Oroville Dam Will Begin Releasing Water Down Its Heavily Damaged Spillway Again Next Week

The primary spillway at Lake Oroville as water rushes down it on Feb. 11 and gets diverted into a crevasse in the adjacent hillside where a portion of the spillway has eroded. Photo: California Department of Water Resources

Brace yourselves for more potential drama as California's Department of Water Resources once again tests Mother Nature's kindness and begins releasing more massive amounts of water down the Oroville Dam spillway next week. The dam's floodgates have been closed since February 27 in order that work crews could clear debris that had collected around the bottom of the spillway and downstream along the Feather River, however the significant damage to the spillway itself remains and will likely lead to further erosion of the adjacent hillside as water releases are set to begin again on or around March 17. Fixing the spillway, which can't begin until after spring runoff ends, is expected to cost over $200 million.

According to the Sacramento Bee, DWR acting director Bill Croyle has set a "comfort level" of around 860 feet for Lake Oroville, which is well below the reservoir's capacity of 901 feet at which point water begins spilling over the also damaged emergency spillway. By next week, due to rainfall and continued runoff from the Sierra, the reservoir is expected to hit 865 feet.

As explained in this video from last week, the Department of Water Resources has been working steadily since the shutoff of the spillway to remove debris from the channel below the spillway, essentially making room for more to land there, but also allowing for operation of the dam's power plant, which is expected to ease some of the burden on the spillway come spring, with a capacity to release 14,000 cubic feet of water per second from the reservoir as it continues to fill. As of Wednesday, workers had removed about 620,000 cubic yards of material out of a total 1.7 million cubic yards that they hope to remove.

Still via drone video taken by the Dept. of Water Resources on Feb. 27, 2017

As the Mercury News reported today, ongoing repair costs for the dam and spillway are estimated right now at $4.7 million per day, with 160 Department of Water Resources employees and anywhere from 300 to 500 contractors at work each day. The state expects between 75 and 90 percent of that cost to get reimbursed from FEMA.

Secondary impacts of new releases from the damaged spillway are yet to be known. We already know that the salmon population that typically uses the Feather River for spawning has been greatly impacted, and that numerous farms along the banks of the river south of the dam have lost land due to sloughing — this was due to waterlogged soil being held up by rushing waters in previous weeks collapsing when the river level abruptly dropped after the February 27 spillway shutoff.

Clearly state officials are hoping to avoid another crisis like the one they had on the evening of February 12 when an emergency evacuation order went out to the 180,000 people downstream of the dam after erosion damage threatened to cause the collapse of the 1700-foot-wide, 30-foot-tall emergency spillway, which had been put into use the day before for the first time in the dam's near 50 year existence.

As part of the ongoing emergency repair work, many tons of rock have been dumped into the eroded area below the emergency spillway in case it needs to be used again this season, per the Mercury News.

Cross your fingers, everybody!

It’s confusing. The primary (or main) spillway, sometimes less ambiguously known as the concrete spillway, is the one to the right in the top photo above. It’s the one that’s suffered the most damage. A giant crevasse has been carved into the hillside to its right. That hillside, between the concrete spillway and the main dam is what holds up the main dam. If you allow enough of that hillside to erode away, then the whole 900 foot dam comes crashing down. Millions of people would be affected. Perhaps hundreds of thousands would die. DWR says that’s not happening. I think they are totally incompetent and full of crap. Look at that gash! If it enlarges much more, that hilllside, and the main dam, is coming down.

Now, the “emergency” spillway is to the left of the concrete spillway, and is nothing more than a bare earthen hillside. It has not been reinforced or improved in any way. It has never been used in its 50 years of existence. It is 1,700 feet wide and holds back Oroville Lake at the shallow end. DWR always considered it to be sufficient as it would probably never be needed, despite the engineers who have been arguing for 20 years or more that it’s a disaster waiting to happen. Well, now we know how wrong DWR was — again. When the concrete spillway was blown to smithereens by the incredible volume of water flowing over it, DWR shut it down and decided to let the emergency spillway handle the overflow. But within a few hours of water rushing over the emergency spillway, it was apparent it was rapidly eroding away and was in danger of collapsing — and the shallow end of the dam with it. So they had to evacuate 200,000 people. Total incompetence.

Chump Change for a State like California.

We currently SPEND $69,315,068 DOLLARS Every Single Day just to keep the 3 million Illegal Aliens in this State.

President Trump should tell California to GO POUND SAND when they call asking for money.

Californians bear an enormous fiscal burden as a result of an illegal alien population estimated at almost 3 million residents. The annual expenditure of state and local tax dollars on services for that population is $25.3 billion.

http://www.fairus.org/publications/the-fiscal-burden-of-illegal-immigration-on-california-taxpayers
______________________________
We currently SPEND $69,315,068 DOLLARS Every Single Day just to keep the 3 million Illegal Aliens in this State.

Wow! :(

Thanks for the website link.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.