Posted on 08/15/2014 3:24:38 AM PDT by afraidfortherepublic
Mountain Tunnel, a key part of the Hetch Hetchy water system - which supplies 2.6 million Bay Area residences and businesses - is at risk of a "catastrophic collapse" and will cost more than $100 million to repair or up to $630 million to replace, according to the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission.
City officials have known for 25 years that significant work is needed on the 19-mile-long tunnel just outside Yosemite National Park in a steep, hard-to-access wilderness area. They considered making it part of the PUC's decade-old, $4.6 billion water system improvement program, which is now more than 80 percent complete. But ultimately, the 89-year-old connector was left out of the rebuild, which focused on upgrading Bay Area water facilities that could fail in an earthquake.
PUC officials say that the program gave priority to infrastructure on the three major Bay Area fault lines whose failure could shut off the water supply, such as the Calaveras Dam near Fremont - and that the tunnel, as well as other "upcountry" projects, didn't pose enough of a seismic risk to be included.
Now, the PUC is grappling with whether to shore up the Mountain Tunnel, which would require shutting it down for two months at a time for up to 10 years, or go the far more expensive but arguably more reliable route of building a new tunnel. The issue has taken on more urgency since the January release of a report that laid out the options and recommended building a new tunnel.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
In the end there are only two choices. Do nothing and hope it doesn’t break during their lifetimes or spend lot’s of money to build a new one.
Fixing the old one can come about after a new one is in place.
On the other hand having it break means that San Francisco real estate prices will crash when the water runs out. Lot’s of potentially good deals then and once they are bought up a new option on water supply can come forth. Desalination plants or a new tunnel.
What will actually happen is anyone’s guess though. We are talking California here, ‘ya know’.
This is where the SF Chronicle is trying to go. In Biblical terms, it is like the mainstream media - a bad watchman.
Aren’t the environuts trying to tear that dam out anyway?
The only time I think I’ve ever completely agreed with Nancy Pelosi is her opposition to tearing the dam out.
Give California back to Mexico, and let them worry about it.
Without the dam, there is no population density to San Francisco...it is uninhabitable. The only brilliant moment in the history of the city...was building that dam a hundred years ago. It’s the type of vision that you can’t get out of anyone today.
Not to mention the fact that hydro is the only real reliable “Green” energy there is so naturally liberals want to get rid of it.
We are living with an infrastructure built by men of vision and maintained (for a time) by men who understood how it worked and how to maintain it.
We now have an infrastructure that is wearing out, no vision of any sort to replace it, which is maintained by men and women who know little about it other than how to apply band-aids.
This is a much bigger problem than what happens to SF (and, even more so to LA) when the water transport systems fail.
What the hetch is Kookifornicate gonna do about it? Nada-—those lieberal ash canals in Sacto aren’t capable of fixing a potential future problem. They will let a crisis unfold and punt it to Uncle Sham.....
Admittedly I am not an expert on desalinization ...however, isn’t the SF region sitting smack dab on the Pacific?
Water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink......
Pity........ but if they have no water, let them drink wine
Same here in MN.
Gubmint priorities are bike paths and parks and rec funding.
I bet some Muslim has read this article and is taking a road trip right now.
Opportunity for a ISIS attack?
Sounds like a shovel ready job, where’s Obama and all of those shadow dwellers hungry for work?
Somehow I doubt this is the first time a San Francisco “tunnel” has collapsed from age and overuse.
The same Greenies who go apoplectic over the Keystone pipeline have no problem with tearing up vast stretches of wilderness so that stolen water can be funneled to Babylon-on-the-Bay.
“...San Francisco real estate prices will crash when the water runs out.”
Only in Liberal Crazytown would a city located on the ocean have the water run out.
What kind of desalination plant could be built for the cost of building a new tunnel?
Look at it from the point of view of the ‘Faith of Environmentalism’ One is transporting water from one region that ‘Gaia’ has blessed with fresh water. The other is manipulating through Human interference, water that ‘Gaia’ in her wisdom has determined to be salt water and therefore necessary to the plants and animals who live in it.
So obviously they will have to use a tunnel or aguaduct.
“is at risk of a “catastrophic collapse” “
This sentance is missing the second and most important piece. Catastrophic collapse if there is a catastrophic earthquake. Everything in Northen California is “is at risk of a “catastrophic collapse” “ if there catastrophic earthquake.
Typical govt sounding the alarm when they want to build new things.
Desalination requires, if not cheap, at least affordable energy. A nuclear powered desalination plant works great. Just look at all the US Navy submarines and aircraft carriers.
"Sitting off the coast of Haiti, the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Carl Vinson can make some 400,000 gallons of its own fresh water every day, and much of it will soon be going ashore. The nuclear-powered vessel, which had been heading to its new home port in San Diego when it was diverted to Haiti hours after the quake, has massive desalination capacity — purifying the same ocean saltwater it traverses — and the Vinson has a daily excess of 200,000 gallons "that we can give away," says Cmdr. William McKinley, who oversees the desalination process"
Aircraft carrier U.S.S. Carl Vinson to produce 200,000 gallons/day for Haitians
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