Posted on June 25, 2025
Engineering technicians from the Tulsa District Infrastructure Branch performed periodic inspections and maintenance at Kemp Dam near Seymour, Texas, June 2-10.
“As a part of our regular maintenance, every five years, the tech crew will come out, they’ll do our regular cleanings to make sure the instruments are operating as effective,” said Charles McDaniel, engineer, Tulsa District, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. “And these instruments, help us whenever we get into high water events like we might just had in upper Red River. Just to make sure the project is functioning like it’s intended.”
The team used a remotely operated vehicle called a camera crawler, and a submersible remote vehicle with a powerful sonar system to inspect the dam’s, relief wells, piezometers, toe drain and the stilling basin.
“Most folks that are familiar with sonars are fishing sonars, and they operate at about 1200 megahertz,” said Shaun Wenzel, engineering technician. “This SRV-8 and the Oculus 3000 is equipped with, a sonar that does up to 3,000 megahertz. To give you an idea of its detail, it’s seeing a tire on the bottom or seeing the tire tread.”
Kemp Dam provides flood control, irrigation, and water supply to Wichita Falls.
Originally completed in 1923, Lake Kemp is named for Joseph Alexander Kemp, a local business owner, entrepreneur, and advocate for construction of Kemp Dam’s.
The City of Wichita Falls and Wichita County Water Improvement District 2 own Lake Kemp. Passage of the Flood Control Act of 1962 authorized the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to redesign and reconstruct Kemp Dam.
The USACE completed the project in the early 1970s, raising the top of the flood pool to elevation 1156 and increasing flood pool storage to 478,270 acre-feet.
According to Kyle Miller, general manager, Wichita County Water Improvement District 2 performs regular inspections and maintenance to Kemp Dam and the periodic inspections and maintenance by USACE helps with reducing risk.
“As far as, coordinating the engineering expertise and the cost share agreements we have and getting it done, I really do feel good that the Corps of Engineers has their eyes on things, too. There are a lot of times, even if you’ve got an employee that lives at a at a project, they see something every day,” said Miller. “And when you bring those other eyes in from, you know, another area, they’re liable to see something that you’re not seeing, even though you see it every day.”
Miller said that recent rainfall in the upper Red River watershed is evidence of the value Kemp Dam provides for flood risk management.
“Since April, we’ve, we’ve had over 20 inches in this area,” Miller said. “Sometimes those rains were three, four or five inches at a time. If we hadn’t had the dam at Lake Kemp upstream of Wichita Falls, we’d have had some major flood problems.”
