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Bolstering Lifeline Resilience through a Comprehensive Dam Safety Program
Water is essential to life itself and, therefore, water supply is a critical post-disaster lifeline. Robust infrastructure is, of course, the key to post-disaster water system reliability. One key element of a water system's infrastructure is its water supply and storage. The East Bay Municipal Utility District (EBMUD), which serves 1.3 million customers in parts of Alameda and Contra Costa Counties on the eastern side of San Francisco Bay in Northern California, relies primarily on surface water for its supply and has several large storage reservoirs impounded by dams. These dams provide vast storage, but also carry with them risks for life safety. To mitigate this risk, EBMUD has developed a comprehensive dam safety program. This paper presents an overview of EBMUD's Dam Safety Program and highlights recent dam studies and improvement projects to ensure post-disaster lifeline services. EBMUD's Dam Safety Program strives to prevent property damage, personal injury, and loss of life from the failure of dams through instrumentation monitoring, visual inspection, and periodic dam safety reviews. The safety of each dam is re-evaluated as advances are made in the field of geotechnical, structural and earthquake engineering. For example, several dams were recently re-evaluated in light of advances in knowledge of earthquake ground motions. Dams are also re-evaluated based on observations due to changes in seepage or ongoing ground movement. EBMUD has a total of 31 dams that impound reservoirs: 2 major remotely located raw water reservoirs in the Mokelumne River watershed (Pardee and Camanche), 5 local water supply reservoirs, and 24 open-cut reservoir dams in the service area of the water distribution system. Most of these dams are under the jurisdiction of the California Division of Safety of Dams (DSOD). Periodic seismic evaluations have pro-actively revealed the need for various improvements, including a recent $76 million seismic upgrade to San Pablo Dam, a local water supply reservoir. Also, to better improve ongoing and post-disaster evaluation of dams, recent improvements have included the installation of automated dam surveillance instrumentation. In addition, EBMUD developed a plan for self-deployment of inspection personnel after a disaster to speed up response and save critical time in the critical first few hours. All of these efforts are undertaken with the goal of providing a reliable and robust water supply system for its customers.
Bolstering Lifeline Resilience through a Comprehensive Dam Safety Program
Water is essential to life itself and, therefore, water supply is a critical post-disaster lifeline. Robust infrastructure is, of course, the key to post-disaster water system reliability. One key element of a water system's infrastructure is its water supply and storage. The East Bay Municipal Utility District (EBMUD), which serves 1.3 million customers in parts of Alameda and Contra Costa Counties on the eastern side of San Francisco Bay in Northern California, relies primarily on surface water for its supply and has several large storage reservoirs impounded by dams. These dams provide vast storage, but also carry with them risks for life safety. To mitigate this risk, EBMUD has developed a comprehensive dam safety program. This paper presents an overview of EBMUD's Dam Safety Program and highlights recent dam studies and improvement projects to ensure post-disaster lifeline services. EBMUD's Dam Safety Program strives to prevent property damage, personal injury, and loss of life from the failure of dams through instrumentation monitoring, visual inspection, and periodic dam safety reviews. The safety of each dam is re-evaluated as advances are made in the field of geotechnical, structural and earthquake engineering. For example, several dams were recently re-evaluated in light of advances in knowledge of earthquake ground motions. Dams are also re-evaluated based on observations due to changes in seepage or ongoing ground movement. EBMUD has a total of 31 dams that impound reservoirs: 2 major remotely located raw water reservoirs in the Mokelumne River watershed (Pardee and Camanche), 5 local water supply reservoirs, and 24 open-cut reservoir dams in the service area of the water distribution system. Most of these dams are under the jurisdiction of the California Division of Safety of Dams (DSOD). Periodic seismic evaluations have pro-actively revealed the need for various improvements, including a recent $76 million seismic upgrade to San Pablo Dam, a local water supply reservoir. Also, to better improve ongoing and post-disaster evaluation of dams, recent improvements have included the installation of automated dam surveillance instrumentation. In addition, EBMUD developed a plan for self-deployment of inspection personnel after a disaster to speed up response and save critical time in the critical first few hours. All of these efforts are undertaken with the goal of providing a reliable and robust water supply system for its customers.
Bolstering Lifeline Resilience through a Comprehensive Dam Safety Program
Yiadom, Atta (author) / Bialek, Elizabeth (author)
Technical Council on Lifeline Earthquake Engineering Conference (TCLEE) 2009 ; 2009 ; Oakland, California, United States
TCLEE 2009 ; 1-12
2009-06-24
Conference paper
Electronic Resource
English
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