DELIVERING AT THE BYLLESBY DAM
From water resources work and engineering services to architectural design
and structural inspection, Ayres is there for Minnesota client and its high-hazard dam
By Bob Brown
O
fficials in Dakota County in
southeastern Minnesota
learned the hard way that
sometimes first choices aren’t always
the best.
About four years ago, while
planning a major renovation to the
105-year-old Byllesby Dam across the
Cannon River, Dakota County hired a
company to manage the project that,
as it turned out, couldn’t deliver on its
promises.
Josh Petersen, senior resources
engineer for Dakota County
Environmental Resources, explains
that shortly after work on the dam
began, the engineers assigned to
oversee the renovation moved to
2│ TRENDS
a different company that wasn’t
interested in assuming the project.
“So we were kind of left hanging in
the wind,” Petersen said.
County officials returned to their
original Request for Proposals list,
placed a call to Ayres Associates, and
it’s been smooth sailing ever since.
“Ayres did a great job of taking
on the project. Their willingness to
jump in at a time when we thought
we were facing a really substantial
cost increase was so important,”
Petersen said. “After working with
them, it’s clear we should have
chosen Ayres in our first go-round,
based on how great they’ve been to
work with.”
Responding to project needs
The Byllesby Dam was built across
the Cannon River in 1910 by Henry
M. Byllesby & Company. The dam,
which was built mostly by hand labor,
created the Lake Byllesby Reservoir,
a 3.5-mile long, 1,432-acre lake,
which today is an important regional
recreational resource.
The border between Dakota and
Goodhue counties runs through the
middle of Lake Byllesby and, in fact,
Goodhue County was the original
owner of the dam. In 1978 the dam
was sold to Dakota County for $1.
At that point, the three original
turbines in the dam’s powerhouse had