Morris Sheppard Dam Inspection and Survey

The Brazos River Authority (BRA) owns and operates the Morris Sheppard Dam which forms Possum Kingdom Reservoir, located in Palo Pinto County, some 25 miles northwest of Mineral Wells, Texas.  The project was constructed between 1938 and 1941 and consists of an Ambursen flat-slab buttress dam, earthen embankment section, emergency spillway, power intake structure and powerhouse.  Walter P Moore performed a 5-Year dam safety-engineering inspection of Morris Sheppard Dam in accordance with USACE and FERC requirements that included performing a condition assessment of the dam’s spillway structure, embankments with our difficult access team.  Based on our observations, Walter P Moore participated in an FERC probable failure mode analysis (PFMA) for the Morris Sheppard Dam and provided BRA with a report of our findings and recommendations following the engineering inspections and precision survey.