The 120-ton crane that contractors say they will use to dig the trench for the diaphragm wall in Wolf Creek Dam has been constructed. It is waiting for improvements to the work platform to be completed before it is moved out to begin work on a portion of the dam.

Daniel Koziol, the lead technical engineer for Triviicos-Soletanche, said they have been widening of the work platform, and readying a section of a trench, with reinforced concrete guide-walls, in the platform between lines of the grout holes previously installed.

Koziol said the guide-walls will do just as their name implies, guide the equipment down into the earthen portion of the dam.

He explained that clamshell buckets will be used to dig down to a level in the dam where the pumps will not be pumping uphill to the digging head.

Koziol showed off the specially designed hydro-mill heads, which when assembled is taller than a house.

"This one turns like this, toward the center and the other side turns also to the center and the fluid flows around pushing the spoils up to the pipe," Kaziol said.

Where all the equipment is being staged, they are installing the apparatus of a separator on the pits they completed last week for extracting the dirt and rock from the liquid slurry that will be used to lubricate the cutting.

Three of the six ponds for holding that cutting lubricant are nearing completion.

The engineer explained that they will dig every other shaft along the slit trench and leave the cutting fluid in place to maintain the trench until the other crane will place concrete in that hole.

He said they will pump in the concrete from the bottom of the hole, pulling up and disassembling the delivery pipe as they force in the concrete, and displace the cutting fluid.

After a section of borings have been completed and hardened, Kaziol explained they will come back and dig out and concrete in the shafts that were passed up previously; thereby completing the wall.

As to what else has been going on at the dam Allison Jarrett with the Nashville district of the Corps the contractor has been installing more instruments to monitor the dam as they proceed with grouting and installing the wall within the dam.

William Flicknger, an on-site engineer for the Corps said a great deal of work has gone into putting in a new access for Ray Mann Road and to widening the work platform on the upstream side of the dam.

He said the new road is to keep construction equipment and private cars as separate as possible, to keep risk of a collision to a minimum.

Flicknger said the widening of the work platform by about 18 feet has required moving a great deal of rock from the old Halcomb's Landing area to the work area on the side of the dam.

In recent weeks the face of the dam has begun to change, and more recently more and more equipment has been arriving at the site. Just this week the offices for the contractor, Triviicos-Soletanche, arrived and are being assembled.

Equipment is still coming in to do the work, and they are still hiring the people they will need to do that work.

Staff in the company's office said they have been hiring workers locally, but noted that the company needs workers with very specific skill sets.

The Corps' engineer, Flicknger, said the general contractor has been hiring local firms to do the sub-contracting work and they are taking on local works where possible to complete the 3-5 years work repairing Wolf Creek Dam.