CH2M Hill wins contract to study Grand Coulee cranes

Journal of Business, Apr 3, 2008 by Gustafson, Jeanne

The Spokane office of Denver-based CH2M Hill Inc. is assessing the safety of 15 cranes at Grand Coulee Dam under a $400,000 contract from the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, which operates the Columbia Basin dam.

The assessment is the first part of a three-phase job in which CH2M Hill will participate over the next six years, says Steve Sauer, a project manager for the bureau at Grand Coulee Dam.

Sauer says CH2M Hill will check the cranes and their controls to identify any components that might need replacing, upgrading or fixing, and will prepare a cost estimate for the work. The Spokane office of Coffman Engineers Inc. is working as a subcontractor on the project, he says.

The contract likely will lead to two additional contracts for CH2M Hill after the company submits its assessment to the bureau this fall, Sauer says.

One of those contracts would be to write specifications for work to upgrade the cranes. Under the other contract, CH2M Hill would serve as a technical consultant to the bureau while the upgrades were performed over a period of about six years.

Sauer says he doesn't know yet how much those additional contracts might be worth.

Some of the dam's 15 cranes are mounted on top of the dam and others are located inside its three power plants. The cranes are used primarily to disassemble and reassemble the dam's turbine generators for maintenance work, Sauer says.

Some of the cranes are stationary and reach heights of up to 50 feet, Sauer says. Others inside the power plants are mounted on rails and can be moved, Sauer says. All of the cranes are old and need to be upgraded for the safety of maintenance contractors who must use them, he says.

"We have significant programs in the near future internal to the power plants where we have contractors using those cranes," Sauer says. "We want to make sure the cranes are functional and operational."

Sauer says some of the cranes were installed in the original power plant in the 1940s, while others were added in the 1960s and '70s when the dam's third power plant was added. The bureau says Grand Coulee Dam is one of the largest concrete structures in America and generates the most hydropower of any facility in America, up to 6,800 megawatts at any one time.