SOIL-CEMENT CONTINUES TO BE BIG IN TEXAS DAMS

By: Kenneth D. Hansen, PE
Texas is entering a new era in dam building to satisfy the need for increased water supply for municipalities, industry and agriculture. The five mile long Lane City Reservoir (links to information sheet and  video) in Wharton County will be the first large reservoir built in Texas this century. It will be closely followed by Lower Bois d’Arc Dam in Fannin County, an expansion of Harris reservoir in Brazoria County and Allens Creek reservoir in Austin County.

All of these new embankment dams are expected to utilize soil-cement to protect their upstream slopes from waves which could be generated by hurricane force winds. Soil-cement in Texas has proven to be a less costly and a better performing solution for slope protection than rock riprap- which is not readily available in most of Texas.

The use of soil-cement for protecting major dams in Texas goes back more than 50 years. Much has been learned from the performance of these early soil-cement protected dams. These lessons will be summarized by me during a Soil-Cement Short Course to be held at Wharton, Texas on September 14, 2017. The program includes a night tour of soil-cement being placed by the latest specialized equipment and methods on the Lane City reservoir being built for the Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRA).  Phillips and Jordan is contractor for the CH2M-designed embankment.

What has been learned from the original Bonny Reservoir, Colorado soil-cement test section built by the US Bureau of Reclamation in 1951 will be presented.  It will be followed by lessons I learned from being involved in the following major soil-cement protected projects in Texas – Toledo Bend Dam, the cooling water reservoirs for the Barney M. Davis Power Station and the South Texas nuclear plant, Palmetto Bend Dam (forms Lake Texana) and Choke Canyon Dam. All of these dams have been performing as designed for more than 35 years. 
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In addition to hearing about the purpose, design and construction of the Lane City reservoir, registrants will be introduced to soil-cement being used to protect stream banks.  Soil-cement for this application has been well received and well tested for protection of erodible sandy river banks from floods in urban areas of Arizona, southern California, New Mexico and Colorado.