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| February 2022 - BDS Newsletter |
21st February 2022 |
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In this issue:
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Our next BDS evening meeting will be on Monday 7th March 2022 at 6.00pm.
The meeting titled “Guidance following the 2019 Toddbrook Reservoir Incident” will be presented by Kieron Kenny, Viktor Pavlov, Tim Daly and Eddie Robinson.
Presenters will provide an overview of the content of each of the new guidance, how it has been developed and challenges encountered. The new guidance to be discussed will be:
- Supervising Engineer Guidance – written statements and site visit reports
- Inspecting Engineer Guidance – concisely share good practices as “standard practices”, such as staying curious when considering previous inspection reports
- Owners Guidance - how to design, inspect, monitor, and maintain impounding reservoir spillways so they are safe
- Spillway Design Guide – design principles for better spillways
- Guidance to Spillway Failure Mechanisms - review of existing literature on spillway failures and failure mechanisms, including accounts of historical case studies.
- Spillway Examination Guide – principles to help identify safety issues sooner
- Inspection Information Pack – the records and other information that should be provided to Inspecting Engineers in advance of a planned inspection (published in 2021).
This meeting will be held live at the ICE (1 Great George Street, London) and also online. Refreshments will be served from 5.30pm, however, the ICE have not yet reopened the bar and therefore will be no bar facilities after the meeting
PLEASE NOTE: The ICE requires that attendees, either in person or online, register in advance of the event so that refreshments can be organised and so that online viewing links can be emailed in advance. Please use the link on the BDS Events Calendar page to register. | | |
The BDS Prize Evening was held on 10 January 2022. Five presentations were made by the following Young Professionals:
- Emma Bullen – Arcadis – Managing the dam breach modelling and mapping of reservoirs in Wales.
- Amy Carter – Arcadis – Drivers for discontinuance: a multi-disciplinary approach to feasibility assessment.
- Ciara Gill – Jacobs – Forge Mill Flood Storage Area: Lessons learnt.
- Michael Jack – SSE – Maintaining our dams and contributing towards Net Zero.
- India Hutchinson – Stantec – Grassholme Reservoir: Northern embankment stabilisation works
Amy Carter of Arcadis was declared the winner by the judges with India Hutchinson & Ciara Gill coming second and third. This meeting and most other previous meetings are now available to view on the ‘Listen Again’ section of the BDS Website - https://britishdams.org/meetings-and-events/listen-again/ | | |
We are delighted to announce the winner of The Great British Dam Bake-Off as Matthew Rhodes! A £50 Amazon voucher will be sent out shortly.
Matthew’s entry was selected as the winner due to the variety of materials used and all being edible! The breakdown of an embankment dam construction followed by a common failure mechanism explained the importance of dam safety in a simple and fun way for children which the judges really liked.
 
All 5 entries were fantastic and will be valuable educational resources so thank you to those who participated. The entries will be added to the BDS website ‘Education Zone’ at we look forward to seeing future entries when the competition is opened again later this year. | | |
As part of our ongoing commitment to being as inclusive of a society as possible, we have decided to open up our very successful lunchtime CPD sessions to all BDS members.
You can also access the sessions by clicking on the Teams link below on the last Thursday of the month between 12:00-12:30. Click here to join the meeting
The next 3 sessions are as follows:
24/02/22 - Developments in the Construction of RCC Dams- Quentin Shaw (ARQ Consulting)
31/03/22- Toddbrook and Inundation Maps- Jeremy Benn (JBA Consulting)
28/03/22 – Preparing Onsite Plans – Matt Coombs
Please note that these events will still be facilitated by the Young Professional Group and as such the technical detail of these presentations will remain at this development level.
We are currently looking for future presenters - please get in touch if you would like to present at one of our future events by emailing youngprofessionals@britishdams.org | | |
The organizing committee of the 27th congress of ICOLD to be held in Marseille from 27 May to 3 June 2022 have announced that registration is now open. Information on registration can be found on the website, along with accommodation options. Please follow the link below for more details:
https://cigb-icold2022.fr/en
The symposium is being organized by the CFBR "Sharing Water: Multi-Purpose of Reservoirs and Innovations", the international round table on the challenges of dams in the 21st century, the meeting of ICOLD technical committees which will offer some thematic workshops presenting their work, training sessions on the main guidelines produced by the CFBR in recent years, technical visits and study tours, and many more moments.
As BDS we are encouraging as many people as possible to attend ICOLD, as it is being held in such an accessible European City.
If you plan to attend the ICOLD event in Marseille please could you let Moira Doherty know on bds@ice.org.uk so that we can collate a list of all those BDS members attending. | | |
Following a recent invitation for BDS members to apply for current vacancies on the various ICOLD Technical Committees, two new nominations have been confirmed by the BDS main committee.
Congratulations to Mr. Russ Digby (KGAL) who has been nominated as the Technical Committee representative for Committee V: “Hydromechanical Equipment”. Russ has previously served as a co-opted member on this committee and will continue the good work of the outgoing TC representative, Mr. Ken Grubb. We offer our thanks to Ken for his contributions to the work of ICOLD, having served as the TC representative since 2015.
Congratulations also to Mr. Paul Dickens (Arup) who has been nominated as the co-opted member for Committee C: “Hydraulics for dams”. Paul will work alongside the existing TC representative (Mr. Viktor Pavlov), providing support to the work of the committee.
ICOLD have been informed of the proposed changes which are due to be ratified at the next ICOLD meeting in Marseille. | | |
The Final Draft of the new ICOLD bulletin on Tailings Dam Safety has just been finalised and country members can submit comments until March 17, 2022.
If you would like to request a copy to review and potentially provide comments, please can you send an email to RMonroy@klohn.com
Comments will then be collated and forwarded to the Chair of TC L. | | |
A technical site visit has been organised to National Trust Prior Park in Bath on 23rd March 2022. The park contains three ornamental lakes, but with insufficient spillway capacity to pass extreme floods. Additionally, the dams were suffering damage from burrowing signal crayfish and the beginnings of piping failure were evident.
This technical visit will discuss how the dam improvement and reconstruction works have been sensitively designed to pass extreme flood events and address dam stability concerns whilst minimising impacts on the protected views from the Palladian bridge, a Grade I listed structure crossing between the Upper and Middle ponds.
Attendance at the visit is limited to maximum 30 people.
For further information please see the event flyer of the BDS Events Calendar | | |
Please Note: Nominations close on Monday 28th February 2022.
Earlier this month we opened nominations to become an elected member of the main BDS Committee (2022-2025). There are up to 12 elected committee members within the BDS Committee who all work across one of our 5 strategic objective working groups (Membership, Knowledge, Professionalism, Education and Informing Opinion). Each committee member is asked to attend 4No committee meetings during the year and support key BDS activities however possible (for example the Conference / SE Forum, Competitions, evening meetings).
The BDS is proud to announce that in 2022 we are introducing a new role within the committee specifically for Equality, Diversity and Inclusion. This initiative was raised by Kyle McClean and Lucy Monkhouse in the BDS YP Group and is one the BDS Main Committee wished to fully support and implement immediately. Therefore following the AGM in April our aim is to assign one of the committee members to the role. We would strongly encourage anyone who may be interested in this role to put themselves forward to become an elected committee member. The key to success of this new role is someone who has ability to connect with people, be an effective communicator and have experience building strong working relationships.
We anticipate the Diversity and Inclusion role will include the following responsibilities within the Committee.
- Responsible for instilling a diverse and accepting culture across the society.
- Identify areas in which the committee can improve its efforts to be more inclusive and help it adapt to ensure everyone has the facilities to be comfortable within the society.
- Liaising with the ICE Vice President Membership & Diversity, Director Membership, and the Fairness Inclusion Respect (FIR) Committee.
- Setting and implementing a D&I strategy and action plan for the BDS and engaging with membership and committee members to help implement the ICE Diversity Action Plan.
- Help with the reviewing of policies and action plans to ensure they speak for everyone in the society.
- Run workshops on D&I for BDS members and help arrange events that help celebrate diversity, such as events with donations going to minority charities.
- Providing advice to committee members on ways to improve D&I.
If you are interested in joining the BDS committee and contributing further to our society, please complete the attached candidate nomination form to the BDS Secretary not later than the 28th February 2022 (preferably via email to bds@ice.org.uk) | | |
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