Cracking at the Cotter Dam

Gungahlin Al said :

Fondly rembering the pseudo-engineering debate over the bridge collapse… Back in my box.

I may not have a civil engineering degree or be up on the latest standards, but I suspect unprovoked collapse is a feature normally kept outside any project scope.

johnboy said :

Gungahlin Al said :

Since when has the lack of an engineering background held some RA readers back from giving engineering assessments? 🙂

It was more a specific invitation.

I understand. I was just trying to make funny. Fondly rembering the pseudo-engineering debate over the bridge collapse… Back in my box.

chewy14 said :

Cracks in the wall had to FOIed?

Well, that just about sums up how this government works these days it would seem.

Let me reiterate, cracks in the dam wall had to be FOIed.

Raising eyebrows?

Why?

Do you expect to be informed about every issue at every construction site in the ACT?

If they were cracks likely to lead to any sort of failure, you can bet the engineers would be calling for some very serious remediation works.

They probably didn’t want to make the information public because of exactly the sort of uninformed speculation you’re likely to see on this thread.

Under any normal process of government, the opposition or media would go to the relevant Minister and ask if the recent flooding caused any damage to the work and has there been an assessment of the costs to fix it. A normal government would say yes, there was some damage, we’re assessing it and it might set back construction.

Here in the ACT, however, the exchange would run something like:
“Was there any damage and what will it cost to fix it.”
“We’re not going to tell you.”
“Why not?”
“Nunya”
“Well, we’ll FOI it.”
“You do that.”
“We will.”
“Off you go then.”
“Right-ho.”
<<>>
“Oh, you did then, none of this is real and we’re not to blame” *runs and hides*

Jivrashia said :

Does anyone have an emergency response plan for in the case that it gets worse?

If not then…

Holden Caulfield said :

Run for the hills!

+1

Surely you want to be running away from the dam not towards it :-p

MarkS said :

Sorry for delay. Tied up on Grandfather duties. Document is a very technical report to regulator on the dam. I told Ross Solly about it a few weeks ago on breakast radio and will talk with Alex Sloan this morning. Cracks have been remediated and are now five metres under. Remediation involves cutting them out and placing fabric and reinforced steel over them. The cracks are local and will not expand through the dam. Grout lines will enable final closure.
We deal with concrete issues continually on the dam. Minor honeycombing is common. Again drill it out and repair. Biggest daily concern is the quality of the mix and our quality assurance processes are very strong (excuse the pun) and concrete is good
Dam is in good shape. These issues do not impact on our budget as they are an expected contingency. Rain over last two weekends only issue since restart but excellent work keeps us on schedule and budget (revised of course)
Report shows the very proper independent scrutiny and review involved in building a dam. Liked the thread

🙂 Thanks Mark.

Sorry for delay. Tied up on Grandfather duties. Document is a very technical report to regulator on the dam. I told Ross Solly about it a few weeks ago on breakast radio and will talk with Alex Sloan this morning. Cracks have been remediated and are now five metres under. Remediation involves cutting them out and placing fabric and reinforced steel over them. The cracks are local and will not expand through the dam. Grout lines will enable final closure.
We deal with concrete issues continually on the dam. Minor honeycombing is common. Again drill it out and repair. Biggest daily concern is the quality of the mix and our quality assurance processes are very strong (excuse the pun) and concrete is good
Dam is in good shape. These issues do not impact on our budget as they are an expected contingency. Rain over last two weekends only issue since restart but excellent work keeps us on schedule and budget (revised of course)
Report shows the very proper independent scrutiny and review involved in building a dam. Liked the thread

Reading the material gives me cause for concern. No doubt it was a significant storm event and no doubt there were risk plans in place. What the community will be wanting is reassurance that the cracking will not compromise the structure…. particularly for such a costly and high profile project?

justin heywood said :

chewy14 said :

….[If they were cracks likely to lead to any sort of failure, you can bet the engineers would be calling for some very serious remediation works.

LOL. Yeah right. We ARE talking about the ACT Government here Chewy – not exactly famous for their good management of large infrastructure projects, nor for transparency about their activities.

They’re not good on transparency, but they certainly don’t muck around with things like this.

When they found a massive gap forming between Corin Dam wall and the slip way due to uneven settling of the dam wall in the centre, they were very quick to initiate remediation works because of the genuine (though limited) risk of not only the dam failing, but of it causing a cascade failure. Very few people knew of this because the government kept it hidden.

chewy14 said :

….[If they were cracks likely to lead to any sort of failure, you can bet the engineers would be calling for some very serious remediation works.

LOL. Yeah right. We ARE talking about the ACT Government here Chewy – not exactly famous for their good management of large infrastructure projects, nor for transparency about their activities.

And no, I don’t think the dam will collapse either, but then again looking at the diagram above, I wouldn’t be camping downstream of it in flood times either.

angrymotorist1 said :

MarkS? Not so quick to respond to this one?

All his fingers (and toes) are otherwise occupied.