Hinze Dam construction site tour.

[rayke1938]

Today i went on a tout of the Hinze Dam construction site accompanied with my son and grandson.

The tour lasts for an hour and departs from the Advancetown hotel. It is free and I would recommend it to anyone. Ring 1800993413 if you have a Saturday morning to spare.

There is a waiting list.

I didnt take any notes as there was too much to follow but here are some photos. They were all taken out of the bus so there is some reflection from the windows.

Cheers

Ray

The new spillway is only half as wide as the old one. The dam when finished will have a much larger overcapicity reserve and the narrower swpillway will reduce significantly the risk of downstream flooding for several thousand properties.Sorry about poor photo but I had to take it from other side of bus and got a lot of reflection.

Big boys toy. D11.

Downstream of the spillway.

End of old spillway

The red clay in the foreground is what will make the dam watertight and the stone cladding is solely to stop the clay from washing away. The clay will only be 2 metres thick at the top of the dam. The mango tree in the background is at full supply level .

A few other items that were of interest to me.

Cost of construction $385 million.

Wall height increased by 15 m.

Water level increaswed by 12m.

Surface area of the dam increased from 972ha to 1500ha.(This will give the stocking group something to aspire to as from memory the stocking levels are worked out on the surface level of the dam.)

At the bottom of the spillway there will be a holding pond with a cage in it and any fiswh attempting tp travel upstream will be trapped in the cage and native fish will be transported up into the dam and noxious species destroyed.

Apparently all new dams constructed in Qld either have to have this system or a fishladder installed.

I wonder how often they will check for fish in the pond?

Apparently a new process of injecting liquid nitrogen directly into the concrete agitator trucks is a first in Qld.

Apparently when concrete cures it generates heat and if too much is generated the concrete will develop stress cracks. The old method to prevent this was to use water chilled to around 2 degrees.

Cheers

Ray

[Rocket75]

very interesting stuff there Ray, thanks for the report.

Will be very good to get back down there once the changes are complete and have a look around (with a lure in the water of course!)

[crazywalrus]

Thanks Ray - looking forward to seeing it when it is filled. We will have some standing timber there. Should change the fishing.

[hooked_on_trout]

rayke1938 wrote:

A few other items that were of interest to me.

Cost of construction $385 million.

Wall height increased by 15 m.

Water level increaswed by 12m.

what's that in Gl?

cheers