Geotechnical News • March 2016
37
WASTE GEOTECHNICS
Academics and industry join forces to raise the bar
on dam engineering
Richard Cairney
After dams at two Western Canadian
mines burst in the last two years—at
the Obed Mine near Hinton, Alberta,
in 2013 and at B.C.’s Mount Polley
Mine in 2014—alarms went off for
engineers across the country.
At the Alberta Chamber of Resources,
an association that represents resource
industries across the province, a group
known as the dam integrity advisory
committee paid particularly close
attention. Members of the group spot-
ted a potential gap in succession plan-
ning for dam engineering expertise
and asked the Faculty of Engineering
at the University of Alberta to provide
some professional inservice for dam
engineers.
They approached Ward Wilson, a
professor in the Department of Civil
and Environmental Engineering and
School of Mining and Petroleum Engi-
neering at the University of Alberta,
for help. The result was an intense,
five-day course that attracted mid-
career dam engineers from around the
world.
“I was thinking they could put
together a two-day workshop for 20
or 40 people,” said Larry Staples, an
advisor with the Alberta Chamber of
Resources. But Wilson, along with
Distinguished University Professor
Emeritus Norbert Morgenstern, who
is widely considered to be the world
expert in his field, and civil engineer-
ing professor Nicholas Beier delivered
much more.
“I was blown away by the number of
people that showed up and the fact
that those people were from the exact
demographic we need to reach—dam
engineers who are in the mid-career
stage who are going to step into posi-
tions of greater and greater responsi-
bility.”
About 75 people participated in the
workshop—including engineers from
Imperial Oil, Shell, and Syncrude as
well as those from consulting firms
and regulatory bodies in Alberta and
B.C.
The Class of 2015 - The First International Short Course on “The Design and
Assessment of Mine Waste Structures” held at the University of Alberta in
December 2015.
Members of the panel (L to R) Tim Eaton, Steve Vick,
Ward Wilson, Gord Mckenna and Andy Robertson.
Photo: Rich Cairney.
Dr. Norbert Morgenstern and short course attendee
Stephanie Hunter of BGC Engineering.
Photo: Gord McKenna
