Once a target for skeptics, dam saves a sleepy town

Barrier proves its worth against heavy rains, spring runoff in Heppner

By Richard Cockle / The Bulletin
August 6, 2011

HEPPNER — Scoffers laughed because it leaked. They said the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built it in the wrong place. They called it the “Berlin Wall.”

But Willow Creek Dam — a revolutionary roller-compacted concrete impoundment built to prevent a replay of a tragic 1903 flash flood — proved its....

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