Location
Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, Batavia IL
Goals
ILM contracted with Crawford, Murphy & Tilly, Inc. to provide investigations on three lakes used for industrial cooling water (ICW) storage at Fermilab. All three lakes were created as excavated impoundments and some of them have been in use for over 30 years. Since there were no “as-built” records for these impoundments, there was no simple way to evaluate the extent to which the ponds may have been silted in over the years. As part of a larger project to update the facility’s ICW system, ILM was retained to provide a characterization of bottom sediment which would be used to evaluate the feasibility of dredging each of the lakes to increase their capacity.
Services and Results
Using a combination of physical measurements with GPS technology, ILM was able to characterize the nature and distribution of bottom sediments in each of the three lakes. In addition, ILM collected water and sediment samples for wet chemical analysis. This data was instrumental in the preparation of plans and specification for the entire ICW system which will also address dredging and material disposal options.
