Secant Pile Cutoff Wall to Mitigate Flooding at Kentucky's Panbowl Lake

Panbowl Lake was formed in the 1960’s as a by-product of mountain-side cuts and earthen dam embankments to  allow State Route 15 to be constructed. In 2022, the largest flood in recorded history of the North Fork of the  Kentucky River occurred, bringing the river level to within inches of overtopping the dam and allowing water to  seep through, causing the town of Jackson, KY to be evacuated. Overlapping drilled secant piles were utilized to  ensure the wall was continuous and able to penetrate uncontrolled rockfill. Numerous quality control measures  were taken to confirm the watertightness of the secant pile wall. Individual pile verticality measurements  confirmed the overlap at depth. Crosshole Sonic Logging and full-depth cores confirmed the integrity of the  concrete throughout the pile. Core-holes were also used to run in-situ permeability tests on the secant piles.  Lastly, piezometers were installed on either side of the wall to measure fluctuations in the water level during flood  events.