My Olmsted Dam Photos and Support Equipment

(Satellite)

After checking out the TVA dams of Wheeler, Wilson and Pickwick, I debated weather to see the Kentucky or Olmsted Dams. Olmsted had been on my todo list since it went operational. But I've never seen the Kentucky Dam with a heavy flow of water through it. In case the road across the Kentucky Dam was closed because of the heavy flow, I choose Olmsted Dam.

I've already have written an overview of the Olmsted Dam.

Actually, I still haven't seen much of the Olmsted Dam because most of it was under water! I was not surprised that the Tennessee River was high because there had been a lot of rain and flooding in the Southeast. But I had not heard much about rain in the Ohio Valley. So is the Ohio high here in Feb 2020 because the Tennessee had dumped that much water into it or was there a lot of water coming from the Ohio Valley as well?

20200219 1471

Some overview shots from the sidewalk at the visitor center from upstream (left) to downstream. 

Using the magic of a zooms lens, I took some closer shots.

I want to visit again to see what the dam looks like during a normal river flow. But those two concrete "poles" sticking up in the water is an extra motivation to see what is under all of this water.

The construction "camp" is still intact.

Most of the big equipment is gone including the very large gantry crane that took the modules down a ramp into the river.

But a Manitowoc 16000 still remains.

And there was also a barge crane parked on the opposite side of the river a little upstream from the dam. I don't know if that was a left over from this project or not. Nor do I know if the above crane is the 60' ringer that the USACE sold in Dec 2019. That is, has this crane been painted, but not moved, by its new owner.

The USACE still has some of its equipment parked at the dam. I learned that this equipment is dedicated to operating the dam.

The towboat was the St. James, the barge crane was the Roger R. Henry and the spud barge with the  hydraulic boom crane and excavator-like hinged boom was the Keen.

I'm glad I looked up Keen because I had no idea that Olmsted used 140 wicket gates. I thought wicket gates were obsolete! Especially for a multi-billion dollar dam. That explains why we see a superstructure for only five Tainter gates. Keen will remain parked at this dam because it is custom built to raise and lower the wicket gates.

USACE Keen Fact Sheet

(Click on the following to play a USACE video about the wicket lifter.

dvidshub
[An example of a wicket gate in the raised position. This is a screenshot. The video at the dvidshub link is the same as the embedded video above.]

Fact Sheet
From the plans, it looks like a major mission of this crane barge is dredging because they show it with a clamshell bucket.

Is this the worlds largest power washer?

USACE Olmsted Washdown Barge Fact Sheet
Articulating water boom has horizontal reach of 93 feet and vertical reaches of 106 feet above deck and 55 feet below the waterline. The boom is provided with a self-contained, electric-hydraulic power pack powered by a 20 HP, 460 VAC motor. The boom may be controlled locally by hydraulic valves or remotely by a radio-operated control box. A control monitor, in the control room, displays real time pictures of the boom position and numerical readout of boom azimuth and height.
[Delivered in Dec 2001]

Given that this was built almost 20 years ago, it was needed for something other than keeping the locks clean. The fact that it can reach 55' below the waterline makes me wonder if it was built to clean sediment off the foundation to make a clear spot for the next dam module to be sunk into place.

I can see a USACE logo on the St. James towboat, but I could not find it listed in the USACE Vessel Factsheets.

Update: I remembered that the locks were completed long before the dam was done because they used cofferdams to build the locks. Because the dam uses wicket gates, the locks are not needed when the river level is high. As we can see with the photos, the locks are submerged by high water. So maybe the Washdown Barge was built in 2001 for the purpose of cleaning the locks after the river goes down, the wicket gates go up again and the locks are needed again.