Protecting

Transmission
Towers from
Forces of
Nature
Joe Duggan, Communications

March 27, 2020

SIGN UP FOR OUR NEWSLETTER

No, they did not put a transmission tower in the middle of the Platte River.

One might assume otherwise upon seeing a photo taken after March 15, 2019, north
of Ashland, Nebraska. The H-frame transmission tower rises almost from the center
of the wide, shallow channel of the state’s most iconic river.

Had the same photo been snapped a few days earlier, it would have shown the tower
firmly planted on dry ground 300 feet west of the Platte. The before-and-after
images dramatically reveal the power of a historic flood and the impact it had on the
Omaha Public Power District (OPPD), the owner of the transmission structure.

A combination of heavy rain and rapid snowmelt last year unleashed unprecedented
flooding across eastern Nebraska. The powerful floodwaters near the confluence
with the Elkhorn River eroded several hundred feet of the Platte’s west bank.

As high water receded, the new channel remained, leaving the transmission tower in
a precarious spot. The flood impacted three structures in total, which supported two
different high-voltage transmission routes. Given the major expense and time
required to rebuild transmission lines, officials with the utility opted to reinforce
the structure foundations.

And they selected Olsson to help make sure the project was completed before the
next major flood hit.
 Courtesy OPPD

The top image shows the Platte River and transmission towers (red circles) before flooding in 2019 and
the bottom shows how the river channel migrated and submerged the base of the west tower.

OPPD officials knew potential ice jams, snow melt, and rainfall could again
threaten the region in the late winter of 2020, but they also needed to keep the
power lines energized to serve their customers during the high-demand summer
season of 2019. That gave Olsson and the selected contractor roughly 16 weeks
through the heart of winter to complete the project.
You’ve heard of a reconnaissance aircraft? This project started with a
reconnaissance airboat.

Brian Jueneman, construction administration manager at Olsson, said the airboat

trip to the site revealed that river current had scoured several feet of sediment away
from the tower’s concrete drilled-shaft foundations. It also drove home the fact that
there would be no time for negotiations and change orders once the project started.
The contract documents, plans, and specifications had to be complete and thorough
to eliminate “what-if” scenarios. A key piece of this was a mandatory pre-bid
meeting for the contractors.

“The goal of OPPD was to protect these structures from catastrophic failure,” Brian
said. “What looked like a simple project at the outset quickly became a challenge of
how we produce a set of plans and how do we get a good bidding environment.”

One major challenge was how to complete the job in the middle of a river with
severely limited access. Simply reaching the sites by land wouldn’t be easy, as the
flood had piled sand over access routes. Potential issues related to environmental
permitting and nearby wetlands would also need to be addressed, along with
designing a structural fix to provide long-term stabilization to the transmission
towers.
 Courtesy OPPD

Though it was built on solid ground, the OPPD transmission tower now stands in a river channel.

We covered the waterfront when it came to providing services to our project

partners.

Carter Hubbard, engineering technical leader with our Water Resources team,
provided hydraulic analysis to better predict how the river current would impact the
structure over time. Amy Cherko, project scientist with our Environmental team,
assessed the regulatory parameters and came up with a strategy to obtain permits.

Tyler Cramer, project engineer on the Road and Bridge team, said a structural
analysis showed that movement of the wires and structures caused by wind would
generate significant lateral loads on the bases. He not only had to account for the
impact of the river current on the bases, the solution had to be able to withstand ice
jams and potential major flooding.
His design called for sheet piling surrounding the bases to be driven 35- to 40-feet
into the riverbed. The space between the piling and the tower bases would be
backfilled with granular material and topped with grouted riprap.

Limited site access required Olsson to design a road more than two miles long to
reach the east side of the river and another that was a half-mile long on the west
side. The re-constructed roads allowed Hawkins Construction to move equipment
and material and install a temporary bridge so crews could work on the submerged
transmission structure. The bridge satisfied a federal requirement that prohibited fill
from being pushed into the Platte River.
 Courtesy OPPD

A completed base structure designed by Olsson on one of the towers that wasn't left submerged by
flooding.
Olsson also provided geotechnical services, survey, construction administration, and
construction observation. Hawkins Construction completed work on all three
structures on time. The project cost approximately $3.2 million, and OPPD is
seeking federal disaster reimbursement.

While everyone hopes Nebraska will never again see another record-setting natural
disaster, the OPPD structures in and along the Platte River are in a much stronger
position to withstand the next flood.

“Hopefully OPPD never has to come back to these structures again,” Tyler Cramer
said.