WOLF CREEK DAM: A CASE STUDY OF FOUNDATION REMEDIATION FOR DAMS BUILT ON KARST FOUNDATIONS

Wolf Creek Dam was completed in 1952 as a 5,736 ft long and 258 ft high combination embankment-concrete gravity dam. Its storage capacity of 6 million acre feet makes it the ninth largest reservoir in the nation. The dam was built on a heavily karstified limestone foundation and began exhibiting signs of excess foundation seepage in late 1967. This led to extensive corrective work beneath the earthen core of the right abutment embankment to reduce underseepage. In 2006 an independent assessment by the Dam Safety Action Classification Peer Review Panel recommended that Wolf Creek Dam exhibited “Urgent and Compelling” foundation seepage issues that required immediate attention. This classification triggered the most complex dam foundation remediation project of any dam in the world, with an estimated total cost of $594 million, requiring six years of construction. The drilling and grouting techniques being applied insitu beneath the embankment section will likely establish new standards of practice for remediation and foundation beneficiation for hydraulic structures built on karst sites, specifically embedded barrier walls.