A spillway capacity and freeboard reevaluation for an existing small dam, plus a reservoir water quality study covering summer stratification, dissolved oxygen depletion, and downstream release impacts.
The project brief: an existing 38 ft earthen dam has been reclassified to Significant Hazard after downstream development, triggering a state dam safety reevaluation of whether its spillway system can still pass the design flood that classification now requires. A separate water-quality study of the reservoir behind it — a dimictic lake that stratifies every summer — assesses whether the dam's low-level outlet releases are violating the downstream stream's dissolved oxygen standard.
This module walks both halves the way a real dam safety engineer would: a worked combined-spillway discharge calculation solving for the design-flood headwater elevation, a freeboard check against the state's minimum criteria, a summer stratification and dissolved oxygen profile from actual monitoring data, and a selective-withdrawal recommendation to protect the downstream fishery. The full worked numbers, complete recommendations summary, and finished reasoning are part of the unlocked module below.