The Holyoke dam at the time of its completion in 1900 was one of the longest dams of its kind in the United States and was considered an engineering marvel. Located on the Connecticut River between South Hadley and Holyoke, Massachusetts, construction on the dam began in 1895 and was completed on January 5, 1900. The structure is 30 ft. high and 985 ft. long and originally consisted of approximately 11,000 fitted blocks of granite. The dam is currently owned and operated by the Holyoke Gas & Electric Department (HG&E) in Holyoke, Massachusetts. Remedial work on the Holyoke dam and subsequent dam safety inspections required an upgrade to the existing deformation monitoring program to one capable of detecting minimal horizontal displacements of ± 3 mm and vertical displacements of ± 1 mm at the 95% confidence levels. The physical layout of the project site presented several unique challenges for HG&E due to the age and location of the structures to be monitored. This paper presents the steps that were taken to upgrade to a modern geodetic deformation monitoring program.
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