Dams

Our engineers have designed and supervised construction of numerous dams, including earthfill, roller compacted concrete, and even small concrete dams. WWC has designed and successfully permitted numerous large earthfill dams for a variety of purposes, in addition to countless smaller ponds for clients in Wyoming, Montana, Louisiana, and Kansas. For our mining clients our engineers have completed designs of dozens of earthfill dams large enough to be regulated by the Federal Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) as “major impoundments”.

This experience has provided WWC’s engineers with a good working knowledge of the concerns of the various regulatory personnel, including MSHA and state agencies responsible for enforcing Safety of Dams programs. Over the past two decades our engineers have encountered a variety of design and construction issues, including difficult foundation conditions, shortage of suitable embankment materials, soil stability issues, seepage problems, potential consolidation, highly permeable soils, high hazards designations, probable maximum flood (PMF) computations, fishery considerations, and the need for gravity and pump dewatering systems. Our capabilities include the full range of regulatory permitting, from water rights to 404 permits to full-blown Environmental Impact Statements.