Barr Lake Spillway

Project Highlights:

• Client: State of Colorado
• Drainage: South Platte at Barr Lake State Park Dam 7,100 foot long, high hazard dam capable of storing up to 40,000 acre-feet of water, in Adams County, Colorado
• State of Colorado determined that the existing spillway was inadequate
• Designed improvements to upgrade the facility
• Determined the Probable Maximum Precipitation (PMP) event and developed a HEC-HMS model to define the inflow design flood (IDF) for the facility
• Hydraulic analyses to size and route flows through new spillway, quantifed erosion protection
• Peak inflow rates to the reservoir were found to be on the order 55,000 cubic feet per second with a total inflow volume of over 15,000 acre feet
• Designed armored spillway, crest length 185 feet included raising three miles of perimeter dikes