CORPS AWARDS OLMSTED DAM DESIGN CONTRACT

OLMSTED, Ill. -- A team is being selected to study and design the Olmsted Dam, which will stretch almost 3,000 feet across the Ohio River.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Louisville District, has awarded a joint-venture design contract to Sverdrup Civil Inc. of St. Louis and Ben C. Gerwick Inc., of San Francisco.

Sverdrup Civil is the transportation, environmental and water resources subsidiary of Sverdrup Corp., an international company ranked as one of the world's leading firms in engineering, architecture and construction.

The design team will be drawn from staffs of Sverdrup Civil, Ben Gerwick, and 11 other associated firms working as subcontractors to the joint venture. The associated firms include companies from six states, including Shannon & Wilson Inc. of St. Louis.

The dam is part of a $1.2 billion project, being constructed between Illinois and Kentucky, 15 miles above the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers at Cairo.

The dam portion -- a $300 million project -- is the second major element of the Olmsted Dam & Locks project to improve inland waterways navigation.

Twin navigation locks are already under construction, under a contract awarded earlier this year.

ADL, in a joint venture of three California engineering companies, was awarded that $223 million contract, a three-year project requiring mostly concrete and pile-driving work.

The U.S. Corps of Engineers, Louisville (Ky.) District is in charge of constructing the project to provide more efficient commercial navigation in an area known as a transportation hub in America's inland river system.

Work will start immediately on detailed dam studies and design, with construction bids to be let before 1998.

"The mid-section of the dam will be unique among modern dams in the U.S.," said Ron Zimmer, Sverdrup's project manager. "When the river level is sufficiently high, the gate structure in the dam will be lowered completely to the river bed, allowing vessels to pass over the dam."

During periods of low flow, said Zimmer, the gates will be raised into position to retain the river's waters and traffic must pass through the adjacent navigation locks.

The dam design and construction will require special attention. The location of the dam is in proximity to the New Madrid Seismic Zone, and must be designed to survive the occurrence of a maximum credible earthquake, said Zimmer.

Studies also will evaluate alternative construction methods that have proven effective elsewhere but not used previously on inland navigation facilities in the U.S., said Zimmer.

When completed, the new locks and dams will consist of two 1,200-foot long, 110-foot wide lock chambers and gate and boat-operated wicker dam. The new facility will employ 55 people and create a single Ohio River level from Olmsted to Smithland, Ky., 60 miles to the east.

The timetable for the facility calls for completion of the overall project by January 2005, said Corps officials.

The newest project follows completion of the coffer dam, which was constructed over the past two years.

Each year, an estimated 100 million tons of goods move through the area on river barges.

The new locks and dam, funded 50/50 by the Inland Waterways Navigation Trust Fund and Congressional appropriations, will replace Locks and Dams 52 and 53, the last of a system of movable wicket dams completed in the 1920s.

The authorization for the project came in 1988, with a proposed cost of $973 million. Due to allowances for inflation since the authorization, cost figures now total the $1.2 billion. U.S. Rep. Kenny Gray, D-Ill, and U.S. Rep. Carroll Hubbard, D-Ky., teamed up to introduce the dam project.

This particular stretch of the Ohio River is at high stage 58 percent of the year.

The work here represents the largest navigation project in the history of the Louisville Corps of Engineers District and is currently the largest public works project in the nation.

When completed, the project will be a major link in a system of 19 projects along the Ohio River, which provides navigation over a distance of 981 miles from Pittsburgh, Pa. to Cairo, Ill., were the Ohio empties into the Mississippi River.

Ohio River tonnage is expected to double over the next 50 years.