The spillway is on the right, the powerhouse is right of center, and earthfillgated counties out-of-frame to the left.
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| Street View, Aug 2024 |
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| USACE |
This is the spillway. This is the outlet works. The outlet works are connected to the same intake structure that the powerhouse uses. It disturbs me that a USACE web page would confuse a spillway with an outlet works. This photo is of the outlet works, not the spillway.
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| USACE "During normal operations, USACE releases up to 44,500 cubic feet of water per second through the powerhouse. One cubic foot of water, or cfs, is equal to 7.5 gallons. The outlet tunnel can release an additional 128,000 cfs. The spillway was designed to additionally release up to 633,000 cfs. For perspective, the largest release of water from Fort Randall Dam as a result of flooding was a combined 160,000 cfs from the powerhouse and spillway in 2011. It is important to understand that the dam is designed to release up to 805,500 cfs when necessary and that dams do not eliminate flood risk." [128kcfs is more water than many gated spillways can release. I wonder what the downstream river can handle without flooding.] |
This is what the spillway looks like.
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| USACE "Omaha District completed several risk reduction actions at Fort Randall Dam after the flooding of 2011. These include installation of additional instrumentation to enhance foundation monitoring. Numerous repairs have also been made to the spillway to improve its resiliency during future flood events." [This sounds like another USACE spillway that did not perform as intended when it had to be used.] |
I could not find statistics about the dam on the USACE web page such as length, elevations and conservation & flood pool capacities. Nor on any other page on the internet. But then I did find this.
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| Donald Regan, Mar 2016 |
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| Digitally zoomed |
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| lewis-clark |
It is a shame that they don't provide enough resolution so that we can easily read this graphic.
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| USACE |
This was the post that motivated these notes.
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| 2:11 video he Fort Randall Dam is taking on a massive modernization effort as the Major Unit Rehabilitation Project is officially in motion! Components for the first of eight massive new units began arriving on-site in late June 2025. Standing more than three stories tall, each unit is a towering feat of engineering. Over the next eight years, all existing units will be carefully removed and replaced, marking one of the largest upgrades in the dam’s history. |
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