With the underground cutoff wall complete, several lingering tasks remain before Boone Lake officially returns to normal operations in summer 2022.
The wall, an overlapping series of pillars poured into the earth like pickets of a fence, is designed to prevent internal erosion along the damâs earthen embankment. The last piling of that seepage barrier went in the ground in January.
Since then, the Tennessee Valley Authority has been testing the effectiveness of the repair work. On March 15, the TVA started conducting field tests by raising the reservoir two feet per week.
The agency held the water level at 1,352 feet of elevation for the five-year period of the repair and brought it up to 1,360 feet just before finishing the cutoff wall. The lake has stayed at 1,373 feet since April 28, which is the point at which the internal erosion problem occurred in 2014. Instruments have been measuring movement and water within the dam.