Lake Matthews Water Intake Structure Modifications

Seismic Retrofit Project: Lake Matthews is the terminus of the Colorado River aqueduct which supplies the majority of southern California’s drinking water. This water intake control structure removal project was undertaken to address concerns it would fail in an earthquake.
Above waterline, the 30’ diameter concrete structure was cut into blocks using our standard industrial diamond wire saws.

Location

Riverside County, CA

Challenge

Cutting the underwater portion of the concrete structure, 100’ below waterline. Maintaining structural stability prior to removal required precise and accurate cuts in the 3’ thick reinforced concrete walls had to be cut accurately to maintain structure stability prior to removal.

Bluegrass designed a special swivel transition system to allow the saw to be placed topside with the diamond wire traveling through the center of the structure vertically to the base where the swivel transition turned the wire horizontally to cut the intake structure in three quadrants from a single setup. Each cut took approximately one day to complete.

The precision cuts allowed the entire 100’ of concrete structure below water to be pulled off its base foundation and lowered to the bottom of the lake.

Outcome

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