DWR Excoriated by Failure Engineering Expert - 78 page Prelim Failure Analysis Report extensively details flaws, issues, and culpability
Full report here: Well worth the read. Excellent work (note: a notable number of pictures w/ notes & graphics I created & posted on FRrepublic made it to the report, with insightful markups of his analysis. I don't mind - that is what I was hoping for - getting the word out. Thank you Robert Bea !. & GOOD JOB to ALL CONTRIBUTORS/POSTERS!!!!).
Very, very damaging to DWR as nothing is left untouched. However this report is good news for the public as Robert Bea reveals exactly what the public needed to hear on this failure, including the implications regarding all of the other DWR managed facilities.
I wonder if DWR spokespeople will now change their standard PR response of "other dam owners around the world" will be interested in DWR's findings?
note: Blue underlining of report pages, my emphasis.
Report finds serious design, construction and maintenance defects at Oroville Dam emergency spillway
DWR's new PR response to Failure Analysis Report - "We'll go by facts & actual construction, not original design drawings.
Please excuse as I Opine…
Sure enough, DWR has a new PR tact to the revelation of a 78 page Expert's Spillway Failure Prelim Report. Responding by Email to SacBee, DWR's spokesperson is downplaying -almost "dismissing"- the key facts of "original design drawings", as a part of Robert Bea's report. Ignored by DWR, is the tremendous supporting evidence of a huge volume of the forensic photographs & his insightful engineering analysis. This new PR messaging tact is very similar to a technique called "FUD" - whereby a messaging strategy of "Fear Uncertainty Doubt" is engaged in an attempt to neutralize a "spot on analysis". DWR is effectively trying to cast dispersions of "uncertainty" & "doubt" on the report by claiming DWR has access to the true forensic facts, evidence, and other information, just "ignore" the report's use of "original design drawings", as DWR has "better information".
"Never mind, that there are over 5 linear miles of cracks in the entire spillway from nearly every single drain line run….Don't believe that these cracks are observable from outer space via satellite images…. Ignore the photographs of all the patching on these miles of cracks…. Don't look at the slab that fractured precisely at a drain line run left open for the world to see in DWR's own photographic evidence... Forget about the "jetting" & gushing sidewall drains where large volumes of damaging erosive underflow occurred under the spillway slabs…. Don't listen to Dam Safety Experts who have been sounding warnings & alarms to dam owners for years about "hydraulic jacking" from Stagnation Pressure... Forget that our own DWR photos reveal the dangerous Stagnation Pressure issue in spades…. Forget about the turbulent brown water erosion of the eroded & weathered rock & substrate images as the spillway was dying…. You are "seeing things" if you see some of the drains not working….Who are you going to believe?…. Us (DWR) or your lying eyes (the mountain of report's photographic evidence)?…. [after all, the report had the audacity to show original design drawings that just so happen to match the report's 70+ pages' mountain of photographic evidence.]"
Deny, Deflect, FUD, Deny. How about a new PR tactic? Come clean… it's called honesty….. End of "Opine".
= = DWR's response: SacBee article: (emphasis mine): “The forensics analysis team is reviewing thousands of documents and recent geotechnical information taken from the spillway,” Mellon said in an email. “They will base their analysis not on original design drawings but on actual construction – there is a difference – and all of the facts, which are being collected and evaluated. … We look forward to the team’s final report, which will be made public.”
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== SacBee & Robert Bea's comments: (emphasis mine): "Bea’s 78-page report, which he has shared with The Sacramento Bee and other media outlets, says the spillway was undermined by a variety of factors, including thin concrete, the presence of “soils and incompetent rock” below the concrete and evidence of water undermining that material. Bea’s findings dovetailed with the conclusions made last month by four consultants advising the state on Oroville’s repairs. Subsequent reports by those consultants have been sealed, along with several other documents connected to the Oroville recovery effort. Bea said he’s troubled that federal and state officials are citing terrorism concerns to block access to these reports. Greater third-party scrutiny could help guide the $275 million repair job at Oroville and point to flaws in other dams, he said. “In essence, their fear for security is something that was largely built up in their own minds as a defensive measure,” said Bea, a retired engineer whose credentials include conducting an independent investigation into why the levees around New Orleans failed in 2005 during Hurricane Katrina.
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Expert performed autopsy on Oroville spillway collapse. Here’s what he found.