Bonneville rope rescue team gets a new job

Photo By Diana Fredlund | A member of Bonneville’s rope rescue team prepares to remove trees growing through the shotcrete, a material used to minimize soil erosion at the Sediment Retention Structure.  

MOUNT SAINT HELENS, WA, UNITED STATES

05.21.2012

Story by Diana Fredlund 

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Portland District

MOUNT SAINT HELENS, Wash. - An unlikely pairing of skills and need provide an interesting training event.

When you look upstream at Bonneville Lock and Dam, there doesn’t seem to be anywhere a rappelling team would be needed. As a run-of-river dam, there are no high monoliths needing inspection like at Grand Coulee Dam. While Bonneville appears more ranch-style than its high-head cousins, there are places within the structure where rappelling is still the best transport option.

“We have many places that are hard to get to,” said Tony Kirk, Bonneville’s supervisory maintenance manager. “Draft tubes are very difficult to reach after they’re dewatered.”

Each of Bonneville’s 20 turbines hangs above a 90-foot deep tube where water flows after passing the turbine blades. Fish often find their way into draft tubes, so after dewatering, fish biologists and other staff members need to enter the tubes and remove them. Personnel rescue in this area, if required, would be extremely difficult and dangerous without the properly trained rescuers.

“Our rope rescue team sets up in the gallery each time we dewater a draft tube,” Kirk said. “They have their equipment all prepped and staged before the first biologist heads down. They ensure the team descends safely and then brings the recovered fish in containers back to the top, where they are transferred outside to the river.”

Staging equipment to support Bonneville’s fish biologists during an activity like this offers the RRT an opportunity to train in preparing for emergencies that require rope rescue personnel.

“Bonneville Dam started the Bonneville Emergency Response Team about 14 years ago,” Kirk said. “As a result of past BERT rescues and the potential for future rescues, we determined we needed to expand the capabilities of the team, so if needed, they could conduct a rescue in the many difficult areas workers must access. The RRT was formed to meet that need. Thankfully we haven’t needed any rope rescues yet, but having them able to stand by during access operations gives us an added measure of safety.”

Bonneville’s rural setting offers another expertise that helped the RRT with a very unusual task in May, according to Jason Hill, Bonneville crane operator leader, RRT leader and volunteer emergency medical technician. “Rope rescue requires expertise in rappelling, first aid and emergency medical procedures. One skill not always called for is being able to handle a chain saw,” Hill said.

In rural Washington, many people have experience handling chain saws, but the corps requires all employees using equipment like chain saws to be certified. Bonneville often needs trees or deadfall removed and the corps routinely certifies employees in safe chain saw usage. Bonneville Dam certified eight employees this year – three of which were RRT members, who found their certification was critical for a job removing trees from a steep, 200-foot slope.

“The District Dam Safety inspection team identified trees growing on the sides of the Sediment Retention Structure at Mount Saint Helens as a hazard that needed to be removed,” Kirk said. “They wanted us to hire a contractor, but we told them we have the skill to do the job ourselves.”

Armed with the proper gear and experience, the RRT set out, May 21, to remove trees growing from the shotcrete, material used to form the slopes upstream of the SRS when it was constructed in 1989.

Earlier, the team traveled to the SRS for a site reconnaissance, developed an initial on-site plan, then returned to the office and developed a comprehensive Activity Hazardous Analysis. Plans called for one safety officer, who would coordinate the team’s movement from the other slope and six team members who would remove the trees.

“Bonneville’s Safety office was pleased we had two EMTs and planned for multiple landing zones during the operation,” Kirk said. “Michael Spears was the safety officer, which meant he monitored the activity at all times, coordinating each anchor point on the shotcrete to ensure safe descent and ascent as the guys removed the trees.” Spears is an EMT and member of the structural crew at Bonneville Dam.

By May 23, 200 trees were removed. Some of the trees were allowed to fall to the bottom of the slope while many of them were put through a chipper and returned to the environment. “The team did an outstanding job,” Kirk said. “They did a week’s worth of work in about 20 hours – all without incident.”

You’ll find dangerous places anywhere big equipment is operated and Bonneville Lock and Dam is no exception. Being prepared with proper safety gear, a well-planned operation and skilled employees minimizes the risk of injury to people or infrastructure. At Bonneville they have one more asset: a skilled team prepared to support workers entering hard-to-reach places who are prepared to use their EMT and rappelling experience.

“We’d much rather train for emergencies and never be needed,” Hill said. “It’s good practice for us to stage our equipment and then just pack it back up again. But if there’s ever a first time we’re needed for an actual emergency, Bonneville’s rope rescue team will be there, ready to help.”

• Date Taken: 05.21.2012
• Date Posted: 07.31.2012 17:45
• Story ID: 92463
• Location: MOUNT SAINT HELENS, WA, US