A rock-studded concrete wall that holds back an irrigation pond at Twin Lakes Golf Course may be getting a facelift.
During the Monday, July 10 Board of Supervisors Meeting, a contract was awarded to Wilbur Smith and Associates for $159,775.14 to study the dam at the Twin Lakes Golf Course in Clifton to determine if it needs to be replaced or repaired.
"Right now, they're going to be doing an assessment of the dam and preparing the design and construction documents," said Judy Pederson, Fairfax County Park Authority public information officer. The Park Authority owns and maintains the golf course.
"They will determine if the dam needs to be rehabilitated or replaced altogether," she said.
Water is stored behind the dam, in a pond that lies between the twin courses, The Lakes and The Oaks, said the club's account manager, Dave Freeland.
"The Lakes course opened in 1967 and the Oaks, the newer course, opened in 1998," he said. It is possible that the dam is the original structure from when the golf course was built, he said.
"I don't think the work on the dam will affect the golf course," said Tim Scott, the project manager for the dam work.
DEPENDING ON the time of year when work on the dam is underway, "we may have to remove the water from it and find other sources" for irrigation, he said.
The dam is a low hazard, class three structure, Scott said, which means that it has a low impact on housing downstream from where it is located.
"The study we just looked at showed that there are no homes that lay within the flood impact area," he said.
A total of $2 million has been allocated for the entire project, Pederson said, with this initial contract to Wilbur Smith and Associates going to cover the design process. The money was set aside as part of a bond approved by voters in 2004.
"We're at the very beginning of this project," Pederson said.
It is uncertain what repairs will be needed or if the dam will have to be fully replaced, and if it is replaced, what the new design will look like, Freeland said.
"When the lower dam was built [as part of the newer course], they put in tubes instead of these concrete ditches," he said. "This system has been here for so many years."