Long Bypass Reach opens to boaters for the first time in over 100 years.

GREAT FALLS, S.C. (March 16, 2023) – Water is flowing down the Long Bypass Reach of the Catawba River in Chester County, S.C. for the first time since 1907, bringing life and voice back to the rolling granite waves that are the historic “Great Falls” of South Carolina. Officials celebrated the completion of the multi-million-dollar Great Falls-Dearborn Diversion Bypass project that has returned water to the Catawba’s 2.25-mile Long Reach for new recreational opportunities and to restore aquatic life and lowland habitat. The area will be open to public for paddling March 18.

The innovative two-channel design enables a minimum flow of water through the diversion dam while also providing safe boater bypass during high-flow recreational releases. Paddlers will now be able to traverse past the Diversion Dam with a similar difficulty grade as the beautiful corridor of Class II-III whitewater below.

“For anyone that cares about the environment and enjoys playing in rivers, this is a significant milestone,” said Scott Shipley, president of S2O Design and Engineering, the firm that led design and construction of the project. “Paddlers are going to come from all over the region to experience the rapids and surf waves of the Catawba’s Long Reach.”

The long bypass reach will receive six 2,940-cfs recreational releases on two Saturdays and four Sundays per month from March 1 to October 31. There will also be a continuous 850-cfs boatable base-flow from February 15 to May 15, and 450cfs the rest of the year.

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The project’s 400-foot Main Channel directs most of the flow down 12 feet of drop from the reservoir to the bottom pool. It incorporates three innovative multi-stage drop structures optimized for safe passage and easy surfing at base flows, creating larger, more powerful whitewater features at release flows.

The 1,075-foot Recreation Bypass Channel (known locally as “the paperclip”) is a narrow, winding channel that features nine drop structures that control the rate and intensity of flows through the channel, a recovery pool, an island with gradually sloped sides, and portage trails for boaters to exit the channel if needed. The access channel’s design also incorporates special formations to prevent fish from being trapped at lower flows.

This project was spawned from Duke Energy’s FERC requirements when relicensing the Catawba-Wateree Hydro Project and is part of the utility’s ongoing efforts to further open local lakes and rivers to recreational use.

“This was an innovative approach to a complex challenge, and our team, including Duke Energy and the engineering firm, has done an outstanding job of navigating the numerous engineering, construction, environmental, and regulatory variables,” said Scott Shipley.

Shipley also stressed that while the features in both channels provide opportunities for playing and surfing, this is considered a flow release project and not a traditional whitewater park.

S2O Design commends American Whitewater, which represented paddling interests across the basin during the FERC relicensing process and was responsible for spearheading the effort to open up this reach of the Catawba River to boating.

About S2O Design & Engineering
S2O Design is an engineering firm specializing in innovative river engineering, restoration, and community-focused whitewater park design. Our team of expert boater-engineers has planned, conceived, designed, and created some of the best in-stream whitewater parks as well as largest and most dynamic recirculating whitewater parks in the world. S2O Design is led by engineer, Olympian, and three-time World Cup Kayak Champion and Freestyle Kayak Champion Scott Shipley. For more information, visit S2ODesign.com.

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Dam Modification Spawning New Whitewater Park on the Catawba River

S2O Design & Engineering heads Great Falls-Dearborn Diversion Bypass Project, design solution will open the Catawba’s Long Bypass Reach for boating for the first time in over 100 years.

In Chester County, S.C. near the North and South Carolina border—an hour’s drive south of the U.S. National Whitewater Center in Charlotte, NC—an engineering project is taking shape that will similarly attract paddlers and river enthusiasts throughout the region.

More than 100 years ago, the Great Falls-Dearborn Diversion Dam was built on the Catawba River for a hydroelectric plant, which created the Great Falls Dearborn Reservoir but also de-watered the 2.25-mile Long Bypass Reach below the dam. As part of the recent Catawba River Agreement and FERC re-licensing of the Catawba River for hydropower, a multi-million-dollar effort was launched to return water to the river for new recreational opportunities and to restore aquatic life and lowland habitat downstream of the dam.

S2O Design & Engineering, the world’s premier river engineering and whitewater design company, was tapped to devise a solution to allow flows through the diversion dam in a controlled manner and to provide safe bypass for paddlers who wish to traverse past the Diversion Dam into the beautiful corridor of class II-III whitewater. With construction past the half-way point, both water and boaters will soon be flowing down the Long Reach of the Catawba for the first time since 1907, bringing life and voice back to the rolling granite waves that are the historic “Great Falls” of South Carolina.

“This was an innovative approach to a complex challenge, and our team, including the project Owner and HDR Engineering, has done an outstanding job of navigating the engineering, construction, environmental, and regulatory variables with this project,” said Scott Shipley, S2O Design president and former kayak Olympian. “The results will bring a positive impact to the health and vitality of the river and create exciting recreation opportunities for paddlers across the region.”

S2O Design’s solution to accomplish the multiple objectives features the creation of two release points or notches in the dam for recreational release flows and boaters to navigate into the Long Bypass Reach — a Main Channel that will convey water continuously into the reach, and a Recreation Bypass Channel that will provide a safe route for boaters during recreational releases.

The 400’ long Main Channel will take most of the flow down the eight feet of drop from the reservoir to the bottom pool, providing continuous connectivity between the reservoir and the river. To accommodate these flows, the design incorporates three innovative multi-stage drop structures that help control flows through the channel at various levels without creating dangerous recirculating hydraulics common in lowhead dams.

To provide the safest possible passage to the Long Bypass Reach at higher flows, S2O Design created the Recreation Bypass Channel that will have much less drop over a longer distance. This 1,075’ long passage features nine drop structures to control the rate and intensity of flows in the channel, a recovery pool and island with gradually sloped sides, and portage trails for boaters to exit the channel if needed. S2O Design also devised innovative applications in the Bypass Channel to prevent fish from being trapped at lower flows.

In creating this solution, S2O Design engineers and hydrologists completed conceptual designs, 1D and 2D computer modeling, construction documents, and construction visualization renderings. Working with engineers at the Czech Technical University in Prague, S2O Design also created a 1:20 scale physical model of both channels to study a range of flow conditions, and fine tune and validate that the design will meet the project’s stringent design and performance parameters.

S2O Design also commends American Whitewater, who represented paddling interests across the basin during the FERC relicensing process and was responsible for spearheading the effort to open up this reach of the Catawba River to boating. These and other enhancements are part of ongoing efforts by the local utility to further open local lakes and rivers to recreational use.

Construction on the Great Falls-Dearborn Diversion Bypass began in the spring of 2021 and is expected to be completed by fall 2022.

About S2O Design & Engineering

S2O Design is an engineering firm specializing in innovative river engineering, restoration, and community-focused whitewater park design. Our team of expert boater-engineers has planned, conceived, designed, and created some of the best in-stream whitewater parks as well as largest and most dynamic recirculating whitewater parks in the world. S2O Design is led by engineer, Olympian, and three-time World Cup Kayak Champion and Freestyle Kayak Champion Scott Shipley. For more information, visit S2ODesign.com.

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Famed Cunovo Water Sports Centre Completes Renovation with a Nod to the Future

      

 

Originally built in 1996 on an island in the Danube, the Cunovo Water Sports Centre in Bratislava, Slovakia hosted its first World Cup kayak event in 1997 and its most recent in 2013. To continue progressing with this growing sport, the Slovakian Federation tapped S2O Design and Engineering to lead a major renovation of the iconic dual-channel venue. S2O Design’s new channel configuration and incorporation of the RapidBlocs™ system gives Cunovo a better experience for recreation-level users, and adds a cache of features for advanced paddlers to play, train, and race at the highest levels.

“We love working on projects like this, but this one was a little more personal for me,” said S2O Design’s founder and president Scott Shipley, the three-time Olympian and World Cup slalom champion who also medaled for the U.S. at Cunovo in 1999. “We were fortunate to work closely with the Federation and with coaches who have been using the course for 20 years. That much insight and experience go a long way toward building a world-class whitewater competition venue that can evolve along with the sport.”

S2O Design’s work on the iconic venue included reconfiguring the channel layout and updating the obstacle structures. The unique parallel courses, which allow paddlers to change from one course to the other midway, had become outdated, and unfavorable conditions on the left channel made it largely unusable for recreational paddlers and not conducive for competitions.

S2O Design redesigned the left channel to integrate their patented RapidBlocs™ system, highly customizable three-dimensional obstacles that form the course’s waves, holes, drops, and eddies. The flexibility of the new system allows the operators to customize the configuration with the desired amount, type, and shape of features for any level paddler. The RapidBlocs system was also used for the newly built venue that hosted the 2021 Olympic Games.

Cunovo’s new competition channel configuration included repositioning the starting gate, adding a spectator-friendly features in front of the grandstand, and reconfiguring the bottom features on the racecourse.

The result of the renovation is better, more consistent whitewater throughout the channel, providing favorable conditions for both guided commercial operations as well as technical and endurance training and beginner to Olympic-level racing. The new configuration also makes Cunovo Whitewater Water Sports Centre an ideal venue for spectating and televised events.

“The reconstruction of the water slalom complex in Čunovo is an important milestone in the development of water sports in the Slovak Republic,” said Matus Stulajter, project manager at the Slovak Canoeing Federation. “In collaboration with Scott Shipley and the S2O Design team, we have managed to create a unique channel with elements that are nowhere else in the world. I believe that this unique project will contribute to the sustainable development of sports infrastructure in Slovakia.”

Cunovo Whitewater Park will host the ICF Canoe Slalom World Championships Sept 22-26. The new course should help Slovakia return to a once-dominant position in whitewater slalom when it was part of the Czech Republic.

The Bratislava course is just one of many high-profile whitewater courses the S20 Design team is credited with designing, including the U.S. National Whitewater Center in Charlotte, N.C., RiverSports Whitewater Park in Oklahoma City, and the Lee Valley White Water Centre in London, site of the 2012 Olympics. S2O Design is currently leading the design and development of Montgomery Whitewater, the new $50 million recirculating whitewater center in Montgomery, Ala.

Poudre River Whitewater Park adds recreation, economic growth to northern Colorado.

Coursing through the heart of downtown Fort Collins, Colo., the Poudre River is now home to the country’s newest whitewater park. Driven by river park engineering firm S20 Design and Engineering, the new whitewater park features a series of waves for rafters, kayakers, and stand-up paddleboarders, a wading area for families, a pedestrian bridge, and extensive bank reconfiguration. The project, located near Old Town at Vine Drive and College Avenue, brings the river back to a more natural state, provides the community a greater connection to the river, and invites economic development to the area.

“The Poudre has always been a classic Colorado destination for river running, and now its recreational amenities will be more accessible than ever,” said S2O Design founder Scott Shipley. “Not only is it a beautiful site for a river park, it’s also a perfect example of various entities coming together to create a great focal point for the town.”

Lyons, Colo.-based S2O Design provided design, planning, permitting, and construction services to the project. S20 was chosen because of its expertise with whitewater park development and familiarity with the market. The park will officially open in September 2019. 

Design and construction of the Poudre River Whitewater Park was a complex process with several moving parts and a broad array of stakeholders. S2O Design was charged with converting the dangerous Coy Diversion Dam, which was a barrier to fish passage, into a usable park area that also encourages fish migration. The river features needed to provide low- and high-water functionality to a wide variety of users, with extensive bank restoration and reconfiguration to bolster animal habitat and improve stormwater management. 

Funding the $12 million project was achieved through both public and private partners. The city’s Building on Basics tax initiative, a program introduced in 2015 for community improvements, contributed $7 million; the city’s Storm Water, Natural Areas, and Parks and Rec departments contributed $3 million; and private donations totaled more than $2 million, including a $1 million gift from longtime Fort Collins residents Jack and Ginger Graham.

“The Poudre holds a very special place in our city’s history,” said Jack Graham, former U.S. Senate candidate and Colorado State University athletic director who spearheaded the school’s new on-campus stadium. “It has been in need of some TLC for decades and the park’s environmental repairs and restoration, coupled with its recreational features, will bring needed energy and economic development to the River District and downtown.”

Fort Collins Mayor Wade Troxell added, “The river, and its new park, is a true treasure for our community and a legacy for our future. It will build community, strengthen our downtown, and contribute to our vibrancy and prosperity.”

Bringing the project to fruition was a long time coming. It was formally approved by voters in 2015 as part of the city’s Community Capital Improvement Program, but was in the works for nearly 20 years prior. “We first started talking about it way back in 1986, so it’s great to finally see it come to fruition,” says Tim O’Hara, a commercial photographer who served as the lead fundraiser for the project.

Previous efforts at building a river park there had stalled. Shipley, who holds a master’s degree in Engineering and is also a three-time Olympian and World Cup slalom kayak champion, was able to organize the project’s multiple stakeholders, navigate the long public process, and drive the design decisions that led to its final construction. “A lot of other companies had looked at this, but we were the only ones who were able to get it done,” said Shipley.

S2O Design has completed several other river recreation and restoration projects in Colorado, including the Eagle River Park, Durango Whitewater Park, Canon City Whitewater Park, and Bohn Park in Lyons, Colo.

About S2O Design

S2O Design is an engineering firm specializing in innovative river engineering, restoration, and community-focused whitewater park design. Our team of expert boater-engineers has planned, conceived, designed, and created some of the best in-stream whitewater parks as well as largest and most dynamic recirculating whitewater parks in the world. S2O Design is led by engineer, Olympian, and three-time World Cup Kayak Champion and Freestyle Kayak Champion Scott Shipley. For more information, visit S2ODesign.com.

Arkansas River park draws families, paddlers and economic growth to Colorado town.

Cañon City has a new attraction further solidifying the Colorado community’s reputation as a world-class destination for outdoor and river-based recreation. S2O Design and Engineering has completed work on the Cañon City Whitewater Park, a new river and pedestrian playground located downtown featuring waves for all levels of kayaking, standup paddleboarding, and rafting; a whitewater slalom gate system; a fish passage channel; and a riverfront play area for families. The project is part of the Arkansas River Corridor Master Plan to guide the restoration, enhancement, improvement and redevelopment of the Arkansas River.

“Cañon City has an incredible resource with the Arkansas River running through town,” says S2O Design and Engineering president Scott Shipley, a three-time Olympian and World Cup slalom kayak champion. “We’re thrilled to deliver a whitewater park that gives residents and visitors better and safer access to this iconic river.”

S2O Design was tapped to provide a river masterplan designed to beautify the river corridor, remove existing hazards, stabilize streambanks, improve access points and fish passage, and enhance the river for rafting, kayaking, tubing, and other in-stream activities. S20 Design then oversaw the project’s design, planning, permitting and construction.

The river improvement project was spearheaded by the town’s Whitewater Kayak and Recreation Park (WKRP) committee, which funded S2O’s initial River Improvements Plan and promoted the project to the city council and the public. The park was funded through the City, WKRP, a Great Outdoors Colorado grant, Fremont County, and private donors.

“Cañon City is destined to become a hub for outdoor adventure,” says WKRP committee member Warren Hart. “We believe our new river park will renew interest in our river corridor and be the catalyst for Cañon City becoming another great river town.”

Whitewater parks bring enthusiasts and spectators alike to their respective communities, and create numerous measurable economic impacts through increased property values, direct spending at the site, and tourism dollars spent at local restaurants, hotels and businesses. The estimated annual economic impact on a community can be substantial, with some in-stream river parks reporting impacts as high as $9 million dollars per year.

“Historically, this area has seen mostly industrial use, so our goal was to reclaim and restore this part of the river for broader community value,” says Cañon City economic development director Ryan Stevens. “From an economic development perspective, it’s a great asset for Cañon City’s growing outdoor economy.”

Unlike other whitewater parks that often suffer flow issues, the Arkansas River boasts predictable flow rates year-round. This balances both the magnitude of the recreational experiences for different user groups, and the duration, providing attractive flows for users and events later into the season when flows dissipate in other rivers.

The Cañon City Whitewater Park will also be a draw for slalom paddlers, with boulders strategically interspersed throughout its length for eddies and gates. S2O Design also incorporated the patented RapidBlocs™ system into the park, allowing its features to be adjusted for different configurations and flows. “It’s going to be a great early and late season venue for competitive slalom kayakers to train and compete,” says Shipley, adding that the Canadian Slalom Team has already expressed interest in using it as an early-season training facility.

S2O Design has completed several other river recreation and restoration projects in Colorado, including the new Eagle River Park, Durango Whitewater Park, Poudre River Whitewater Park in Fort Collins, and Bohn Park in Lyons, Colo.