Devils Lake East End Outlet

Challenge

Devils Lake, located in North Dakota, needed an emergency outlet to help lessen the effect of flooding conditions. Rising lake waters threatened to spill over and the state’s water commission required a solution that could be implemented within 18 months.

Solution

The North Dakota State Water Commission selected the team of Bartlett & West and AECOM to develop, design and oversee the construction of an emergency outlet to remove large amounts of water from Devils Lake. Bartlett & West provided the project management, contract administration, alternative analysis, field survey, permit application and other construction phase services for this project.

Several public involvement workshops were held during the initial stages of design to analyze 30 possible alternatives and system layouts, and to finalize the design concepts.

The project team compressed the schedule significantly by facilitating seven overlapping contracts. This approach led to the timely completion and creation of the Devils Lake East End Outlet—providing a controlled release of water from Devils Lake to the Cheyenne River.

Value

The routing and design developed by Bartlett & West and AECOM provided the North Dakota State Water Commission with a flood-control design that minimized environmental impacts and avoided permits, all within a short amount of time. The design included a large, 350 cubic-feet-per-second, direct-style intake, along with 7.5 miles of 96-inch pipeline and a terminal structure that included a rock filter.