Another cache brought to you by a member of the USCGA
Standing before you is an Embankment Dam supporting a 161 acre lake named Dow Lake. The lake offers a 900 feet beach for recreation and its construction was completed in 1961. The lake is owned by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources and provides recreational activities for the general public, but is mainly used by residence of Athens, OH and students of Ohio Univerversity. The lake is part of Strouds Run State Park that comprises 2,606 acres of beautiful hiking, biking, hunting, camping, and water activites. The lake supports several species of fish, such as crappie and channel catfish, and is stocked annually with rainbow trout, due to the trout’s inability to survive the winter season.
Strouds Run is located within the unglaciated Allegheny Plateau which creates an arc around southeastern Ohio into West Virginia and Pennsylvania. While the lake itself is located within the unglaciated plateau, it drains 7.3 miles of wells, streams, and rain runoff from the glaciated mountains that are in the surrounding area.
The lake has a capacity of over 7 thousand acre feet, or 8.7 million cubic meters which roughly equals 2.3 billion gallons of water. The maximum discharge of the lake is 1517 cubic feet per second, or over 11 thousand gallons per second. While the lake is artificial and predominately recreational in purpose, it also controls heavy rains from flooding and eroding the lowlands and U.S. Highway 50 as the Strouds Run Stream drains into the Hocking River.
Embankment dams depend on their weight to retain the pressure of water, not unlike that of concrete gravity dams.
Embankment dams are comprised of compacted earth, and are categorized into two main types, rock-fill and earth-fill. Rock-fill dams are compacted of granular earth with an impervious zone which may be comprised of masonry, concrete, plastic membranes, steel sheet piles, timber, or other materials. Earth-filled dams, also known as earthern dams or earth dams, are made of simple construction of well compacted earth found nearby, creating a cost-effective construction compared to concrete or asphalt production or importation.
To log this find, you must email me (via groundspeak):
(1) With the observation of the landscape in the area, and the stated maximum discharge rate listed above being used, How much water do you think drains into the lake from the surrounding area during maximum capacity?.
(2) In your opinion, what type of embankment dam would you call this?
You are encouraged to share photo’s.
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