Photo By Samantha Heilig | A bathymetric survey image showing more than 40 years of debris collected in front of...... read more read more
Each day, an average of 2.7 million gallons of water passes through the Saylorville Dam, every minute. Most materials in the water, like fish, vegetation, and small trash, pass through the control tower intake with ease but larger items like tree branches and heavy debris are stopped by a protective structure known as the trash rack. This summer, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Rock Island District, contracted a company to remove nearly 40 years of accumulated debris from the trash rack.
Daily closures of the dam were necessary for several weeks to allow divers to safely clear debris from the structure. On weekdays, outflows at the dam were reduced to zero cubic feet per second (cfs) each morning and returned to a maximum of 3,000 cfs in the evenings. Once the debris was dislodged from the trash rack, a crane was used to lift the woody debris from the water and haul it away. In total, an estimated 650 cubic yards of material was removed from the rack, and it will be burned later this winter when conditions are more favorable.
Now that the debris is removed, there is less concern of water flow blockage and larger debris getting caught up in the conduit.
“After nearly 45 years of service and not a major clean out of the trash rack during this time, it was imperative that this pile of woody debris was removed so as not to impede water flows,” said Jeff Rose Operations Project Manager for the Des Moines River Area. “For the gates to be closed with zero outflow, we worked closely with downstream stakeholders in order to limit the impact as much as possible. The contractor was efficient in their work which enabled the project to be completed earlier than planned.”
| Date Taken: | 10.24.2022 |
| Date Posted: | 10.25.2022 08:54 |
| Story ID: | 431917 |
| Location: | ROCK ISLAND ARSENAL, ILLINOIS, US |
| Web Views: | 106 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Decades of Debris Removed from Saylorville Dam, by Samantha Heilig, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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