Posted on 02/12/2017 4:26:47 PM PST by janetjanet998
Edited on 02/12/2017 9:33:58 PM PST by Admin Moderator. [history]
The Oroville Dam is the highest in the nation.
What do you know about the condition/situation
with the hydroelectric part of the actual dam itself?
Information indicates the increased river level
has put that out of commission.
I have not been able to find any numbers for
how much water could move through there when it is operating.
At this point I am wondering if the rain even matters. The dam seems to be on the verge of a failure cascade if not already. The main spillway cannot be shut off long enough to make the repairs so as long as the water flows, the earth erodes back towards the dam.
here is another video from today
its flipped or mirrored the other way..
but you can see dozers pushing dirt into the river between the damaged spillway and the DAM at the end....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahOEdiYj8z8#t=20m30s
warning: turn volume down..annoying music
edit” post 1083 was from yesterday but the dozer action is interesting
The lake is only down 25 ft below the top and they’re already talking about reducing the main flow. Oh well.
Any idea why they’re not using the NG’s Chinook helicopters? Seems those heavy lift monsters would be the best fit to the job.
Strange...clearly visible at 18:05 minutes in the video.
(and afterwards after the video fades to black a couple of times)
I have no idea what they are up to, that is an entirely
different area from where all of the other activity is going on.
Well, of course it eventually makes it’s way out to the San Francisco Bay.
I remember one year in the 90’s when it had snowed heavily in the Sierras followed by the “pineapple express” that melted the snow, the rivers raged and pieces of wood from broken-up structures floated their way all the way to an estuary inlet in the S.F. Bay by Menlo Park where I would walk every day. Pretty amazing.
If you can, please ping me on anything new that is breaking news on this preferably with a live steam video. Thanks.
Appreciate both your commentary.
where did you hear they may reduce the main flow??
thats not good...they may see more erosion happening
My internet is down until tomorrow afternoon. Please ping me with any breaking news.
I will try to remember.
Was that year of the January/Feb floods and non stop rain of 1997.
they said they expect max inflows with this next storm only to be around 45,000 cfs
so if they maintain 100,000 cfs they still have a net loss of 55,000
so they don’t expect the lake to rise even after this first storm
I recall my first time mentioning to a couple of geologists (from the same firm) that “Well - you’ll have to drill to make sure.”
They both laughed and said “Well, we’ll be sure if we only let one geologist look at the core. But most times if you have six geologists you’ll have six different answers!”
I know that was partly in jest, but as I’ve gotten more involved at geology meetings it is interesting the discussions and arguments that take place, and so many different theories on various issues. (Landslides is often a hot topic with various viewpoints). Most of the time respectful.
Thanks to both of you for your knowledge and viewpoints.
Good press conference.
Sounds like they are still aiming to get the level down 50 feet below max.
Certainly reasonable to reduce flow with that margin.
I don’t have much confidence in their estimations for reducing outflow.
At this stage they don’t need the helicopters. they’ve built a ramp down to the aux spillway apron area allowing heavy construction dump truck (Cat 730 & 740s) access to the area to dump rock.
That person is a piker- you'd get between 10-12 different opinions
If you look closely, all that debris/rock has formed essentially a dam at the base of the main spill way, backing water to the power house. When operating, they can put out 15K cfs
Thanks!
LOL! Very true (Well, it looks like x, but, wait, there might be some y in there so maybe it’s Z?)
I recall in geology class the tests were to pass around a rock sample and had to say all the minerals in it, percentages, etc. and then name the rock. So maybe 6 or 7 line items, but if you got anyone of them wrong the entire answer (rock) was wrong. And probably 25 rocks per test in fifty minutes.
I recall one where most of us figured on something like 10 to 15% quartz or something. Most of us got it wrong. The professor says “Yeah it looks like 10%, but under thin section (which we didn’t have) it is really about 9 percent - so that’s why you got it all wrong.”
I’m guessing there was some lesson in that.
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