I wondered about that as well. I think you are right.Flooding is already a huge issue.28,000 homes destroyed already. If they open all the gates the downstream areas will flood even worse. Of course if they don't open them what happens should the dam start overtopping. If they would even let that happen.I don't think the CCP has any good choices when it comes to the Three Gorges Dam.
The 60 odd billion used to build it was looted mercilessly for who knows how long. To the point where no where near the money that was needed to properly construct the dam was even there to be used.It was stolen,no on e knows how much or where idt went but best guesses are that many partly members got a lot of bonus' for some time at the loss of dam construction
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https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-china-corruption-dam-idUKBREA1R0AT20140228
Chinese criticise state firm behind Three Gorges dam over graft probe
Li Hui, Ben Blanchard BEIJING (Reuters)
- A scathing report on corruption at the company that built China’s $59-billion Three Gorges dam, the world’s biggest hydropower scheme, has reignited public anger over a project funded through a special levy paid by all citizens.
The Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River in Yichang, Hubei province is seen in this aerial view taken December 2, 2009. REUTERS/Stringer The report by the ruling Communist Party’s anti-graft watchdog last week found that some officials at the Three Gorges Corporation, set up in 1993 to run the scheme, were guilty of nepotism, shady property deals and dodgy bidding procedures.
Between 1992 and 2009, all citizens had to pay a levy built into power prices across China to channel money to the dam’s construction, a project overshadowed by compulsory relocations of residents and environmental concerns. “The relatives and friends of some leaders interfered with construction projects, certain bidding was conducted secretly ... and some leaders illicitly occupied multiple apartments,” the graft watchdog said on its website(www.ccdi.gov.cn).
The Three Gorges Corporation published a statement on its website on Tuesday saying it would look into the issues the probe raised, and strictly punish any corrupt conduct and violations of the law and party discipline. The accusations - made as part of President Xi Jinping’s crackdown on deep-rooted corruption - have spread rapidly across China’s popular Twitter-like service Sina Weibo, and some of China’s more outspoken newspapers have weighed in too.
Time-Weekly, a newspaper based in southern China’s Guangzhou city, this week revealed further details of the graft. In one case, the newspaper reported, a company bidding for a construction project related to the dam area was told to pay a bribe of one million yuan ($163,200) by members of the hydropower giant’s bidding evaluation panel. “Because of its fully state-owned background ... it was given special ‘protection’, and for years was practically free of supervision and regulations,” the newspaper wrote.
The Southern Metropolitan Daily called in an editorial for the full weight of the law to be applied to a firm that has sucked up so many national resources. “The entire strength of China converged on building this one massive project,” it wrote. “Enormous sums went into it, great powers were bestowed.
But the oversight over these powers which should have been there, was not.” On Weibo, the topic ranks among the most widely discussed subjects. “Did the Three Gorges fund paid by us all on every electricity bill actually go to feed dogs?” wrote one user. “Why did the Three Gorges Corporation, fed and nurtured by us all, become an ‘unifilal son’?” asked another user.
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The looting of dam money was key to the shoddy building of the dam and will haunt the CCP forever.
Dam and spillways
Type of dam Gravity dam
Impounds Yangtze River
Height 181 m (594 ft)
Length 2,335 m (7,661 ft)
Width (crest) 40 m (131 ft)
Width (base) 115 m (377 ft)
Spillway capacity 116,000 m3/s (4,100,000 cu ft/s)
Reservoir
Creates Three Gorges Reservoir
Total capacity 39.3 km3 (31,900,000 acre⋅ft)
Catchment area 1,000,000 km2 (390,000 sq mi)
Surface area 1,084 km2 (419 sq mi)
Maximum length 600 km (370 mi)
Normal elevation 175 m (574 ft)
Hoover Dam is 726 feet (221 meters) high and 1,244 feet (379 metres) long at the crest. It impounds Lake Mead, which extends for 115 miles (185 km) upstream and is one of the largest artificial lakes in the world.
SImilarly the 3G dam probably has a maximum fill above which some portion, perhaps earthen beside the dam, would get too stressed and fail. There may be a spillway in addition to the sluices. My definition is the sluices open and close and the spillway simply spills. The Wikipedia article does not give a reference for spillway capacity. It does say
"Days after the first filling of the reservoir, around 80 hairline cracks were observed in the dam's structure.[145][146][147] The submerged spillway gates of the dam might pose a risk of cavitation, similar to that which severely damaged the poorly designed and cavitating spillways of the Glen Canyon Dam in the US state of Arizona, which was unable to properly withstand the Colorado river floods of 1983.[148]"
They are loose with terminology but they mean sluices. You can see the tremendous pressure as the water ejects from those sluices. A cavitation flaw would promote turbulence within the sluices and subject some portion to excess force. We don't really know if the sluices open fully (they knew in Michigan but ignored the problem). We don't know if they are all functional.
The Michigan dam had a spillway along with the sluices but it was inadequate (they knew that too). It would be very interesting if we saw actual spillway action at 3G. I think as long as the water is coming through the sluices, and not over the top of the center portion (which might be spillway), I believe the dam is acting as designed. Doesn't mean the design is safe or it was built properly. The main unknown besides the corruption you pointed out, is if Wikipedia (which lies all the time) is referring to total spillway including over-the-top or just sluices. If just sluices, their number is almost double in the inflow. That seems adequate to me.