Operation & maintenance |
Plotting a path to better dam safety at SJWD
Aging assets, climate change and creeping urbanisation is increasing both the risks and consequences of failure for dam owners. Now utilities and regulators are partnering up to explore new routes to better dam safety. By David Appleyard
FOR THE OWNERS AND operators of dams and hydraulic structures, the world is becoming more risky. Not only are many dams decades old and reaching the end of their design life, there are other factors that are also ramping up dam risk. Climate change is prompting more extreme weather events, for example, while at the same time the expansion of urban areas and commercial zones is making the consequences of any dam failure far greater with more properties, businesses and lives put at risk of inundation. In a bid to address this changing risk profile, dam owners are looking to adopt new remote sensing techniques that can give them a more accurate and detailed assessment of their asset base than conventional periodic visual inspections. These new approaches make management of such structures more effective and ultimately safer.
Asset owners and regulators join forces for safety
With many dams in North America already clocking up decades of service, dam owners are adopting new approaches to asset monitoring. SJWD Water District, for instance, is a public water utility located in Spartanburg County in South Carolina which owns five dams. Four of these structures are considered high hazard with significant consequences and high potential for loss of life or infrastructure damage in the event of a failure.
Recognising the increased necessity of trying to stay ahead of any potential failure, the state regulatory agency, the South Carolina Department of Health and
28 | October 2021 |
www.waterpowermagazine.com
Environmental Control (DHEC), approached SJWD as a potential partner for a pilot using geospatial AI provider Rezatec’s dam risk monitoring tool on two of the company’s dams, Lyman Lake and Lake Cooley. These two dams are both earthen dams, one being built in the 1950s and the other in the 1970s. With a lot of dams being constructed during this period these structures are a pretty typical age of dams for South Carolina. “Our goal is to use this technology to stay ahead of any changes that could impact the integrity of our dams. What really intrigued us about the Rezatec solution was the ability to see the whole dam in more of a granular fashion. It has the ability to detect minor differences and then with the AI make recommendations based off that. It won’t take the place of our inspections, but it enhances and possibly gives us more information by which we can make decisions later on that might affect our capital improvement plans,” says Billy Cothran, CEO of SJWD.
Under the three-year pilot scheme, both SJWD and
DHEC receive monthly updates which flag up and provide a location for any potential issues that may arise. While both regulators and owners may have a different set of potential desired outcomes from this pilot there is clear value for a regulatory agency as another set of eyes for them to ensure that things aren’t being missed in the current mandated annual inspection programme. “This should provide South Carolina DHEC with
a greater level of confidence in the efforts taken to monitor assets that could have large potential
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53
