BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has approved spending more than $42.9 million to repair damages to Fort Peck Dam after the record 2011 flooding that broke levees and swamped homes along the Missouri River.
It is part of $234 million slated for more than 100 projects to stabilize dams and levees from Fort Peck to the river’s junction with the Mississippi River.
The 2011 flooding was caused by near-record snowpack that remained on the ground later than normal and then ran off into ground already saturated by heavy rainfall, which also boosted the Missouri River’s flow. Almost one-third of the homes in Minot, N.D., were damaged by flooding.
Six contracts have been awarded to repair Fort Peck Dam, the most expensive of which is more than $33.8 million that will go to rehabilitate the dam’s plunge pool, the Billings Gazette reported (http://bit.ly/YEaJAf).
ASI Constructors Inc. of West Pueblo, Colo., has been contracted to build a coffer dam to dry out the plunge pool, then install and anchor concrete.
That work is not expected to be completed until December 2015.
“We allowed three years for that work,” said John Daggett, Fort Peck project manager. “Part of the job is to cut those bank walls back and stabilize those.”
Another $6.62 million will go to rehabilitating the dam’s 16 40-foot-by-foot spillway gates, which can release up to 275,000 cubic feet per second of water.
That job was awarded to J.F. Brennan Co. Inc., a marine construction company from La Crosse, Wis., and is scheduled for completion in December 2014.
Another $1.69 million will go to repair drains on the 5,000-foot-long spillway channel.
Three other projects will install relief well pipes, rehabilitate the spillway and control seepage.
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Information from: Billings Gazette, http://www.billingsgazette.com
