“There are reporters who have documented they have not been able to get straight answers from DWR. Chico-ER noted that it took them 2 years to get the truth from the 2009 river valve accident that nearly killed 4-5 people. They only found out the truth (2 years later) from the forced public records from OSHA & another investigating agency - with huge fines and ordered corrections. On top of this, DWR was strongly advised by experts not to go to the upper limits on the valve - which was ignored.
Chico-ER also has noted a history of other issues where they cannot get straight answers.
DWR again proved to be “politics first” in their answer to a photograph showing the initial cavitation damage at a seam spall at the blowout failure.
In watching a long interview with the editor describing all of these incidents & seeing the DWR responses in the news, there is a true history of distrust with DWR.
First and foremost, the Engineering responsibilities on the Dam is in a space where there are no excuses. There must be demonstrated responsibility, accountability, and honesty. I noticed a “change” when the FERC recommended experts entered the equation. The first public “correction” occurred directly from the BOC experts engineering statement(s) that blew up DWR’s position/statement on a key engineering point.
Being in failure analysis for 30 years as a consultant/engineer/scientist to go in and fix the problems at major corporations that the top scientists/engineers couldn’t, you immediately recognize any “politics” at play as the truth of science/engineering/physics you cannot hide. In trying it eventually reveals any culture of incompetency, poor engineering judgement, or outright machiavellian intent.
I’ve seen the “cut” editing points in the DWR drone videos, I know what I’m looking for. You can figure out what they don’t want to be seen.
To me, the warnings of Stagnation Pressure Failures were in the dam specialist expert community with papers & magazines publishing this information including expert tools to analyze if a spillway is at risk of exploding (water penetration, volume, surface area, cracks, seams, flow rate, anchor strength, etc). Yet DWR had the audacity to say (paraphrasing) “when we find out the failure cause we will let the rest of the world know so they could benefit from our findings”. Horse puckey. They know right now (cause). For them to imply that this is something all of the dam experts in the world haven’t run across is delusional.
The timing of them filing the CEII precisely 2 days before the next damaging BOC report was to be made public defies probabilistic odds. If they were told to do this inspection by the experts, why isn’t this data in the expert’s report? (the 4.26MB vs 1/2kB file sizes reveal that the BOC report does not contain a fraction of the CEII filing report).
Water is escaping the upper chute so badly that it is saturating the hillsides - that is why the BOC was stunned in saying “this should be investigated” when waterflow continued out of the drains after the gates were closed. The only answer is that there is a saturated “basin” in the chute hillsides - reflowing back to the lowest point (drains). Water is going everywhere.
No, I firmly believe DWR does not want all of the dirty laundry exposed. The only hope is that they are now under scrutiny by FERC through the board of consultants. However, the lives of the public below the dam are not getting the truth. This is unconscionable.”
EarthResearcher333
Many many thanks for your thorough and detailed analyses !
And thanks for laying out in plain terms what is going on with the agencies involved.
Excellent post. The politics of this situation are mind boggling as is the arrogance. I sincerely hope that the people downstream from this slow motion train wreck do not wind up paying the price for this cover-up and the associated incompetence. The water community and the construction industry are full of rumors about how bad the situation really is - as one would expect. The talk about the tendon anchors potential failure/problems started five weeks ago - only to be proven true.
Word to any .gov monitors of this thread. Get your collective heads out of your asses and listen to what the engineers are telling you.
As I've posted earlier on this thread, this seems to come under the heading of "strict liability" (liability even if no negligence) in common law because building a dam is considered an "abnormally dangerous activity".
in failure analysis for 30 years
Must be a very interesting field. I used to work near Failure Analysis Associates (now Exponent Failure Analysis Associates) off of Marsh Road in Menlo Park, California. You guys familiar with that? (Always loved the building http://www.exponent.com/about/about-us.)