Posted on 02/14/2017 4:05:52 PM PST by CedarDave
Oroville dam, the tallest in the nation, is currently in danger of structural failure.
Thousands living downstream from its desperate cascading water releases are evacuating their homes in Hollywood disaster-film fashion. Something premodern and apocalyptic like this was not supposed to have happened in a postmodern California of Google, Hollywood, and Napa Valley wineries.
California’s politicians and pundits in recent years of drought swore the state was entering a cycle of permanent drought (and thus saw no need to start construction on a single dam to store the rain and snow that supposedly would not return). Instead, they warned of the “settled science” of climate change and the need for permanent conservation and restrictions—even as near record storms this year have pushed California’s snow and rain levels in many places to over 200 percent of normal, well beyond the ability of our now ossified water projects to store the deluge that heads out to sea.
Oroville, along with its twin Shasta dam, anchors California's vast water transfer system, the largest and most ingeniously designed in the world. But Oroville’s half-century-old and now damaged spillways were in dire need of maintenance, especially given that auxiliary dams in the region envisioned to alleviate the pressure on Oroville were long ago cancelled. Indeed, the entire California Water Project and federal Central Valley Project were never finished, even as California’s population more than doubled.
After the early 1980s, the state’s politicians and courts decided that dams, as one critic put it, were “a relic of the Industrial Age, a brute-force solution to water scarcity.” They forget that they had been a staple of civilization since the Mycenaean Greeks built them to ward off flood and drought.
(Excerpt) Read more at thehill.com ...
“The people who really should suffer, won’t.”
Agreed. The biggest problem is that Sacramento and Washington D.C. are populated with people who only see the sterilized end product of civilization. They turn on their faucets for water, push up the thermostat, eat nicely packaged fresh food bought at the local Whole Foods store. The nitty gritty precursors to their comforts entirely escape them and thus repel them whenever they are called to confront thorny issues like fertilizing soils, fighting off the ravenous insects and pests, digging out the coal, pumping the gas and oil, and storing water. The bureaucracies are populated by professional managers, scientists and political brown nosing minions who would faint if they had to cross a cow pasture.
A beaver would have built a better dam.
Liberal politicians have minds?
Just dam.
This year the bottom dropped out of the spillway and water started shooting out of a hole in the side. The concrete slab sides of the spillway gave way and the water flowed down the face of the dam - an earthen structure, not lined with rock or concrete. The fear was that the uncontrolled flow would erode away the face of the dam causing a catastrophic failure. Normally the backup would be to shut down the main spillway and dump water through the tunnels of the hydro plant. But there was too much water in too little time so the reservoir rose and water began flowing over the emergency spillway, which was not lined with concrete or rip rap and thus had it's own erosion problems.
My uncle owned a rock hauling company in Paradise that had contracts to supply rock for the dam, the after bay and the north end of aqueduct during the '60s and early '70s. One of his gripes was that every year he bid on a contract to supply rip rap for the emergency spillway. Every year the project was canceled by the state legislature (Jesse Unruh to be exact). Things really don't change much in California.
Did you view the videos? Most of them show views of the gated spillway next to the emergency spillway.
Sounds like a very effective way to take out the Leftists’ competition for power.
You are a member of a very large club. Everyone is confused , and most don't even understand what happened to the dam. It wasn't lack of maintenance at all.
Didn't they build flood gates into this damn so that they can open them to release over flow?
The water for the turbines runs under the dam, and comes out further down the river.
There is the main spillway, which is where the 'flood gates' would be. There is also an emergency spillway.
The problem was that they didn't release ENOUGH water EARLIER, because they was so concerned with filling the lake TO THE TOP, in an effort to make up for the lack of water during the previous drought period.
Once it got near the top, they started draining off water via the main spillway. Normally (meaning if the lake wasn't filled almost to the top), they could have released water at a nominal rate, and everything would have been OK.
BUT, they had to release the water at a VERY HIGH RATE due to the impending water level that was threatening to reach the 'emergency spillway'. They released the water at such a high rate that the water flowed OVER THE SIDES of the main spillway, and eroded the ground UNDERNEATH the spillway, which then caused the collapse of part of the main spillway, because it no longer had any support.
SO,,, they had to cut down the water rate going through the main spillway. This led to the lake level continuing to rise rapidly, and eventually, it overflowed the EMERGENCY SPILLWAY and started eroding away pretty much everything downhill from the emergency spillway.
They gambled on trying to get the lake FULL and they almost LOST...everything.
But that was just the first hand, and the poker game isn't over yet. Mother Nature deals the cards for the next hand.
There are two overflow spillways built into the dam. The first one is a concrete path straight down the hillside to the river that can handle a high capacity. Next to it is another emergency spillway, which is just a cement edge to the top of the dam. Below that cement edge, it is just the hillside, and they knew if it would ever be used it would cause a lot of erosion to the hill.
It was the first cement spillway that failed, it developed a large hole about halfway down the side of the hill, and half the water rushed into the hole, severely eroding the hillside. They had to reduce the flow into that spillway, and in the meantime, the water level rose so much it went over the emergency spillway as well. And not only that, it went through a parking lot and over the top, eroding that too.
The big issue is that the concrete spillway that failed was known to have problems back a few years ago.
Hanson (I’m a fan) is wrong when he writes that the dam may fail. Not going to fail yet anyway. The evacuation has been lifted and people are being allowed to go back home, for now.
The water level has dropped enough to remediate things quite a bit. The wild card is the coming rain.
Hanson is right in general with the rest of his thoughts.
The spillway failure you describe failed long before the water went over the emergency spillway.
You didn’t really think the BLM attacks on the Bundy ranch and the Malheur refuge are the only weapons the UN/globalist lackeys would use in their ongoing war on the American middle class, did you?
Is Jerry Brown not responsible for the entire dam(n) situation?
suspect 90% of the people heading south with their pets and kids and pictures and a half tank of gas voted for a liberal moron who in turn voted with the rest of the herd to give the money meant for the dam to loud mouth illegal Mexicans led by LaRaza.
Liberals ONLY learn by brute force! The water behind that dam will be some unparalleled brute force if that dam breaks.
_____________________
Evidently, you do not know the area, so I will excuse your ignorant comment. Most of the democrat voters reside near the University of Chico. Oroville, the county seat, is more conservative. In the last election, Trump took the county 48-44%. Butte County is the Southern LInchpin for the the proposed State of Jefferson.
That you were looking forward to the death and destruction of not only fellow Americans, but fellow Trump supporters speaks ill of your reasoning, if there was any to begin with. I will chalk up your comment to too much rot-gut whiskey.
This afternoon the evacuation order was lifted. Folks had less than one hour to leave their home and belonging. We did not evacuate as we are level with the Dam and not in danger, although we received evacuation orders.
Bare in mind, absolutely no stores were open, no banks, no mail, no nothing. If fact no bars were open to sell cheap whisky to opinionated blow hards like yourself.
This morning we received information from a transportation official that they were being told the evacuation would be in effect for a week. Another rumor was two weeks. Luckily work crews at the dam struggled to plug holes and continue the water release because 4-8 inches of rain will hit the area beginning tomorrow night.
Our Sheriff reminded everyone to keep things packed because once again the order for evacuation may have to be given.
I hope this little bit of information elucidated you and helped give some perspective to what has been going on here in the State of Jefferson.
Um, actually, yeah Californians did build that, but the demonrats, enviro nazis and la razists in current California declined to maintain it. Oh and that includes former governator democrat in republican clothing schwartzenass.
And gay pride parades and global warming studies and wymen’s rights issues, etc.
California government is awash in misallocated tax money. If it was spent in the manner we did in the 1950s, California would have an immaculate infrastructure.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
