One of the reasons I left California years ago was because of the crumbling infrastructure. Bridges, roads, sewers, road etc. Many built in the 40’s and 50’s. You don’t just build things and then walk away for decades hoping they’ll keep on working. And the new construction built by the mexican labor force is a joke. They build things that start falling apart after a year. Imagine if the mexicans had built the dam
Do you really think the environmentalists wanted money spent on repairs to the dam? Or was it an excuse to get rid of the dam altogether?
Redirect the $10 BILLION wasted on the railway to nowhere, from nowhere.
The best estimates I've found of reservoir dewatering in that instance range from top 30' of the reservoir (901' elevation above sea level down to 871') to the top 100' (901' elevation down to 801'). The latter might entail release of as much as 1.2 million acre feet of the reservoir's 3.5 million acre feet of storage.
A release of the top 30' would probably be in the 400,000 - 500,000 acre foot range. The next big reservoir downstream from Oroville has a capacity of a million acre feet so its dam might be able to handle that if that reservoir is sufficiently emptied by then. But the intervening cities would be gone.
With a new storm arriving tomorrow and going on thru Sat., I’m concerned about the “fill” they have used [huge rocks]. I can just see a few of them plunging down the spill and wrecking a bunch of homes.
The way everything is falling apart in this State it would not surprise me in the least bit if the Dam suffers from a catastrophic failure this weekend.
Hell you need a 4 Wheel Drive to navigate most Freeways in SoCal
California might want to start reevaluating the “illegal alien” spending they are allowing before they have to file bankruptcy while fixing their infrastructure.
There is another storm hitting there today, and will run for as long as 10 days. With the amount of new water coming into the dam, less the outflow they currently are running, the water could rise to 13 feet HIGHER than the emergency overflow, which got the severe erosion. I don’t know how much higher the actual dam top is compared to the emergency overflow, but even if the main dam isn’t breached or topped over, 13 feet of water volume above the height of the emergency overflow would certainly be a disaster.
I don’t agree with telling people they can go back home. IF that amount of water fills Oroville Lake, the water coming down could overflow the roads & then how would the people escape?
I did learn that many large animals were taken to the Nevada County Fairgrounds in Grass Valley, about 40 miles east & UPHILL from the valley.
The most ironic part?
Calif politicians have been stealing water from farmers since 2001, when they shut off irrigation from the Klamath River over the salmon population. They shut off water to the Central Valley farmers over the Delta Smelt.
A couple of weeks ago, a Federal judge told the Farmers that THEIR WATER had been STOLEN by the state & that they were entitled to BILLION & BILLIONS of payment for all that water which was stolen, as the water really did belong to the farmers.
California overreached, and now they are in a bind. Some of the same kind of water taking is under politicians control in Nevada in the current legislature. They want to ‘curtail’ the amount of water a person can use out of their ‘domestic well’, which is attached to their property. We own 2 acre feet of water with each domestic well, and the state water master wants to ‘curtail’ that amount to only 1/2 acre foot—taking 75% of our water—which we own!!!