Wolf Creek Dam - Seepage

Seepage

In 1968, signs of seepage problems within Wolf Creek Dam's earthen embankments and foundation were discovered. Sinkholes appeared at the downstream toe of the dam, and muddy water was observed in the dam's outflow channel. The seepage problems were traced to the karst geology of the region which allows for the dissolution of limestone in the dam's foundation. Solution channels caused by this process allow piping to occur, which adds to the rate of erosion in the foundation.

The dam and its adjacent reservoir reside upon a heavily Karst bedrock foundation. Karst formations are large void spaces lying beneath seemingly solid species of limestone bedrock. Karst formations are created when limestone bedrocks are, over time, attacked by water through natural precipitation seepage. The rain or snowmelt water contains dissolved carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, which, in solution, forms a weak carbonic acid. That acid attacks the limestone rock dissolving it, and thereby leading to the voids within the rock formation. When a reservoir of 100+ feet in elevation is raised above this style of foundation, the hydraulic pressure of the water easily dislodges the cementing clays that are in the cracks and void spaces of the under laying Karst foundation.

Keying a concrete dam’s footing form into such a foundation; along with injecting waterproof grout into the void spaces between the dam’s concrete base and the rock foundation (so as to fill the foundation’s voids) will usually create a watertight seal above, at, and below the foundation of a concrete dam, in a Karst locale.

However Wolf Creek is primarily an earth fill embankment dam. In this form of construction the majority of the dam’s structure (measured by length across the streambed) is a nominally waterproof earth fill embankment body, with only the powerhouse and (if so equipped) the controlled overflow spillway section located within a concrete monolith. In the particular case of Wolf Creek dam, the earth embankment section is placed directly upon the formerly existing streambed; with only the surface soils and clays removed. While the upstream interface between the embankment section's foot and the old streambed is nominally waterproof, the Karst solution channels far under the mass of the earth embankment section proper, can directly attack the porous and not waterproofed foundation of the earth embankment section of the dam. It is this phenomenon that has occurred and led directly to the seepage problem.

A short-term solution of grouting the existing seepage channels was employed immediately; grouting in the dam foundation ran from 1968 to 1970 and is credited with saving the dam. Construction of a long-term solution began in 1975 in the form of a seepage cut-off wall. A concrete diaphragm wall was chosen as the appropriate cut-off solution and extended through the earth embankment into the rock foundation. The cut-off wall was completed in 1979.