Pinto Dam Stilling Basin

The Pinto Dam Outlet project was an ARRA project and involved grading and structures on two separate lakes, Billy Clap Lake, which Pinto Dam regulates, and Brooks Lake, which is not controlled by any dams and is part of the Crab Creek drainage. Water management on the outlet structure was challenging and MJ Hughes actively helped the Bureau of Reclamation re-design and re-permit their cofferdam plans due to work occurring during an unusual weather pattern where the elevation of Brook Lake was six feet higher than the Bureau had anticipated. The solution that MJ Hughes and the Bureau ultimately settled on was a Porta Dam cofferdam structure and a series of well points for collecting the water entering the work area through fissures in the fractured bedrock.

MJ Hughes produced several thousand tons of rock products for the project from onsite material sources ranging from 1″ minus to 24″ rip rap and washed drain rock.