Case Studies

Anita Dam is located about 22 miles north of Chinook, Montana, about 5 miles south of the Canadian border. The drainage, which normally flows only in response to snowmelt or heavy rain, is an unnamed tributary…

Austin Dam (also known as Bayless Dam) was constructed between May and November of 1909 just outside Austin, Pennsylvania, a town of approximately 2,500 people in Potter County.

The Baldwin Hills Reservoir was constructed in 1951 to provide water to the south and southwest portions of the city of Los Angeles, California. Sitting atop one of the tallest hills in the region, the reservoir was confined on three sides by compacted earth dikes…

Construction of Banqiao Dam began in April 1951 and was completed 14 months later, in June 1952. Constructed on the Ru River in Henan Province, China, it was part of a larger project to provide flood control, irrigation water, and electrical power to the region.

Chile is probably the most seismically active country in the world, contributing a high percentage of total seismic energy released worldwide. Chile is also the world’s largest copper producer, generating 2.5 millions of tons of copper tailings each day. The failure of Barahona No. 1 dam in 1928 was the first record of an earthquake induced collapse of a tailings dam in Chile.

A number of the site conditions, design and construction details, and the distress indicators that developed between the initial reservoir filling and failure combine to suggest a complex internal erosion…

On February 26, 1972 at approximately 8:00 A.M., Coal Slurry Impoundment #3 at the Buffalo Creek coal mine in Logan County, West Virginia gave way sending millions of gallons of water and millions of cubic yards of coal slurry down the Buffalo Creek. Over the next three hours…

Camará Dam is a roller compacted concrete dam in Brazil completed in 2002 and failed during first filling in 2004. The dam was originally designed as an earthen embankment, but the design changed to RCC after the contractor was selected. Irregularities and potential conflicts of interest in the contracting process were allowed by the dam owner.

The Friday afternoon of June 9, 1972 was the beginning of a tragedy for Rapid City, South Dakota along the eastern slopes of the Black Hills mountain range. Scattered showers from the previous days had left the ground saturated while a low-level air mass…

Castlewood Canyon Dam was constructed in 1890 across Cherry Creek, 40 miles southeast of Denver, Colorado. The masonry and rock-fill structure, built from local materials, was around 600 feet long with a height of 70 feet measured…