Saluda Dam, Then and Now

The Saluda Dam is currently being renovated to meet modern seismic safety requirements. The dam is a 200 ft tall and 1.5 miles long earthen embankment located near Columbia, South Carolina. It is owned and operated by South Carolina Electric & Gas Company (SCE&G). The dam is a semi-hydraulic fill structure completed in the 1930s. The renovation entails construction of a new Rockfill/RCC Dam on the downstream toe of the existing embankment. The new dam will be similar in size and height to the original one and will follow the same alignment, with distance between the 2 centerlines only 200 to 500 ft.

Construction of such a large dam in the late 1920s was a major undertaking. At the time of construction it was the biggest earthen dam in the world built for power generation. Engineers used state-of-the-practice methods and materials. Construction of the new dam is the largest ongoing remediation project in the United States. It too uses modern materials and construction techniques, the best and the largest equipment. Saluda Dam Construction and Saluda Dam Remediation are two world-class projects separated in time, but not in space - two large dams built on one site.

The Remediation Project presents a rare opportunity to compare approaches to dam construction then and now. The team building the renovated dam faces the same geological and geotechnical constraints as did the team building the original one. This paper discusses technical and non-technical aspects of construction, illustrating striking similarities between construction of the original and the modern dams.

SCE&G preserved a unique historical photo and video archive portraying life at a construction site in the late 1920s. Original documents and drawings tell a fascinating story of how similar constraints require similar engineering solutions, even 75 years later. This paper provides a side-by-side comparison of answers to many typical questions: How was the Dam designed? How was it built? What materials and equipment were used? How long did it take? How much did it cost? And finally, how did the public react to construction? 12 pp., 6 figures.