Emergency: California’s Oroville Dam Spillway Near Failure, Evacuations Ordered

Breitbart ^ | Feb 12, 2017 | Joel B. Pollak1

[janetjanet998]

The California Department of Water Resources issued a sudden evacuation order shortly before 5 p.m. Sunday for residents near the Oroville Dam in northern California, warning that the dam’s emergency spillway would fail in the next 60 minutes.

The Oroville Dam is the highest in the nation.

[meyer]

Good information!

I think that the erosion that took place after the spillway blowout has uncovered the location and presence of hard “bedrock” below that section of the spillway. But the evidence was there long before it was completed.

[Jim W N]

Weren’t there some picture of dredging machines that were sifting gold? I would have thought they would try to sift for gold first and then build the dam fill.

[EarthResearcher333]

Weren’t there some picture of dredging machines that were sifting gold?

There are many historic postcard pictures of the large floating gold dredge machines at Oroville. The last phase of the gold rush was going after the fine gold in the lower Feather River area using dredges. After all of the river basin area was mined, the leftover material, of 30 to 50 ft high of aggregate rock piles, covered nearly every inch of the basin.

You can see the rock pile tailings in the first photograph (look in the distance between the conveyor & bucket machine. So the gold was long removed many decades ago. The first proposed version of the Oroville dam was an interesting "arch column" tiered massive concrete structure. When costing out the concrete design against an earthen fill design the earthen fill materials were equal to the most competitive concrete design. Since the gold dredge tailings were not far away & ready made for all of the pervious and non-pervious material requirements for a massive earthen fill dam, they chose the latter.

[abb]

Yes, they mined for gold with the bucket dredges many years ago and sluiced out the gold, or most of it anyway. But you never get it all. It’s a question if it is economically recoverable.

See how they do it on Discovery Channel’s “Gold Rush.”

[EarthResearcher333]

Yes, Mr Tony Beets.... an interesting character... Throughout the two years of the dredge series/saga he never revealed if he was using hydraulic riffles in his sluice in the upgraded dredge (hydraulic riffles are for garnet plugging protection). (btw - He had it written in the contract for Parker Schnabel's lease).

The killer for the Hoffman's backup operation in Oregon was they didn't count on the old dredge miners capturing all of the worthwhile gold (deep) at the bedrock boundary. Dave Turin & Todd's assumption was that the ol' timers dredge buckets weren't able to cut into the top cracked seam layer of the bedrock - as could modern excavators. Turned out to be a bad assumption.

It's an interesting show. The behind the scenes "extras" from a few years ago revealed the introduction of using high tech drones. They had some safety concerns about buzz cutting the miners in close up shots (stopping & hovering). I'm more interested in the show due to the character dynamics & management styles. There is a wealth of information for people to learn who put teams together & have to make tough decisions with different character types.

[abb]

LOL! If I ran the Hoffman operation, I would send Papaw home to his rocker on the porch and put Dave Turin in complete and absolute operational charge.

[EarthResearcher333]

Intent was to detail information for Jim 0216 on the discussion of dredging - including the effectiveness of the older miner's dredging skills (fine gold recapture & newer techniques available re: garnet protection w/ TBeets & 2nd operation decision dredge performance miscalculation by Dave Turin et al). My inclusion of interaction of dynamics in team(s) is from having to work with major failure analysis situations both from a complex technical basis and from a personnel dynamic basis to work with *all* to drive to root cause and to a solution space.

One of the challenges to such work is quickly assessing the strengths & weaknesses in the engineering personnel & management dynamics. There are times where the politics are more difficult to address than the complex technical failure issue itself. There are ways in dealing with tough situations where firmness is applied, but if there is a solution where you are able to build upon guiding/teaching/helping others, that is a path I always try to take.

*all* regardless of some of their character traits/skills

[Jim W N]

Thanks.

[WildHighlander57]

Update from e72knight (the guy that did that series of vids)

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zfc6WfK7nE8

[mad_as_he$$]

Granddaddy of this?

http://i.imgur.com/39EF2P5.jpg

[mad_as_he$$]

You know Turin had a total melt down and attacked another crew member right?

[mad_as_he$$]

If you are ever driving by Yerka, CA on I-5 stop and visit the county building. There are images of the Klamath River being dredged by ever larger dredges. As far as I know it was dredged at least three times from the ocean to almost Klamath Falls. The same happened to the Feather. BTW when the old dredges hit pockets of clay it would remove most/all of the gold from the sluices. A good operator would recognize it and bypass the sluice box until the clay streak was past. However, they dredged at night and it was often hard to tell what the buckets were bringing up in the feeble lights available at the time. Point is that there is still spots of gold, even after a dredge passed over an area, they are just tied up in clay.

Don’t get me started on Todd Hoffman. I can do a lengthy diatribe on what a putz he is. Beet’s is reckless and Parker can become a great miner if he keeps growing - he wants to be like John and John was an infinitely patient man.

[abb]

It definitely takes a different type of personality to do gold mining for a living. Imagine what kind of people you would run into in 1849 and in the 1898 Klondike.

One thing to think about: We FReepers are always discussing money issues - inflation, investments, the stock market, whether to buy/sell gold and silver, the stability/instability of the US dollar, etc. Have you notice these gold miners work like trojans to recover gold, then when they find it, they can’t wait to exchange it for dollars. Wonder if they keep a stash of gold in reserve?

[mad_as_he$$]

I know several gold miners from this area. They range from a guy and his donkey(literally) to some brothers that run a very successful operation placer mining. Every one of them is somewhat quirky - I suspect it is because they spend lot’s of time away from people or they just like it that way. They all have “flash” stashes for show and tell. While it is taboo to ask a miner how much gold he has stashed I am certain that they all have some. Plus skimming is a time honored tradition in gold mining.

When gold jumped to $800 many cashed out; when it hit $1200 a few more did so and so on. I keep a few choice nuggets for show and tell for relatives, never to be shown to anyone outside the family. Ultimately around here you have to pay most bills with dollars. It is different in Dawson and Nome for example.

[mad_as_he$$]

In case you are interested:

https://chico.craigslist.org/reb/6014101113.html

[abb]

OMG! Just like the stuff I used to read in the Uncle Scrooge comic books! Scrooge always told Donald and nephews he got his start in the Klondike, but unlike everyone else, he knew how to hang on to it.

[abb]

I didn’t see that episode about Turin. Did frustration finally become too much?

[EarthResearcher333]

Spillway Slippage Targets on Sidewall backside - cleared foundation area of Elect Tower (straight view to targets)..

Image zoom infers that two more targets were bolted at abutting expansion joints on the left spillway sidewall. These optical targets have concise black and white aligned stripes on two panels. Each panel is bolted to one side of the expansion joint seam. Any differential movement (i.e. expansion) of the joint would cause the stripes to shift with respect to each other. Using a good zoom camera, the shift may be detected & measured from a safe distance away from the wall. The clearing of the foundation of the removed electrical tower shows the clearing extended to the sidewall. This clearing provides a good "straight on" view to the targets. Prior to clearing the hillside soil base was blocking a straight view to the uppermost target.

The green drain piping installed into the original broken section of the sidewall drain shows waterflow from the output.

Two "slippage detection" targets bolted to backside of left spillway sidewall. Cleared foundation area of removed electrical tower allows view access of the optical targets. note: Green drain pipe waterflow - working drains.

"Slippage detection" optical target bolted to inside of spillway chute sidewall. This is at a damaged section of the upper spillway where downslope movement of the left sidewall and adjacent main slab occurred before repairs.

[EarthResearcher333]

Recent Subsurface Rock Core Drilling & sampling - Hard Amphibolite, soil, weathered rock…

Drilling rigs are taking core samples. Hard Amphibolite (blue grey color) is observed in the center of the longer core sample under inspection. If you have a good zoom on the image you can see black "line" markings placed on the rock to measure angles of the fractures (note drafting tools). The whiteboard denotes "Oroville Spillway Emergency". However, the drilling location may only be roughly inferred from electrical power lines in another image. Core sampling of the subsurface rock is data that would be important for any "next step" phases or proposed options for a new spillway replacement and/or repairs.

Core Sample Analysis - A hard Amphibolite rock seam (blue grey color) observable in the middle of the longer core sample being inspected.

[mad_as_he$$]

Yes, he really lost his cool. At first I thought it was a put on but blood was drawn.