Location
Arlington, Virginia
Date
14 Aug 2008, 4:30pm - 6:00pm
Abstract
The Taum Sauk Pumped Storage Powerplant was constructed between 1960-63 to store water for generation during peak daytime power demands. The plant consists of a lower reservoir, which is sited along the East Fork of the Black River, and an upper reservoir, formed by a kidney-shaped rockfill dike approximately 70 to 90 ft high, capped by a 10 ft concrete parapet wall. The upper reservoir held 1.5 billion gallons (~4,600 acre-feet) when filled. A variety of design/construction flaws, instrumentation error, and human errors contributed to a catastrophic failure of the upper reservoir on Dec 14, 2005. Malfunctioning and improperly programmed/placed sensors failed to indicate that the reservoir was full and didn’t shut down the facility’s pumps until water had been overflowing for 5-6 minutes. This overflow undermined the parapet wall and scoured the underlying embankment, leading to a complete failure within ~5-6 minutes. The peak flow from this event is estimated at 289,000 cfs.
Department(s)
Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering
Appears In
International Conference on Case Histories in Geotechnical Engineering
Meeting Name
6th Conference of the International Conference on Case Histories in Geotechnical Engineering
Publisher
Missouri University of Science and Technology
Document Version
Final Version
Rights
© 2008 Missouri University of Science and Technology, All rights reserved.
Creative Commons Licensing
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Document Type
Article - Conference proceedings
File Type
text
Language
English
Recommended Citation
Rogers, J. David and Watkins, Conor M., "Overview of the Taum Sauk Pumped Storage Power Plant Upper Reservoir Failure, Reynolds County, MO" (2008). International Conference on Case Histories in Geotechnical Engineering. 37.
https://scholarsmine.mst.edu/icchge/6icchge/session02/37
Overview of the Taum Sauk Pumped Storage Power Plant Upper Reservoir Failure, Reynolds County, MO
Arlington, Virginia
The Taum Sauk Pumped Storage Powerplant was constructed between 1960-63 to store water for generation during peak daytime power demands. The plant consists of a lower reservoir, which is sited along the East Fork of the Black River, and an upper reservoir, formed by a kidney-shaped rockfill dike approximately 70 to 90 ft high, capped by a 10 ft concrete parapet wall. The upper reservoir held 1.5 billion gallons (~4,600 acre-feet) when filled. A variety of design/construction flaws, instrumentation error, and human errors contributed to a catastrophic failure of the upper reservoir on Dec 14, 2005. Malfunctioning and improperly programmed/placed sensors failed to indicate that the reservoir was full and didn’t shut down the facility’s pumps until water had been overflowing for 5-6 minutes. This overflow undermined the parapet wall and scoured the underlying embankment, leading to a complete failure within ~5-6 minutes. The peak flow from this event is estimated at 289,000 cfs.
