| June
9,
2005
 (San Diego, Calif.) The Olivenhain Dam was recently recognized
in the American Society of Civil Engineers’ (ASCE) Outstanding
Civil Engineering Achievement (OCEA) worldwide competition. This
dam was one of five merit finalists, having won a prestigious 2005
OCEA Merit Award.
Olivenhain Dam is the tallest roller-compacted concrete (RCC) gravity
dam in North America. It is 318 feet high and 2,586 feet long and
contains 1.44 million cubic yards of RCC. It is the first RCC gravity
dam constructed in California.
Gannett Fleming, an international planning, design, and construction
management firm, was a principal subcontractor to the Parsons-Harza
Joint Venture. Gannett Fleming provided services for RCC materials
investigation, RCC mix design, RCC thermal stress modeling, on-site
quarry investigations, and RCC dam design. The firm was also responsible
for dam facing system design, foundation gallery design, instrumentation
system design, and construction phase engineering support.
The $200 million dam is located in a forest preserve approximately
17 miles north of San Diego, Calif., and is part of the San Diego
County Water Authority’s
$1 billion Emergency Storage Project. The dam’s reservoir is intended
to provide 24,000 acre-feet of local raw water supply reserves to the San Diego
County area and its three million people in the event of a natural or man-made
catastrophe. In fact, on June 15, 2004, a 5.2 magnitude earthquake shook Southern
California and the dam performed as designed.
The Olivenhain Dam has received numerous other accolades, including
being named the 2003 Project of the Year by the ASCE, San Diego Section;
2003 Project of the Year by the San Diego/Imperial Counties Chapter
of the American Public Works Association; and 2003 Charles J. Pankow
Jr. Award by the American Concrete Institute, Southern California
Chapter. In addition, the dam received the 2005 Honor Award in Design
by the American Academy of Environmental Engineers.
|
