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Polk to spend $18,800 on Lake Adger dam analysis
Published 11:17am Monday, September 3, 2012Polk County commissioners agreed on Monday, Aug. 20 to spend $18,800 on engineering reports on the Turner Shoals Dam at Lake Adger.
Polk County Manager Ryan Whitson said the N.C. Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) requires the county to perform a dam failure analysis and develop an emergency action plan. The state also requires a spillway design flood (SDF) on the dam, which was built in 1925.
The county is hiring AECOM Technical Services for the engineering services.
The dam failure analysis and emergency action plan is estimated to cost $10,900 and the SDF is estimated at $7,900.
Commissioners approved a budget amendment to take the funding out of capital funding escrowed specifically for dam repairs. The county has been budgeting money every year for future dam repairs at Lake Adger, with $600,000 saved so far.
Commissioner Ted Owens said on Aug. 20 that the reports are something normal required by the state. It doesn’t mean the dam is failing, Owens said.
Polk County purchased the bed of Lake Adger in 2009 for $1.6 million from Northbrook Carolina Hydro, LLC for future use as a water source. The county leases the lake to Northbrook for $1 per year in order for Northbrook to continue operating its power plant located there.
Black & Veatch Engineers told county commissioners in 2009 that repairs the dam would need in the next few years could cost approximately $2 million.
Engineers said that potential problems with the dam include issues with bulkheads and the concrete of the dam. Studies done in 2009 concluded that if water were to rise over the top of the dam the structure would become unstable. However, commissioners said that water has never risen to the top of the dam in its history. Engineers agreed it would take a flood of Biblical proportions in order for water to spill over the top.
Polk is still awaiting approval from the state to reclassify the Lake Adger watershed as a class III watershed, which will affect Polk and Henderson counties. Henderson County has not given its support for the new reclassification and it is unknown when the state will approve the reclassification in order for Polk to move forward with using the water.
Once the lake has been permitted by the state as a water source, Polk will be able to pull a maximum of eight million gallons of water per day out of Lake Adger. The county has future plans to construct a water plant on property it owns at the county transfer station in Mill Spring.
This article is an interesting twist to the current situation regarding the proposed UDO which I predict will soon be voted into law of land here in POLK by our POlk county commission. As a native here it seems to everyone I miss the point and fail to understand the need for change and most folks seem to find my views to forever be out of place and outdated. This is certainly another occasion when I see life and local politics in a different way from many folks who are in favor of the UDO. I am opposed to the UDO. This article about Green River, Lake Adjer Dam, and our community, illustrates very well how local government seeks to forever impose upon us with ever increasing limits to our freedom on our property with the UDO while government goes along its routine way with vastly larger issues on in fact the same issue, erosion control and the beauty of our county. If you hold up the record of history and take an honest view of it the Chocolate Drop disaster which is being used as justification for the UDO is small potatoes in comparison to the historical record of this lake, dam, I-26, I-74, 176 highway, the railroad, White Oak mountain, and this only starts the list to illustrate the point. And in the mix you have the corruption of government and utility matters along with the railroad which goes back into the history of this county. AND FOLKS THE UDO DOES NOT AFFECT ANY OF THESE MATTERS OF GOVERNMENT AND IT DOES NOT APPLY TO THE TOWNS. THE UDO AND DISGUST WHICH WROTE IT STARTED IN THE TOWNS AND THE TOWNS ARE EXEMPT FROM THE UDO. The towns of POlk are the home of corruption in our local government and mud has long been USED in Polk for political ends. A fine example is at Milepost 39 on the railroad where tracks hang in the sky at a mudslide intentionally created in order to cause damage to get a FEMA grant to repair the river at Harmon Field. They got the grant, the fraud worked, and they never fixed the slide there. The tracks still hang in the sky. ARE WE AS CITIZENS OF POLK GOING TO ALLOW THIS Same corrupt local government political machine to impose the UDO on the county at large. It is designed to allow big brother to come into all our yards and dictate to us on what has always been unrestricted property. SAY NO TO THE UDO. OUR LOCAL COMMISSION HAS MADE SURE THE TOWNS ARE EXEMPT FROM THE UDO AND THE SLOPES ARE JUST AS STEEP IN THE TOWNS AS IN THE COUNTY!!!!!!
I’ve been corrected and what is seen in that picture and what we witness many times with high water is water going over a spillway, not the dam.
If this link works it will take you to a picture of water going over the Lake Adger dam another time, September, 2009.
http://i1263.photobucket.com/albums/ii624/SportyGuy2/over_the_top.jpg
Used with permission.
QUOTE: “Studies done in 2009 concluded that if water were to rise over the top of the dam the structure would become unstable. However, commissioners said that water has never risen to the top of the dam in its history. Engineers agreed it would take a flood of Biblical proportions in order for water to spill over the top.”
I think many residents can beg to differ. Water has gone over the top several times in the last ten years. Remnants of hurricane Ivan, September, 2004, did its damage by washing out parts of Interstate 40 near the TN border. At that time, Lake Adger residents near the dam were told to evacuate because of concern of a possible washout because there was so much water going over the top. We have pictures.