DECKERS, Colo. - Divers will live below water for a month in a compression chamber as the 105-year-old Cheesman Dam undergoes a plumbing overhaul beginning Monday.
The overhaul of rusty, leaking cast-iron fixtures is scheduled to begin Monday at dawn. It marks Denver's first major effort to upgrade the dam, a 221-foot-high granite-brick structure that was the tallest in the world when it opened in 1905.
It was the first dam built to supply residents of Denver with water. The city's mountain reservoir system now helps serve about 1.3 million customers.
Divers from Seattle-based Global Diving & Salvage Inc. will live in a six-bunk main chamber about 200 feet beneath the surface of the reservoir, which is a major source of Denver's water. They will use jackhammers, blowtorches, drills, and blasting during 12-hour construction shifts.
The depth and the mixture of helium-oxygen the divers will be breathing requires an extended underwater stay.
The Denver Post reports a support team on a floating steel barge will help the divers during their month-long underwater plumbing operation. Planning for this project began about five years ago.
Cheesman Reservoir is about 45 miles southwest of Denver near Deckers.
The overhaul of rusty, leaking cast-iron fixtures is scheduled to begin Monday at dawn. It marks Denver's first major effort to upgrade the dam, a 221-foot-high granite-brick structure that was the tallest in the world when it opened in 1905.
It was the first dam built to supply residents of Denver with water. The city's mountain reservoir system now helps serve about 1.3 million customers.
Divers from Seattle-based Global Diving & Salvage Inc. will live in a six-bunk main chamber about 200 feet beneath the surface of the reservoir, which is a major source of Denver's water. They will use jackhammers, blowtorches, drills, and blasting during 12-hour construction shifts.
The depth and the mixture of helium-oxygen the divers will be breathing requires an extended underwater stay.
The Denver Post reports a support team on a floating steel barge will help the divers during their month-long underwater plumbing operation. Planning for this project began about five years ago.
Cheesman Reservoir is about 45 miles southwest of Denver near Deckers.
