This is not surprising. The Oroville Damn problem is a perfect example of the failure of the state and feds at supplying the funds and work to take care of this.
More than a decade ago, federal and state officials and some of California’s largest water agencies rejected concerns that the massive earthen spillway at Oroville Dam — at risk of collapse and prompting the evacuation of 185,000 people — could erode during heavy winter rains and cause a catastrophe.
Three environmental groups — the Friends of the River, the Sierra Club and the South Yuba Citizens League — filed a motion with the federal government on 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.
The groups filed the motion with FERC, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. They said that the dam, built and owned by the state of California, and finished in 1968, did not meet modern safety standards because in the event of extreme rain and flooding, fast-rising water would overwhelm the main concrete spillway, then flow down the emergency spillway, and that could cause heavy erosion that would create flooding for communities downstream, but also could cause a failure, known as “loss of crest control.” “A loss of crest control could not only cause additional damage to project lands and facilities but also cause damages and threaten lives in the protected floodplain downstream,” the groups wrote.
FERC rejected that request, however, after the state Department of Water Resources, and the water agencies that would likely have had to pay the bill for the upgrades, said they were unnecessary. Those agencies included the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, which provides water to 19 million people in Los Angeles, San Diego and other areas, along with the State Water Contractors, an association of 27 agencies that buy water from the state of California through the State Water Project. The association includes the Metropolitan Water District, Kern County Water Agency, the Santa Clara Valley Water District and the Alameda County Water District. Because of their reports, federal officials at the time said that the emergency spillway was designed to handle 350,000 cubic feet per second and the concerns were overblown.
It is thinking like this, and applying pressure upon lack of completion of commitments based upon available funds, and the state government not stepping in with pressure being applied to agencies that could have assisted the problem long ago, that has them in the position they are currently in. An ounce of prevention could have alleviated a pound of cure.
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The effort by environmental organizations to get the downslope of the Auxiliary Spillway at Oroville hardened and the Main Spillway chute repaired failed because it was misdirected to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) that only has control over the hydropower component of Oroville Dam. The dam is owned, built and operated by the State of California. Moreover, it is alleged that the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California (MWD) rejected funding any repairs or upgrades. MWD’s charter does not provide for it undertaking flood control projects. MWD is the largest buyer of Oroville water and in its water rates presumably should be the recovery of costs to maintain the safety of the dam. But that is mostly a state matter. Environmental organizations have a tendency to champion causes that attract donations rather than accomplishing much. Owens Valley filed a retroactive environmental lawsuit on the LA Dept. of Water & Power to get them to control dust at Owens Lake. Why didn’t these organizations take a similar action? BTW, there is no failure to provide funds to fix the spillways. There are billions of dollars in Prop. 1, Prop. 84 and Prop. 1-E water bond monies uncommitted that could be used to fix the spillways. The problem is that environmentalists are so busy focusing government on saving fish that there is no effort to maintain public safety (as we also saw with the San Bruno natural gas line explosion). Advocating for fish protection provides jobs for environmentalists, fixing spillways and pipelines doesn’t.