Posted on 02/13/2017 2:11:18 PM PST by nickcarraway
Federal and state officials have a lot to answer for in the wake of the Oroville Dam fiasco. They decided in 2005 to ignore warnings that the massive earthen spillway adjacent to the dam itself could erode during heavy winter rains — which it has done — and cause a calamity, which it very nearly did this week and could yet do by the end of this winter.
No less to blame are the water agencies, including the powerful Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, which argued that paying for the upgrades a decade ago was unnecessary.
The 180,000 people forced to evacuate Sunday, running for their lives, beg to differ. Can Californians trust the decision-makers who control state water policy? We would not suggest it.
California’s population of 38.8 million people relies on a 60-year-old water delivery system consisting largely of aging dams and aqueducts that have not been maintained adequately and now are unreliable.
Gov. Jerry Brown’s obsession with spending $15 billion to dig two Delta tunnels is preventing the state from spending that money to upgrade the Delta levees, the sinking California Aqueduct and doing basic maintenance to the state’s dams.
(Excerpt) Read more at mercurynews.com ...
It can be very certain the “decision makers,” that decided to not make repairs, got the pension funding for the years in question.
It is likely they can retire as young as 50-55 with near full pay, plus platinum insurance, for themselves and their spouses.
Dams have to be actively managed given the water levels, snow levels not melted, and local weather. If someone can prove that the water filled up the reservoir so fast that all attempts to maintain a safe water level could not be accomplished, then I'll go along and hold the feds partly responsible. But I am guessing there was a long chain of wrong decisions that came before that would be easier to fix.
My question for the hearings would be, did faith in "climate change" prevent considering historical cyclical extreme weather?
Don’t bother us with this infrastructure crap! We need to make sure our salaries, benefits, and pensions keep us in the top 1%!
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This editorial got my poop hot this AM.
Feds had nothing to do with the problem.
Gov Moonbeam diverting funds to the Hooterville choo choo, and his delta killing tunnels is the problem.
the decisions in 2005 are one thing - for the state and the water agencies to not have reviewed this issue in 12 years, that lies at the feet of the state of California which is entrusted with the responsibility of protecting our water supply and our citizens. i can find no evidence that the 2005 decisions were revisited. the state officials better pray that dam holds.
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Feds don’t have any responsibility for the Feather River project.
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Bush’s Fault?
Of course! Why do you need a working dam when climate change ensures you be in perpetual drought!
Be interesting to see hiw the Army Corps of Engineers figures into this. Do they need to approve releases of a certain volume? If so, did they receive any requests from the state? If so, what was the ACofE’s response?
California pays about 11 billion for illegals in LA County alone
Feds don’t have any responsibility for the Feather River project.
Yup.
Right.
But if you, Joe Sixpack, want to drain say 1/2 of a quarter acre swamp on your personal property, they will nail your b*lls to the wall!
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>> Trump should tell Brown that after he has eliminated ALL illegals from CA, cancelled all planning for the Delta Disaster Tunnels, stopped all work on the Hootervill Trolley, and repealed all gun laws, then maybe he will consider funds to rebuild damaged sections of the dam.
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Only because the state wanted the feds to pay for most of it. The feds paid 20 percent of the costs of building it, the state paid 80 percent, and it was agreed that the state was responsible for 80 percent of the maintenance. The state reneged on maintenance. Damage to the main spillway was observable in 2013 when a huge hole opened up, and the state elected not to do much of anything to repair it. They've been begging the feds for money ever since. This is Gov. Jerry Brown's problem, and he elected to do nothing... until the severe winter storms blew open the hole to a football stadium size recently, and again his solution is to beg the feds for money. Never mind he is spending the state's money on an unnecessary high-speed train, and begging the feds to pay for it. This is the same Jerry Brown who said the state can go it alone and build its own satellites and other infrastructure if the feds withhold money due to state sanctuary policies. F' Gov Brown.
In 2014 voters approved new taxes for water projects. Where is the money going?
Your comment is definitely an improvement.
“...Oct. 17, 2005, as part of Oroville Dam’s relicensing process, urging federal officials to require that the dam’s emergency spillway be armored with concrete, rather than remain as an earthen hillside....
It is important to recognize that during a rare event with the emergency spillway flowing at its design capacity, spillway operations would not affect reservoir control or endanger the dam,” wrote John Onderdonk, a senior civil engineer with FERC, in the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s San Francisco Office, in a July 27, 2006, memo to his managers.
“The emergency spillway meets FERC’s engineering guidelines for an emergency spillway,” he added. “The guidelines specify that during a rare flood event, it is acceptable for the emergency spillway to sustain significant damage.”
The feds did play a role.
The libs that controlled the heavily populated areas that were/are receiving water from Lake Oroville didn't want to pay the cost to upgrade the spillway.
Lots of blame and incompetence to go around.
Now, the (mostly) Republican/Conservative areas near the dam are in the middle of the evacuation.
2005 was 12 years ago.
There has been deterioration of the spillway since then and that deterioration is part of the reason the spillway flow tore a hole in the concrete.
The other reason was that California’s incompetent managers delayed draining water from the dam in an orderly fashion weeks ago, forcing them to execute a massive, sustained emergency spillway flow in excess of 100,000 CFS
This massive flow could have damaged the spillway even if it was in perfect condition.
If they had used a steady, less damaging flow of 30,000 CFS over the last few weeks they would have no problems now.
What would happen if detailed information about the pay and benefit packages of California state employees was released?
Betcha it would raise the eyebrows of the the (increasingly smaller) number of taxpayers!
FERC only would have jurisdiction on a state-owned dam of the licensing of the hydroelectric power plant and thus the penstock (water chute) that turns the turbine, not the two concrete lined spillways and the one emergency spillway at Oroville. So to say the Feds were negligent is overkill. Why would environmentalists advocate for fixing a state dam from a Federal regulatory agency with control over only a small part of the facility? Moreover, California 2015 Water Bond allocated $395,000,000 for emergency repairs to flood facilities but none of it has been committed at all. More FAKE NEWS.
San Jose Mercury News, October 8, 2010
http://www.mercurynews.com/2010/10/08/mercury-news-editorial-jerry-brown-is-the-right-choice-for-governor/
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