Case Studies

Edenville Dam experienced a static liquefaction instability failure of its downstream slope on May 19, 2020.  The resulting breach flow reached and overtopped the downstream Sanford Dam about 2-3 hours later, resulting in failure of that dam as well.

Construction of El Guapo Dam began in 1975 and was completed in 1980. The dam is 197 feet tall and stores 114,000 acre-feet of drinking and irrigation water for the Barlovento Region in the state of Miranda, Venezuela. Because bedrock is deep...

The Equalizer Lake Dam is owned by the Greeley Loveland Irrigation Company and is located in Larimer County, Colorado approximately 50 miles north of Denver. The irrigation company operates and maintains a fifty mile long canal system, and four off channel reservoirs that supply water for agriculture...

At 12:28pm on January 25, 2019, the B-1 tailings storage dam at the Córrego do Feijão iron ore mine near Brumadinho, Brazil, failed catastrophically, killing 272 people and causing extreme environmental damage in the Paraopeba River watershed.

Located approximately 20 miles northeast of Sacramento, California, Folsom Dam was designed and constructed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to generate hydropower along the American River. The 340-foot high concrete gravity Folsom Dam along with two earthen wing dikes...

Fontenelle Dam is located on the Green River near La Barge, Wyoming and was originally built in 1964 to provide irrigation water and hydropower for a region of southwest Wyoming. The earthfill embankment structure...

Beginning at about 1:15 pm on September 22, 1938, the upstream slope of the dam adjacent to the right abutment experienced a large failure as the construction work had progressed to within 20 feet of the final dam crest elevation. One hundred eighty men were working in the area.

The September 2013 rainfall that occurred on the Front Range of Colorado was the result of an unusual, late season storm event where warm moisture and upslope winds allowed this regional storm to dump up to 17 inches of rain over a seven day period.