February 1, 2008
kypost.com
State Issues Lake Cumberland Report
By Jessica Noll

A report detailing state activities as a result of the lowering of the water level at Lake Cumberland has been released by the Environmental and Public Protection Cabinet (EPPC).

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced one year ago Wolf Creek Dam was classified as a "high risk of failure" and the lake level would be lowered to 680 feet. State agencies immediately began activities to address emergency notification, water supply, and electricity and tourism issues for the area.

The report was prepared by the Governor’s Office on Interagency Services, in Somerset, which has been headed by Hilda Legg. The office closed yesterday following the release of the report.

The report highlights the cooperative effort among state agencies including EPPC, the Transportation Cabinet, the Commerce Cabinet, the Office of Homeland Security, the Department for Fish and Wildlife Resources (DFWR) and the Economic Development Cabinet.

"This is an example of state government responding quickly, decisively and cooperatively to protect the lives and well-being of the citizens in the Lake Cumberland area," said Legg. "This experience should serve as a model for future, similar situations."

The report notes an outdoor siren system is being installed, emergency radios have been distributed and water intake structures have been moved to protect the citizens of the area. Lake Cumberland supplies the drinking water for 200,000 Kentuckians.

The Commerce Cabinet has developed aggressive marketing campaigns to protect the tourism industry dependent upon visitors to the lake. The economic impact to four counties with access to the lake is more than $150 million annually.

The Transportation Cabinet and DFWR worked cooperatively to extend boat ramps surrounding the lake to give visitors access to the water. When the Corps first announced the lowering of the level, only 11 access points were available. Today, 50 ramps are open and two more are under construction.

Local governments, most affected by the Corps’ action, are appreciative of the work performed by the Governor’s Office on Interagency Services.

"The cooperation initiated by the Governor's Office between state, federal and local government officials was unprecedented and without it the completion of projects may not have been a possibility," said Greg Rankin, Wayne County judge-executive.

"From marketing to expediting permits to identifying funding dollars, the office was always on the move, pushing and working tirelessly on behalf of the residents impacted," said Roger Bates, mayor of Jamestown. "I can't think of one thing additionally that they could have done."

"We saw the tremendous economic impact the lower lake level had on small businesses firsthand," said Bill Magruder, Duo County Telephone Co. president.

"The aggressive action on behalf of these businesses and residents, by the Governor's Office and the appeal to the federal government for their assistance sent the message that the residents and businesses of the Lake Cumberland region were not alone and their unfortunate circumstances were being addressed."

State funding, $25 million, was provided for improvements to water intakes for communities that withdraw drinking water from Lake Cumberland. More than $2.7 million was allocated for upgrading or constructing boat ramps to the lake.

— The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is considering a layered concrete structure that would, in effect, replace the 4000-foot-long earthen section of troubled Wolf Creek Dam and be an alternative to a planned diaphragm wall.

Mike Zoccola, chief of the Corps’ Civil Design Branch, said the structure being studied is a “roller-compacted concrete dam” that would tie in to the existing concrete section of dam. It would be built instead of a four-to-five-foot thick concrete wall that would extend through the earthen section to about 100 feet into the bedrock.

Zoccola emphasized at all points in his discussion that the new method to permanently repair Wolf Creek Dam is still being studied. The nearly mile-long concrete and earthen dam that impounds Lake Cumberland has been classified as a “high risk” for failure and the lake level is being kept low to ease pressure on the unstable structure. A roller-compacted dam would be constructed with layers of concrete, each compacted with heavy equipment. Zoccola said the concrete would be a “really dry mix” unlike the more familiar soupy concrete that wouldn’t support compaction.

Noting that roller-compacted dams are not uncommon, Zoccola estimated that the structure under study would be about the same length as the existing earthen section of the dam and some 15-20 feet in width. It would be located on the downstream side of the existing earthen part of the dam and would impact the road leading to Kendall Recreation Area, the power grid and fish hatchery.

How deep a roller-compacted dam would extend into the earth, how much it would cost and how long it would take are still questions, Zoccola noted. Also still undetermined is whether construction of that type facility would require further lowering of the lake level. Grouting and the diaphragm wall in the current plan have a price tag of $309.1 million and would take up to seven years.
Zoccola said the earthen section of the dam likely would remain in place as the base for U.S. 127, the road that crosses the crest of the dam. The existing concrete section of the dam would not be affected, he indicated.

The idea for a roller-compacted structure at Wolf Creek Dam “recently came up,” Zoccola said. “There are a lot of technical problems,” he added. The Corps earlier rejected a suggestion to build a completely new dam at a cost of $500 million.

According to the current timetable, the Corps plans to award a contract late this year to permanently repair the dam. Zoccola said a decision on whether the permanent fix be a diaphragm wall or a roller-compacted structure needs to be made sometime about June. The roller-compacted structure is a “Corps idea” and not something suggested by Washington, D.C., he said.

Excessive seepage was observed at Wolf Creek Dam between 2002 and 2004 when the lake level was high due to heavy rainfall. The Corps began to control the lake level in March 2005 and announced in August of that year that a major rehabilitation of the dam is necessary.

Later, the massive dam structure that impounds 101-mile-long Lake Cumberland was declared in high risk of failure. As a result, the lake level was lowered to 680 feet above sea level, or about 43 feet below the tree line, to ease pressure on the dam.
An accelerated grouting contract was awarded last December and liquid concrete currently is being pumped into the dam to control seepage.

March 9, 2007
Lexington Herald Leader
Officials: No danger from dam
By Bill Estep

WOLF CREEK DAM --The decision to keep water lower than usual in Lake Cumberland this summer because of leaks in the dam that impounds the giant reservoir has spawned a number of myths, according to federal officials.

Among the misconceptions:

* Dye tests have shown the leaks are much worse than the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers have said.

* Blasting for a construction project near the dam has weakened the structure.

* The corps is hiding something.

Nonsense, corps officials said yesterday, albeit in a nice way.

To prove the corps is being straightforward about the leaks and repairs at the dam, agency officials invited news media for a tour yesterday. It included construction areas, the powerhouse and even a tunnel deep inside the dam, where workers use diamond-studded drill bits to bore into the rock under the towering concrete structure, then pump in liquid cement to stop leaks.

"We have nothing to hide," said Lt. Col. Steven J. Roemhildt, commander of the corps' Nashville District, which includes Lake Cumberland.

Roemhildt said there have been no dye tests of leaks, for example, and that blasting near the dam has not hurt its stability.

As for fears of the dam failing, one thing corps officials showed off yesterday were systems to monitor the stability of the dam and the leaks.

The problem at the dam, a mile-long concrete and earthen structure finished in the early 1950s, is that it was built in karst terrain. That means there are caves, voids and fissures in the underlying limestone where water can seep through.

Employees walk around the dam continually to look for wet spots, sinkholes or signs of settling. Also, there are instruments in boreholes in the dam to monitor settlement and movement, and to check the movement of water under the dam, said Timothy McCleskey, a geotechnical engineer with the corps.

McCleskey said there are more than 300 instruments, called piezometers, in the dam to monitor leaks, and more will be installed. They have to be read manually now, but the corps plans to automate some, McCleskey said.

That means the corps quite likely would see signs of an impending breach at the dam long before it happened, officials said.

"We will have enough warning time to tell people to evacuate," McCleskey said.

The dam has been rated at high risk for failure, in part because the consequences of a failure could include deaths and more than $3 billion in damage.

However, there are no signs that failure is imminent, corps officials said, and the probability of a breach is low. If the dam did fail, it wouldn't do so in a way that sent a tidal wave of water down the river, the corps said.

"That's not going to happen," said Mike Ensch, an official with the agency.

Corps officials also took reporters into a tunnel deep inside the dam where a contractor has started injecting liquid cement -- or grout -- into cavities in the rock below it.

Workers bore through the concrete in the floor of the tunnel and more than 100 feet into the rock below, then pump in grout under pressure. Later, they will move to the lake side of the earthen dam section, drilling holes and injecting grout, which will harden and create a curtain to cut off leaks.

Builders in the 1940s and '50s tried to plug or cut off the caves and channels in the limestone under the dam. But in the late 1960s, muddy water started flowing out below the dam, and two sinkholes opened in the ground on the downriver side -- indications of a serious leak.

The corps had contractors pump in grout to save the dam, and then in the 1970s it built a concrete wall inside part of the earthen section. That worked for a while, but the concrete diaphragm didn't go deep enough into the rock below the earthen part of the dam, and it also didn't extend the full length of that section.

Over time, water has found new paths through the rock under the dam. There has been a gradual increase in seepage through the years, and between 2002 and 2004 there was an increase in the number of spots where water seeped to the surface of the downstream side of the earthen section, McCleskey said.

The grouting that has started is a first line of defense. The corps plans to hire a contractor late this year for a $309 million project to build a second concrete wall throughout the entire earthen part of the dam. It also will go much deeper into the underlying bedrock to cut off leak channels.

The corps plans to keep the surface level of the lake at 680 feet above sea level this summer -- instead of the usual mark of 723 feet -- to ease pressure on the dam. That has left most boat-launching ramps on the lake out of the water and has caused concerns that tourism will suffer.

However, Craig Shoe, resource manager for the lake, said work is already under way to extend ramps. Ramps that handle most of the traffic on the lake will be open by boating season, and the lake will still have a giant area for recreation, Shoe said.

Larry Craig, power project manager at the dam, said its six generators can produce enough power for a city the size of Louisville. But this year, the dam won't produce power when the lake is at 680 feet -- only at times when it's necessary to generate in order to lower the lake after rains, Craig said.

Other power plants, including those in the Cumberland river basin, will make up the difference, he said. "You'll get your power from here or somewhere else."

March 1, 2007
Commonwealth Journal
Dam repair schedule could be shortened
BY BILL MARDIS Editor Emeritus

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has good news for the “Ohio Navy” and business people in the Lake Cumberland area who serve the tourist industry. Corps officials say they are trying to shorten by two years the time it takes to rehabilitate Wolf Creek Dam.
Mike Zoccola, chief of the Civil Design Branch for the Corps, pointed out that the “ ... official or published schedule” has been seven years -- two years for grouting and five years to insert a diaphragm into the earthen part of the structure. This announced timetable projects the completion in 2014.

However, Zoccola told the Commonwealth Journal Wednesday that if funded at proper levels the repair project could be completed more quickly. Some $51 million to rehabilitate Wolf Creek Dam are in the current federal budget. Reportedly President Bush’s proposed budget for the 2007-2008 fiscal year includes another $54 million for the dam. Zoccola did not say how much more money will be needed to compress the repair timetable.

Zoccola said the original plan for rehabilitating Wolf Creek Dam called for a five-year repair program. He said if the project is funded at sufficient levels the Corps could revert to the original five-year schedule.
The engineer said separating the grouting from the diaphragm already has put the project a year ahead. Normally, the diaphragm and grouting are in the same contract, he remarked.

Advanced Construction Techniques Ltd., Ontario, Canada, began an accelerated grouting program in December. A contract to insert a four-foot-thick concrete diaphragm through the earthen section of the dam to 100 feet into the bedrock is currently scheduled for awarding this coming December.
The diaphragm called for in the current project will be upstream from a similar concrete wall put in the dam during the 1970s. The first diaphragm was about three feet thick and extended only about 25 feet into the bedrock. It did not go the entire length of the earthen section.

The new diaphragm will go about 75 feet deeper into the bedrock and extend all the way from the concrete section of the dam to the end of the earthen part at the road (U.S. 127). Corps officials say they believe that at 100 feet into the bedrock the diaphragm will be below the limestone karst that causes the leaks.

Wolf Creek Dam was built during the 1940s atop a limestone base honeycombed with cavities. Limestone deteriorates in water and the tremendous pressure on Wolf Creek Dam eventually forces water to find a path beneath or through the dam. Corps officials insist that the current seepage is not nearly as serious as the situation discovered in the late 1960s. Then, sinkholes developed and muddy water was running in the tailrace.

However, mainly because of the way the Corps evaluates dams since Hurricane Katrina, Wolf Creek Dam is considered at “high risk” of failure. Lt. Col. Steven Roemhildt, commander of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Nashville District, and other Corps officials have said they would feel safe camping at Kendall Recreation Area directly downstream from the dam. Kendall remains open to visitors and the Corps has indicated that improvements are planned at the camping area.
Zoccola said the dam is monitored 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Somebody checks on the dam structure during every shift, he added.

The dam has been under close scrutiny since March 2005 when the Corps decided a major rehabilitation of the structure is necessary. In January of this year, the Corps said the lake level would be lowered to 680 feet above sea level, or 43 feet below the tree line, at least for the remainder of this year.

Roemhildt has said several times that the lake level will be raised only when it is safe to do so. The situation at the dam will be re-evaluated in September or October to see if the grouting now underway has stopped the seepage sufficiently to change the water level. Grouting is forcing liquid concrete into cavities in the dam.

February 24, 2007
Commonwealth Journal
Citizens Seem Satisfied with Corps' Answers on Lake
By BILL MARDIS, Staff Writer

Somerset — Most local people seemed satisfied with responses from a Corps of Engineers’ panel during a community forum Thursday night about the instability of Wolf Creek Dam.

The 800 theater seats at The Center for Rural Development in Somerset were about half full for the first meeting in Kentucky with the Corps since Lake Cumberland has been lowered to 43 feet below the tree line for the remainder of this year. Previous community meetings have been held downstream from Wolf Creek Dam, classified as a “high risk” for failure.

Lt. Col. Steven Roemhildt, commander of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Nashville District, repeated a Corps promise that “ ... we have no plans to reduce the pool that is now 680 feet above sea level. He did say there is a possibility of a lower lake level if conditions worsen at the dam.

Roemhildt apparently means that if the accelerated grouting now underway at the dam doesn’t shut off most of the seepage, or if sinkholes or muddy flows develop, it may be necessary to further lower the lake level. Corps officials have said the situation at the dam will be reevaluated late this year and they emphasized that “public safety trumps all.”

The Corps commander assured the Somerset crowd that Wolf Creek Dam is being closely monitored seven days a week, 24 hours a day. The monitoring includes sophisticated pressure reading equipment in the dam’s structure and “ ... somebody is walking the dam 24 hours a day.”

Corps officials repeated an earlier statement that conditions at the dam have not changed as much as the way the Corps currently evaluates dam safety. A lot is being done differently since Hurricane Katrina washed away low-lying parts of New Orleans, they indicated.

A $309.1 million rehabilitation of Wolf Creek Dam got underway a couple of months ago. It includes a four-foot-thick concrete diaphragm inserted to level 475, or about 100 feet into the bedrock below the dam.

Corps officials believe at this depth the new diaphragm will be below the limestone karst blamed for the leaking. An existing diaphragm, installed after more serious leaks developed in the 1960s, extends only 25 feet into the bedrock and doesn’t go the entire length of the earthen section of the dam.

Corps officials predicted Thursday night that it will take two years to complete the grouting and five years to insert the new diaphragm. The rehabilitation project is scheduled for completion in 2014.

After an hour and a half of explaining the situation at the dam, the community forum evolved into a question and answer session. Microphones at both sides of the theater allowed those in attendance to present questions to a panel of Corps and state officials. In summary, some of the answers were:

• Mike Zoccola, chief of the Civil Design Branch, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, revealed that the Corps has been requested to revisit the possibility of building a new dam to impound Lake Cumberland. He said such a project has been estimated to cost in the neighborhood of a billion dollars. “ ... And with environmental challenges this day and time, none of us in this room would live to see a new dam completed. Meantime, we’ve got to live with Wolf Creek Dam,” Zoccola concluded.

• Don Franklin, Area 12 manager for the Kentucky Department of Emergency Management, said efforts are being made to install more warning sirens along the lake in the event of a catastrophic breach of Wolf Creek Dam. He said most boats have marine radios to receive NOAA weather radio signals, carrier of a first alarm in the event of a dam failure.

• The Corps has authority to improve only launching ramps operated by the Corps, and at marinas. It was pointed out that the state and counties are working with the Corps to make the lake more accessible. The Corps is in the process of letting contracts for ramp improvements, including the ramp at Waitsboro Recreation Area and Lee’s Ford Marina and Resort. The ramp at Cumberland Point will be made usable in time for the upcoming vacation season, according to Mike Ensch, chief of operations for the Corps.

• Improvements to privately permitted ramps and county-operated ramps should be coordinated with the resource manager’s office in Somerset.

• The Corps will take advantage of lower lake levels to clean debris from the banks. Improvements will also be made at some Corps-operated recreational areas.

• There is no anticipation at the present time that travel will be disrupted on U.S. 127 across the dam. Zocolla said equipment relocation might cause lane blockage from time to time.

• Corps officials described the 35,000-acre Lake Cumberland at the current level as a “magnificent lake.”

Members of the Corps panel participating in the community forum were: Roemhildt, Zoccola, Bob Sneed, chief of the Corps’ Water Management Section; Ensch, Franklin, retired General Maxwell Bailey, director of Kentucky Emergency Management Department; and Marilyn Thomas, engineer with the Kentucky Department of Water and Dam Safety. Several members of Gov. Ernie Flether’s staff were in the audience.

February 12, 2007
Cinncinnati Post
Guide Confident fishing in lake won't hurt
by Kerry Duke

RUSSELL SPRINGS - Les Frizzel, a local fishing guide who works out of the Alligator Dock No. 1 on Lake Cumberland, is optimistic about fishing in a lake that has been lowered by more than 40 feet.

"It's going to help fishing," Frizzel said.

In the lowered lake, Frizzel expects the fish to be more concentrated and for there to be less debris from changing lake levels and so cleaner water. That can add up to good fishing for the lake's famed striped bass.

But with a bit of probing, he acknowledged there's some caution in his optimism for the lake that the Army Corps of Engineers has lowered to 680 feet above sea level - 43 feet below the summertime pool of 723 with the intention of keeping it there while $309 million in repairs are made to the leaking Wolf Creek Dam that impounds the lake.

"If they have to keep it down for a long time and we don't get any rain at all, it could eventually hurt the fish," Frizzel said.

Then he quickly added: "We aren't expecting that because we have plenty of rain all the time and it keeps the oxygen in there."

Like other fisherman he worries about the temperature of the water. For those who fish above Wolf Creek Dam in Lake Cumberland or below it in the Cumberland River, the critical factor when it comes to healthy aquatic life likely rests more with the temperature of the water than the level of it in the lowered lake.

The two are interrelated since the cold water homes of the strippers in Lake Cumberland are on the bottom of the lake and it's also water from the bottom of the lake behind the dam that flows into the Cumberland River where brown and rainbow trout abound.

Johnny Rush of Rainbow Guide Service in Burkesville fears fishing could be damaged this summer if too much cold water is drawn off the bottom of the lake at the dam to maintain a consistent lake level.

"You start pulling 40-, 50-foot of water out of there and a lot of that cold water is gone. A lot of that cold water comes right out of the bottom of the lake," Rush said. With a shallower lake, "it's going to warm up deeper down."

Rush, a 16-year fishing guide, also is concerned about the effects of the weather.

"If we have a hot dry summer and of course, they don't generate (electricity and open the gates at the dam), it may heat the water up and start killing trout. That's one of the big concerns," he said.

James Gray, project leader at the Wolf Creek National Fish Hatchery just below the dam, shares the concern about the temperature of the water coming out of the lake into the Cumberland River since it's that water, drawn from the bottom of the lake, that supplies the hatchery. The hatchery raises all of the brown and rainbow trout for the commonwealth.

"Our fear is that the Corps' going to try to maintain 680 (feet above sea level) no matter what. So let's say they gets it down to 680 and we get a 5-inch rain and the lake jumps 10 feet overnight, which it can do. They are going to try to get that 10 feet out of there as quick as possible," Gray said. "Our concern is if they do that two or three times, what little bit of cold water storage we've got in the lake, eventually we're going to lose.

"A lot of that is unknown," he acknowledged. "The chances are real that it could happen. A lot of it depends on the weather."

Bobby Gray, a fishing guide with the Fly and Shot Outfitters shop in Erlanger who fishes the Cumberland River below the dam about twice a month, worries the Corps could be forced by a heavy rainstorm to discharge too much of the cold water from the bottom of the lake.

"If they have to dump 80-degree water in the river, that's going to be a real issue," Gray said.

He also acknowledges that it's too early to know how fishing both in the lake above the dam and in the river below it will be.

"I don't think anybody really knows exactly what's going to happen," he said. "Everybody is just anticipating some things."

January 31st, 2007
Commonwealth Journal, Somerset KY
Corps commander: Wolf Creek Dam not in imminent danger of failure
By BILL MARDIS Editor Emeritus

“I would feel safe. I would personally take my family and camp at Kendall campground.”

Steven J. Roemhildt, commander of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Nashville District, was responding to a reporter’s question about how confident he is that Wolf Creek Dam is not in imminent danger of catastrophic failure. Kendall Recreation Area is a popular camping and picnic spot immediately below the Wolf Creek Dam structure. The tailrace is also a popular trout fishing stream.

“I have employees living along the banks of the Cumberland River,” Roemhildt added, indicating he does not fear for their safety.

Speaking to a group of local reporters yesterday afternoon, Roemhildt said the current condition of Wolf Creek Dam “ ... is no worse or no better than it was last year or two years ago.” Roemhildt was accompanied to Somerset by Bill Peoples, chief of public affairs for the Corps. They met earlier in the day with city and county officials.

The Corps announced in August 2005 that the giant earthen and concrete structure that impounds 101-mile-long Lake Cumberland is leaking again and a $309 million, seven-year rehabilitation of the dam is necessary. The dam has been classified as a “high risk” for failure.

A week ago yesterday, the Corps revealed that the lake level will be lowered to 680 feet above sea level (43 feet below the tree line) at least for the remainder of this year to ease pressure on the ailing dam.

Roemhildt said yesterday that an accelerated grouting program is under way in an attempt to stop seepage through and beneath the earthen section of the dam and below the concrete portion of the structure. He said platforms are being constructed yesterday and today to support drilling equipment to force the liquid concrete into the dam.

A $51 million contract has been let to a Canadian firm to do the grouting. The dam will be re-evaluated this fall to determine the success of the project.

Reminded that much of the concrete washed away during a two-year grouting program in the late 1960s, Roemhildt conceded that some of the concrete might not stay in the dam, but he expressed confidence the grout will form a protective curtain.

Another contract will be awarded in December to insert a second concrete diaphragm through the earthen portion of the dam. Roemhildt said an original diaphragm put into the dam in the 1970s to stop leakage “is still working” according to piezometers (pressure reading devices) installed in the dam while the structure was being repaired in the 1970s.

Engineers insist that the current seepage is not nearly as serious as the leaks discovered in the 1960s when large sinkholes developed and muddy water was observed in the tailrace of the dam.

However, Roemhildt said yesterday there are visible signs that the dam is still leaking. He said there are “wet spots” and places where vegetation growth indicates water is coming through the structure.

“There is no water ‘flowing’ through the dam,” he pointed out.

The diaphragm inserted in the dam in the 1970s extended 25 feet into the bedrock. The planned diaphragm will go 100 feet into the bedrock and extend the entire length of the earthen portion of the dam.

Roemhildt is meeting personally with city and county officials above and below Wolf Creek Dam. “I know what an impact the lake has on these communities,” he remarked.

The 680-foot lake level is higher than recommended by a peer group of independent consulting engineers who suggested a level between 610 and 670 feet. A level of 610 is as low as the lake can be drained and 670 is below the intake pipe of at least one community that gets water from Lake Cumberland.

Roemhildt said the 680 foot level is more practical and emphasized that he is comfortable with that level. The target date to reach that level is February 12, he noted.

“If we get a lot of rain, it will go higher than that,” said Roemhildt. However, he said it is unlikely that the lake will go much lower than a foot below 680. “That’s our target,” he added.

Building a new dam was an option considered by the Corps, Roemhildt said, but such a course is not financially feasible.

Considering the $233 million annual benefit of the lake to this area, Roemhildt said the $310 million (original estimate was $300 million and later $309 million) is not very much. He emphasized, as he has before, that problems at Wolf Creek Dam “can be fixed.”

Asked when the level of Lake Cumberland might be raised, Roemhildt stated frankly: “I don’t know. I’m going to raise the lake when I feel it is safe to do so.”

He expressed confidence that the lake will go no lower than 680 feet unless sinkholes and slides appear or there is muddy water in the tailrace. None of these conditions exist, he emphasized.

“There is no change in the physical condition of the dam,” he reiterated.

Roemhildt said the Corps is in the process of preparing maps that show areas that would be inundated in case of a catastrophic failure of the dam. These maps will be available within a few days on the Internet and at the Pulaski County Public Library, he said.

He said the maps are being prepared, not necessarily because of fear of dam failure, but “ ... people want to know if my house” would be affected.

Corps engineers are planning a meeting in Washington, D.C. on Friday to see if money is available to assist in a mitigation program. Roemhildt expressed confidence that financial help will be forthcoming.

After that, town hall-type meetings will be held to explain the situation to the public.

In the event of a catastrophic failure, the very first telephone call would be made to the National Weather Service, then to county 9-1-1 systems.

“It would be treated like a tornado warning and would become the responsibility of county and state planners,” Roemhildt said.

January 22, 2005
Corp of Engineeers
Official release: Corps to reduce water level in Lake Cumberland

NASHVILLE, TENN. (January 22, 2007) - The Commander of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Nashville District, today announced plans to lower the lake level at Lake Cumberland (Wolf Creek Dam), in Russell County, Ky., effective immediately to 680 feet, in response to Corps and independent studies that have classified the dam as being at “high risk” for structural failure.

Normal pool levels are 723 feet in the summer and 690 feet in the winter. Dam safety experts will continually monitor conditions at Wolf Creek and further reductions may be necessary depending on the effect that lower lake levels have on the dam. Lowering the lake level will reduce the risk of dam failure by decreasing water pressure on the dam and reducing foundation seepage. These changes are in concert with ongoing rehabilitation plans at Wolf Creek that address the problem of seepage through the foundation of the dam.

“Public safety is our paramount concern,” said Lt. Col. Steven J. Roemhildt, Commander, Nashville District. “Since March 2005, we have modified the operation of Lake Cumberland to reduce high lake levels; we are now further lowering the lake levels to reduce risk. We understand that this decision will adversely impact many people, communities, and businesses that rely upon Lake Cumberland for project purposes and other uses, but we must take this emergency action to reduce risk to the public and to the dam itself.” The Nashville District will maintain the 680-foot elevation for the remainder of this year and will reevaluate lake levels in the Sept-Oct ‘07 time-frame for next year’s operation.

Authorized project purposes for Wolf Creek Dam include Flood Control, Hydropower, Water Quality, and Recreation. The Nashville District is formulating a plan to mitigate effects to project purposes such as extension of boat ramps to allow additional access to the lake at this lower level.

Because of the seriousness of the foundation seepage problems at Wolf Creek Dam, the Army Corps of Engineers is taking these emergency measures to reduce the lake level and is initiating an accelerated grouting program.

“A high level of risk does exist,” said Roemhildt. “Reducing lake levels lowers pressure on the dam and pumping grout into the ground lessens erosion, both of which immediately reduce risk.” The Army Corps of Engineers has identified Wolf Creek Dam as one of the highest risk dams in the Corps Inventory.

The Corps will request full funding to accelerate construction of the remedial project. Nashville District has already awarded the first construction contract for the grouting program and grouting is underway.

The Army Corps of Engineers has an aggressive national Dam Safety Program that includes constant monitoring of all of the dams in the Cumberland River System. The Corps, in conjunction with state and local agencies, maintains emergency notification plans for each of its dams and these plans are used in the event of a dam failure. The Nashville District will continue to keep the public informed of the conditions at Wolf Creek Dam and the progress of rehabilitation work throughout the project with news releases and postings on this website: http://www.lrn.usace.army.mil/pao/issues/WOLcommo/

The District will soon publish the time and location for a series of public meetings in nearby communities explaining the emergency measures, mitigation efforts, and dam safety. Additionally, the District will initiate alternative procedures to process an Environmental Impact Statement pursuant to the National Environmental Policy Act. Public and agency input will be solicited as part of these forums.