Posted on 08/13/2014 10:57:52 PM PDT by george76
a debate is emerging between the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (PUC) and the Bay Area Water Supply and Conservation Agency over the potential disaster if the 89-year-old Mountain Tunnel, which supplies 2.6 million Bay Area homes and businesses with water, collapses.
The PUC acknowledges that the tunnel does have a chance of "catastrophic collapse," which would require repairs costing $100 million or total replacement, costing up to $630 million. But the PUC’s 10-year-old 4.6 billion water system improvement program did not include the Mountain Tunnel in its plans.
...
The risk right now is that the tunnel lining could continue to fail and, at some point, that might restrict our ability to get flow through it. That would be catastrophic to us -- any rapid failure that results in the reduction of water flow by 25 percent. That's a big deal.
...
Nicole Sandkulla, the Bay Area Water Supply and Conservation Agency’s general manager, asserted that she had joined others to warn the PUC to look into potential problems with the tunnel, and they were upset when it "fell off that list."
In January, Sandkulla wrote the PUC "about the surprising and alarming notice we received... that the Mountain Tunnel, a vital part of the San Francisco Regional Water System, is at serious risk of a catastrophic collapse, which could cut off, for months, 85 percent of the water needed by residents, businesses, and community agencies in the Bay Area."
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
I would laugh my ass off. The brain dead San Francisco voters already approved a non-binding vote to tear down the Hetch Hetchy and restore the original canyon. I would laugh my ass off if they lost just 25% of their water delivery, watching them panic after that brain dead vote.
What a bunch of maroons. Couldn’t happen to a nicer group of commies.
Libs would be torn.
On the one hand, their communist paradise could go dry.
On the other hand, the Hetch Hetchy valley could return to its original state which the enviros would love. It resembled Yosemite before being damned.
CA really needs to follow the leadership of Israel and switch over to desalination plants.
We have used this company in the past for fixing large water pipe in place.
They use what is essentially a sock they soak in plastic resin and then press against the inside of the pipe with water pressure.
It then cures in place adhering to the inside of the pipe.
You lose a little bit of inside diameter but the resin usually has less friction to water flow so you don’t lose much flow. .
The size of the tunnel may be too large but I don’t see why the process could not be scaled up.
San Fransisco cannot exist without Hetch Hetchy and it’s delivery of water...minute by minute to the city. They basically have to shut down the city and limit it to maybe 100,000 residents.
There’s a difference between a leaking pipe and a tunnel that is caving in.
As far as these snarky urban sophisticates are concerned clean, fresh water is an entitlement that flows magically from water taps and drinking fountains. It's just something that's there, it's always been there and it always will be there.
They are completely and inexplicably unable to connect the concept of a dam, reservoir or pipeline to the stuff that flows out the tap and into showers and mixed drinks. To actually appreciate such things would be embarrassingly suburban and middle class, which is to say classless and clueless in their eyes and sophist world view.
Same with electricity.
The urban elite of the digital generation see electricity as something that comes out the plug in their wall. They just can't grasp the inherent and irrational disconnect between their hatred contempt for energy production and their unprecedented in human history, energy intensive lives governed by the lights and air conditioning, computers and telecommunications that they are completely dependent upon and which makes their day to day lives possible and tolerable.
I wouldn’t be surprised we’re seeing the absolute worst case scenario being depicted, because a lot of greenies want the Hetch Hetchy drained to make another Yosemite Valley.
Today in San Francisco, in the most advanced country on earth, they are coming close to undermining their water supply system.
Our great country is being turned into a backward, third world dictatorship.
All of these Libs think that gasoline has always been there and will always be available.
But they blame the Big Oil companies for making a profit, they are outraged when there is an oil spill, they never give it a second thought (probably not even a first thought) that there has not been a new oil refinery built in the US for over thirty years and that many refineries that exist then no longer do. Yet they are disgusted that gasoline prices have risen.
Libs are always ready to put taxes and regulations on anything and everything with never a thought to what it will cost or if once these taxes and regulations are in place will these things be affordable or even exist.
As John Marshall said “The power to tax is the power to destroy.” The Left may just tax and regulate energy beyond the point that it is unaffordable.
Sometimes I think that may be their ultimate goal. If we commoners can’t afford to drive cars or power our TVs and computers we will be all that more controllable.
The immediate problem seems to be that the tunnel lining is failing and restricting flow. From the article.
The risk right now is that the tunnel lining could continue to fail and, at some point, that might restrict our ability to get flow through it.
I believe the process I linked to could be a solution to the problem. At least for ten years or so until a new tunnel could be built.
After the fall of Rome no one built another one for a thousand years.
Makes you think.
It depends on the cause of the lining failure. If the lining is simply leaking causing things to soften and cave in then you are probably correct. If it is the earth surrounding the lining crushing the lining, not so much.
Agreed
if California splits in 6, would SF even be able to fill Hetchy?
for $630M, they could probably build a nice desalination plant instead
Water comes from the faucet
Electricity comes from the wall socket
Gasoline comes from the pump
Sheesh. Who cares about some dumb pipe?
Subcontract it to Hamas, they know how to dig tunnels.
They have the whole Pacific Ocean. Let them drink salt water.
I believe you are incorrect. The Crystal Springs Lakes provide terminal storage for Hetch Hetchy water. They are immediately south of SF and hold a huge amount of water. I drove between them a couple of weeks ago, and they were nearly full.
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