate effective
fishway design. Each site presents the possibility of new challenges that
must be addressed and resolved through the cooperative efforts of project
owners, resource agencies (such as the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service) and
consultants.
Contact Fish
Passage Engineer,
Paul Schweiger, PE,
[ bio ] for more planning and design information.
Dams and Hydrology
Hydrologic GIS
GIS, an emerging tool for modeling
hydrologic processes, is fast becoming a hydrology standard.
Synthetic Membranes
|
The geomembrane
design of the Salt Springs Dam, CA, extends from abutment to abutment, as well
as below to the walkway at the bottom of this photo. |
|
Read news for more
information on California Dam RCC and synthetic membranes.
Nutrient
Reduction Initiatives
Examining the Chesapeake Bay nutrient issue
from all angles, representatives from our firm recently discussed sewage
treatment and Bay strategies at a Pennsylvania Municipal Authorities Association
(PMAA) annual conference. They also published an article on financing
nutrient upgrades in the September edition of the organization's magazine.
» Association
of State Dam and Safety Officials (ASDSO)
»
Chesapeake Bay Nutrient Trading
»
Fish Passage Program (USFWS)
»
The International Commission on Large
Dams (ICOLD)
»
United States
Society on Dams (USSD)
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