NEWS 2011

Posted November 9, 2011

Event: November 24, 2011

GSE: Bryan Watts, President, Canadian Geotechnical Society (2011/12) - Lessons Learned From Two Landslides

Location: Petroleum Club, Edmonton (11110 - 108 St)

Time: 11:45am Registration, 12:10 Lunch, 12:35pm Presentation

Cost: $30 Members, $40 Non-members, $10 Students

TThe principal features of two landslides will be presented. The first is the Marble Hill landslide which occurred approximately 4000 years ago on the north facing "Eastern Hillsides" of Chilliwack in the Fraser Valley of BC. A subdivision was constructed on this landslide in the mid-1990's. Soon after, movements in the landslide mass caused damage to some houses. The characteristics of the landslide and the resolution of the subdivision owners' claim for compensation will be described. The second slide was a flow slide of tailing at the toe of an inactive tailings dam in Sudbury, Ontario, in February of 2011. There were no injuries nor was the tailing pond breached. The flow slide occurred during the construction of a rockfill buttress to resist liquefaction of tailings during future earthquakes. The cause of the flow slide will be described together with the measures taken to allow the construction works to proceed.

Bryan Watts is a 1974 graduate of the Geological Engineering program at UBC. He obtained his Master's Degree in 1981 in Civil Engineering from the University of Alberta. His career in consulting engineering started in 1975 as a site engineer for the construction of the North Starter Dam for the Mildred Lake Tailings Dam at Syncrude. Since then he has worked on design and construction of various tailings and hydroelectric dams in many parts of the world. He was lead consultant on the Bennett Dam sinkhole remediation project in 1996/1997. He is President of Klohn Crippen Berger Ltd., and President of the Canadian Geotechnical Society for 2011/2012. He is a Fellow of the Engineering Institute in Canada, holds the 2001 R. M. Quigley Award for the Canlex project and the 2001 Published Paper Award from the CDA for the Bennett Dam sinkhole remediation publications.