Engineering Oversight Lessons Learned - An Owner's Perspective

This paper presents a summary of a dam owner's experience with professional engineering oversight activities during recent Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) dam rehabilitation construction projects. The presented information focuses on professional engineering oversight activities from a collection of recent dam rehabilitation projects that have a range of results and outcomes. Case study projects presented include projects with negative outcomes, where the engineering oversight did not result in a properly constructed dam which led to on-going dam safety concerns and operational difficulties. Also presented are projects with positive outcomes where the engineering oversight achieved the stated goal and the rehabilitated structure has performed as-intended to-date. The paper includes a discussion of owner's lessons learned from these case study projects and a series of lessons learned regarding how to best structure engineering oversight scopes of work, what pitfalls to avoid, and the importance of understanding your own projects to best provide the needed oversight activities.