Posted on 02/14/2017 6:09:46 AM PST by Mariner
Not correct. the right abutment of the dam is on bedrock and is separated from the left side of the gate structure for the main spillway by over 300 feet.
The erosion on the main spillway has stabilized.
I have Fountainhead collecting dust, too. LOL. We have a great ongoing used book sale at our library where hardcover books cost less than a dollar. I’ll put that on my 52 books in 52 weeks list for this year, too.
“And, just over a year ago, they were complaining about Lake Oroville being too low...”
Dec. 8th is was 40% and now it is 100%
There is no question that the storage reservoirs are full to the brim.
That measure is not the only valid way to look at the long term drought, since the storage of water also takes place below ground.
Ideally releases from reservoirs can be controlled to refill these aquifers.
I am hearing from reliable sources that it will be next Monday at the earliest. Other sources in the grocery line at the little market near the dam where thousands of us are still around...word is two weeks. It is going to be a huge issue here shortly. Called the sheriffs department to allow delivery trucks to the remaining market in the area. It was popping and a happening. We are all in good cheer and everyone polite.
I’m thinking that Oroville and immediate vicinity will be Monday; the further down river areas may end evacuation today with the warning to be prepared to leave. This is from the Nevada County Fairgrounds which may be ending operations in a few hours. The immediate dander had passed.
Reduced to an evacuation warning. We can come home! Folks can come back in. Announced right now!
Might be short lived.
The repairs done today are nowhere near enough. If the emergency spillway is overtopped...
There is but it can't be used because the erosion damage from the main spillway has deposited sediment into the river blocking it and raising the water level between the spillway and the power plant located upstream at the base of the dam. Until that blockage is cleared (unlikely as long as that 110,000 cfs volume of water is coming down the spillway) it's shut down.
The last I’d read (a day ago?) the hydropower plant had been damaged, was shut down, and cannot release water. Also IIRC it’s discharge is not large — only 10k cfs or so?
This info. may not be correct — can anyone confirm?
If the main spillway is the construction I believe it is, you are correct: It can only draw down water so far. I wonder what that “so far” is?
Ah, that’s the reason for the shutdown. Thanks!
That should have been:
“If the main spillway is of the typical construction I believe it is...”
There must be another drain at the bottom somewhere, but I haven’t found anything about it.
Nor I. If it exists, in this mess, it may be totally inoperable.
BTW, other posters have mentioned "bedrock", but "bedrock" is not always so solid. I found an interesting comment on YouTube:
...the auxiliary intakes that were going to be used for a second and much smaller hydroelectric plant that was being designed during the dams construction. However, once the engineers got into the rock, they realized that rock was not going to work for an underground anything. The intakes are not completed, they do not 'go' anywhere, they do not feed any water to anything, but they are probably about 30 feet deep and full of water even when the water is extremely low. The Hyatt Power Plant, which was at the time of construction the largest underground power plant in the world, is at in the rock at the South end of the dam.
Since I have experienced the existence of “ancient” “mudstone” and have known since a kid that Niagara Falls continues to relentlessly move upstream, “bedrock” is not always that impervious to erosion. It only took the “managers” of Oroville Dam a day or so to recognize same.
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