Project Specifics

Center Hill Dam is one of the multipurpose projects that make up the Corps of Engineers’ system for development of the water resources of the Cumberland River Basin. As a major unit in the system, Center Hill Dam and Lake function to control the floodwaters of the Caney Fork River and contribute to the reduction of flood levels at municipal, industrial and agricultural areas along the Cumberland, lower Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. In addition to the far-reaching effects of flood control, the project contributes to the electrical power supply of the area through the generation of clean, safe and efficient hydroelectric power.

In late 2011, The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Nashville District selected Bauer Foundation Corporation to construct a subsurface concrete barrier wall to stabilize the earthen embankment portion of the aging dam. The $106 million contract is the major feature of a multi-phase dam rehabilitation program. This second phase of a three-phase rehabilitation plan includes the construction of a continuous concrete barrier wall for long-term stability and seepage prevention through the earthen dam embankment. The vertical seepage barrier wall will extend down over 300 feet beneath the top of the dam and require embedment of over 100 feet into the limestone bedrock. Bauer’s specialty excavation equipment will remove long columns of the earthen dam and rock foundation which will be replaced with concrete. The concrete columns will overlap to form a long, continuous concrete wall acting as a barrier for potentially harmful seepage water moving beneath the earthen dam.

Geosyntec Scope of Services

As part of the Bauer Team, Geosyntec provided geotechnical engineering support for a variety of construction services including: preparation of technical submittals; value engineering; instrumentation; automated data acquisition; and waste slurry disposal management. Geosyntec was also responsible for developing the construction data management and visualization system which controls the flow of information between the contractor and the government and is the primary mechanism for gauging construction progress and overall compliance with the contract specifications. In order to manage the numerous and diverse data compiled for these projects, Geosyntec developed WallTracker, a database and GIS application based on a Visual Basic, Microsoft Access and ESRI ArcGIS platform.

Notable Accomplishments

Geosyntec’s WallTracker application streamlined the project workflow, allowing data to be compiled and accessed through an intuitive user interface as it was collected and verified. Project managers and stakeholders could track progress as well as analyze and respond to trends in the data, which maximized efficiency of this construction project.

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