Due to post Hurricane Katrina levee evaluations, this USACE rehabilitation project was designed to strengthen, and reinforce the existing 140 mile long dike, encircling Lake Okeechobee, and to eliminate the hydraulic piping that is occuring through the limestone and organic layers.

The USACE requested cutoff wall experts to demonstrate their technologies in an effort to provide optimal solutions to the dangerous seepage problems at the dike. Bauer Foundation Corp’s (BFC) method of constructing the wall is inplace mixing of the soil and cement using the CSM method.

Despite layers of rock and organic peat layers, BFC constructed over 10 miles of CSM cutoff wall averaging 60 to 80 ft depth through the existing dike structure below the top of the dike.

The work was completed using BAUER CSM machines, cutting a trench of 25" thick and individual panels of 8 ft. width. The panels are installed in a primary/secondary panel sequence which insures a continuous and impermeable (1x10^-6 cm/sec) cutoff wall structure. Bauer used a BG 28 and BG 40 to remove all the organic peat to create the highest quality soil mixed wall.

The peat was recycled and spread on top of the dike to help restore vegetation.