Posted on 01/24/2018 11:12:17 PM PST by ProtectOurFreedom
The state Department of Water Resources could have lost control of the spillway radial gates for days during the Oroville Dam crisis if crucial power lines had gone down, according to department officials.
DWR leaders Cindy Messer and Joel Ledesma stated this Jan. 10 during a legislative oversight hearing on the dam at the State Capitol. This has since led some local groups to wonder why there was no backup power supply.
Representatives of Friends of the River, the Sierra Club, South Yuba River Citizens League, California Sportfishing Protection Alliance and American Whitewater filed a letter with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, or FERC, dated Jan. 16 addressing their concerns.
There should be a backup generator that could allow for operation of the gates in case its power lines are compromised, according to DWR’s Bulletin 200, published in 1974. A standby power source is described as “a 55-kW generator operated by a liquid-propane-gas-fueled engine” in the document.
(Excerpt) Read more at chicoer.com ...
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The Fukushima plant had emergency generators, but they ran out of fuel when the tsunami washed the tanks away. The Japanese authorities were unable to run a powerline to the plant before the THIRD level safety systems (battery backup) ran out of juice.
There is no such thing as an absolute fail-safe system. What if the NG pipeline is breached by the same event? What if the propane tank fails at the same time as the event?
The diminishing returns on safety investments obviously precluded adding the standby system. Reality is that hard choices must be made, and sometimes hindsight puts the lie to earlier decisions.
The state has had only 44 years to correct the problem.
Gotta give them more time.
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