DFI Announces 2021 Outstanding Project Award Winner Red Rock Hydroelectric Facility

June 22, 2021, Hawthorne N.J.:

The winner of the 2021 DFI Outstanding Project Award (OPA) is the team of Stantec (engineer), Ames Construction (general contractor), Case-Bencor JV (Keller; foundation contractor), Missouri River Energy Services (owner), Rembco Geotechnical Contractors (grouting contractor), and Schnabel Geostructural Design & Construction (anchor contractor). The team is being recognized for the ingenuity of their design in modifying Red Rock Dam on the Des Moines River in Iowa into a hydroelectric facility. The award is being presented during the DFI 46th Annual Conference on Deep Foundations, October 12-15, 2021. 

Among the geotechnical and other challenges the Red Rock team overcame was constructing a new intake channel, penstocks that carry water to the turbines, and a power house—directly adjacent to the existing dam’s spillway. To maintain the dam’s integrity during construction, extensive water- and earth-retention systems, prescriptive construction staging, and a robust dam safety surveillance program were used. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ facility near Pella, Iowa, now provides up to 55 MW (55,000 kW) of clean, reliable power to surrounding communities, and will generate 178,000 MWH (178,000,000 KWH) annually. The key foundation elements and excavation features included diaphragm walls, deep excavations and treatment of solutioned gypsum deposits. 

Special recognition awards will also be given to two other entries: Little Island Pier 55 at Hudson River Park in New York City, in which Mueser Rutledge Consulting Engineers designed hybrid piles for an undulating landscape that required exacting pile locations and extremely tight pile cutoffs, and PB&A for the complex shoring wall design for 2nd Street/Broadway rail station, with challenges that included maintaining live traffic during excavation, supporting heavy underground utilities, and the protrusion of the Los Angeles Times Building into the station. 

The OPA was established in 1997 to recognize the superior work of DFI members. A committee selects the projects based on size, scope and challenges of the project; degree of innovation and ingenuity exercised; and uniqueness of the solution to the difficulties of the job.