The big news in the May issue is the announcement by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that Clearwater Dam is not too sound and is going to have to have a concrete wall built inside the earthen dam to stop the seepage. The upside of the situation is that the dam should be safe to hold a bigger, higher lake after the work is completed. The complete Traveler story is repeated below.There's stories in the May issue about bluegill fishing, which probably peaks in May. Bill Cooper writes about a real honey hole, and Charley Schmidt says bluegills are the ideal fish for beginners.The historical features is part two about Hannah Cole, Missouri's pioneer mother. It tells about the winter crossing of the Missouri River into Osage territory by her and her family.The Presley Center - MDC's educational center on Current River, is stirring up things. MDC needs larger, more modern facilities and some of the staff think the present Presley Center buildings should be torn down to make room. But there is a public outcry to save the buildings. Traveler weighs in on the matter.

Onondaga Cave State Park, newly reopened, is the subject of a picture story. And the new overlook at Trail of Tears State Park earns some photo treatment too. Several pictures accompany a story on the Virgin Pine Trails, part of Pioneer Forest, on Highway 19 between Salem and Eminence.

Charlie Slovensky gives advice on taking girls fishing. Bob Todd takes his son and grandson fishing on the Lower Black River. And writer Jim Featherston tells about taking Old Buck out to teach him the fine art of fishing. You can guess who caught all the fish.

There's also recipes, news, Indian lore, seasons, sunrise/moonrise tables, letters to the editor and advertisements from a variety of advertisers who has products that can aid in your enjoyment of the outdoors, and services that can assist in your outdoor endeavors. A story from the past tells about a float on Black River above Suttons Bluff.

Clearwater Dam could fail! Work needed.

By Bob Todd
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers now says it has a “serious seepage” problem at Clearwater Dam which is going to require a major rehabilitation of the dam.
A dam failure in the next 10 years is not out of the question if the matter is not addressed.
The Corps solution would be to build a concrete wall within the dam at a cost of $81 million.
The finding of a sinkhole in the dam last year seemed to spell the end for any chance of getting a higher recreation pool in Clearwater. But the concrete cut-off wall would eliminate the previous major objection to having a larger lake.
It always seemed like a shaky argument for the Corps to say the dam is safe when it is impounding 40 or 60 feet of flood water, but would be unsafe holding 20 or 30 feet of additional water for recreation.
If the amount of time the water is held is the difference, just how long can the dam hold flood water safely?
Maybe not very long, it seems.
The Corps is seeking comments by May 17 on its proposal. Documents outlining the situation are available at the Corps office at Clearwater, at Piedmont Public Library, and at the Poplar Bluff Library. They are also online at www.swl.usace.army.mil/
A HIGHER LAKE
A Corps colonel, in 1989, declared that raising the level of Clearwater should be “no big deal”. Since then a study was conducted that looked at raising the lake 36 feet, which would have produced a 5,000 acre recreational pool. Sounds huge, but this would have relatively little affect on flood control - a huge amount volume for flood control would remain.
(The lake can go up 67 feet before reaching the emergency spillway. It never has overflowed, though it came close a couple years ago.)
Clearwater Dam has the potential to impound 10,000 acres of water, but actually impounds only about 1,600 acres when at conservation pool. The acreage above 1,600 is used for flood storage. At 16 per cent, this is about as low a ratio of recreation to flood storage of all the Corps dams. Average is more like 50 per cent.
And that’s only surface acres. In terms of water volume, only 21,920 acre feet of water are stored at conservation pool, but the lake holds 591,780 acre feet when full. That’s 97.5 per cent for flood storage, 2.5 per cent for recreation.
Jumping the conservation pool by 36 feet was studied, but lesser increases have been proposed too.
In each case, the Corps maintained there is no danger Clearwater could fail, but safety concerns were raised each time, saying it may be unsafe to store even a little more water for an extended period.
At the time of the original study, the Corps said a concrete wall inside the dam might have to be built, and cost would have to be shared by a local sponsor.
Cost at that time was estimated at $55 million, and the Missouri Department of Conservation was looked to as the local sponsor.
MDC was not interested. It would have taken up about a third of the agency’s budget, and after the project was completed, it would still be a Corps lake, with conservation still a secondary usage.
It looked as if the issue was dead. But it has been revived from time to time. A recent dam safety study, for instance, was supposed to produce an estimate of dam safety if less than 36 feet increase was considered. Because Clearwater is steep sided, it would take a 20 foot increase to double the lake. And as little as 10 feet of an increase was one option mentioned.
The latest dam safety study was shoved to the back burner a couple years ago. Seems the Corps has been deviating from its operating plan for many years and was forced to go back to the plan.
Under deviations from the plan, a large amount of lowland acreage south of Poplar Bluff was drained and farmed. With the return to the plan, it is difficult to drain those fields some years, and the Corps switched course to see if something could be done to change the plan to help drainage.
SINKHOLE
Then came the discovery in 2003 of a sinkhole in the dam.
While the Corps said there was no danger of a dam collapse, the formation of a sinkhole far up on the dam face indicates material is going somewhere down inside the dam.
The documents concerning the concrete wall say the sinkhole formed at elevation 570, which is a few feet higher than Clearwater has ever been, but apparently not as high as the Corps thinks it will get someday.
If you’ve been to Clearwater recently, you may have noticed equipment and some yellow-tarped buildings on the dam face. They are there to fix the sinkhole by injecting concrete.
Although this sinkhole apparently goes back to the lake, one has to wonder what other voids may exist in and under the dam.
The Corps wonders too.
Quoting from the documents, “There are serious concerns at this time related to the next major flood event.” The report added that it may not take a major flood event - an average lake level is about five feet above normal, and it could happen at this level too.
The Corps said the dam is at risk of catastrophic failure at moderate to high lake levels and thinks the underlying structure of the dam is deteriorating. It does not predict failure in a 10 year time frame, but the Corps is pretty clear that it thinks the wall needs to be done within that time frame.
All dams seep. The Corps said seepage was expected of Clearwater when it was completed in 1948. Two years later, it was seeping at a higher rate than expected, and since then a number of things have been done to try to control it.
An arm of the lake on the left side of the dam was completely filled and 55 acres in front of the dam was covered up just a few years ago at a cost of $11 million.
THE CONCRETE CURTAIN
The Corps proposes building a concrete wall 230 feet deep by 4300 feet wide. The dam is 154 feet higher than the original stream bed, which means the concrete would extend about 80 feet down into the bedrock, and several feet into the sides of the valley on each side.
Clearwater will become a concrete dam with an earthen covering.
Cost is set at $81 million, but if cost overruns are the same as on the last project, it will cost closer to $98.9 million.
The Corps says this is justified by the flood control and recreation benefits and by the fact it would essentially reset the clock on Clearwater Lake’s usefulness.
The Corps puts benefits at $4.1 million in flood control per year and $1.8 million in recreation at the present lake level. Cost of operating the dam project is close to $2 million a year.
That gives net benefits of about $4 million a year against a cost of nearly $100 million. At that rate, it would take 25 years just to pay for this repair!
The economic benefits would look a lot better if there was a big boost in recreation as a result of this project.
Back when the earlier study was done, it was estimated the economic impact of increasing the lake level would be 60 per cent. For every dollar of economic activity at the old level, there would be $1.60 at the new level.
If that were the case, we could expect to have four or five marinas where the lake now has three. There would be one or two additional campgrounds. And in the private sector, new lodging, restaurants, stores. New marine dealers could be expected to emerge.
That, along with surrounding economic activity in real estate, banking, retail and services. A larger lake would also make Clearwater more desirable to industry, and the “ultimate tourism”, retirement.
Biologists noted in the earlier study that the lake would be more consistently productive for fishermen and would begin to attract waterfowl without being in flood. A higher lake would be more stable, providing more consistent conditions for water sports as well.
A DAM FAILURE
Getting a higher lake level is not a slam dunk, however.
The Corps has another argument for twisting arms. It says if the dam failed, the economic cost would be near $200 million and could result in 369 lives lost. The Corps assumed the dam would be put back if it failed. Megabucks more.
The documents outline how a dam failure might happen, based on what happened at the Teton Dam out west.
The clay liner inside the dam only goes up to elevation 575. This is eight feet higher than the present emergency spillway. Theoretically floodwater could get that high and stay there for 48 hours. If it did so, water would go over the clay lining and saturate the dam.
The Corps predicts water would flow through the dam in another 48 hours, would become increasingly muddy as it carries material out of the dam.
Another two days and the dam settles, fails, releasing a catastrophic flood down Black River Valley.
The dam could fail without ever getting to that level, however. Seepage under the dam could continue to eat away, eventually leading to a large escape of water that could feed on itself, getting ever larger until it became an uncontrollable flood.
ALTERNATIVES?
The Corps said risk could be reduced by making Clearwater a dry reservoir or by lowering the conservation pool. This is rejected, however, because the conservation pool is basically minimal as is and recreation is a major justification for the dam in the first place.
The dam could be removed. Dams are being taken down in the United States. Or still more fill could be put against the dam, but one engineer once sadistically joked that what has already been placed is simply more mud that will wash downstream when the dam goes.
There may be cheaper alternatives than a concrete wall, but the Corps says the concrete would essentially make Clearwater a new dam.
Two drastic measures might be to build a warning system so at least lives would not be lost when the dam went. Or a plan could be put in place to blow the dam in advance if a rain event occurred that would likely overpower the dam.
Pretty serious stuff. Other media will hopefully do a good job of reporting in greater detail the economic and danger issues that have developed.
GOOD NEWS
Traveler’s angle is recreation and conservation. From that standpoint, the recognition of the problem and the solution proposed offer great hope for a larger Clearwater Lake.
The primary objection will have been removed and there should be a huge economic incentive to develop Clearwater’s recreational potential.
But first things first. The Corps is taking comment until May 17 and will hold an open house type thing May 4 from 4 to 8 at the Dam.
Copies of the documents are available for viewing at the Corps’ Clearwater Lake Project Office on Highway HH in Piedmont, at the Piedmont Public Library at 118 West Green Street, and at the Poplar Bluff Public Library at 318 North Main Street in Poplar Bluff.
Written comments should be mailed to the Planning, Environmental, and Regulatory Division, Little Rock District, P.O. Box 867, Little Rock, AR 72203-0867.
Comments must be received by May 17.

The Past - May, 1980

A canoe float on the extreme upper part of the West Fork of Black River was featured in the May, 1980 edition of Traveler. The float began above Cook’s Cave and Spring, which is almost as high up the river as you can go, even with strong spring flows.
On this float, a lunch stop was made at Sutton’s Bluff and ended at Highway 21 near Centerville.
Another story told of white bass fishing on Clearwater Lake. Bob and George Webster had put in early and by 10, the lake was too rough for them to get back to the landing. They fished sheltered spots up in the Black River arm, putting together a considerable string of fish before winds died in late afternoon and let them get off the lake.
The historical feature followed a young man who had been raised by the Osage as he moves toward civilized life. Frontier settlements in the Ozarks in the early 1800s depended on a little farming, hunting, grazing and trading - same as an Indian village. Only the proportions were different.
There was a feature on Maramec Spring trout fishing and the Conservation Department has holding a series of regional meetings to report what had been done so far on Design for Conservation.
A new access to the St. Francis River at Highway 72 was announced. The federal Department of Energy had considered a ban on weekend boating to save gas, but abandoned that idea. However, recreational funding was being cut and federal agencies reported they were cutting back on things such as grass mowing and campground maintenance.
Traveler ran the then-current list of state record trees. A high percentage of them are in the southeast part of the state.
Turkey hunters were expected to set a new record. Some 13,737 birds had been taken in 1979 and 1980 was looking like a better year. At that time, most turkey hunting was concentrated in the Ozarks.
A Missouri Chapter of the Ruffed Grouse Society was being formed. A reintroduction program had been begun by MDC.
Traveler’s cover featured a picture of Roy Halbert with some nice bass from a Cape County farm pond.

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