Emergency: California’s Oroville Dam Spillway Near Failure, Evacuations Ordered

Breitbart ^ | Feb 12, 2017 | Joel B. Pollak1

[janetjanet998]

The California Department of Water Resources issued a sudden evacuation order shortly before 5 p.m. Sunday for residents near the Oroville Dam in northern California, warning that the dam’s emergency spillway would fail in the next 60 minutes.

The Oroville Dam is the highest in the nation.

[abb]

Watched “Deepwater Horizon” the other day. Kurt Russell (rig boss) asks Mark Wahlberg if he brushed his teeth and flossed this morning. Said, “It saves a lot of money and pain in the long run.”

Good advice regarding preventive maintenance vs fixing a problem later.

The lesson has to be taught over and over, it seems.

[EarthResearcher333]

Are DWR & DSOD "cooking the books" on Inspection reports? A "Water vortex" observed draining into ground in front of ES - was kept out of the regular 2005 DSOD Inspection Report. Why?

With news articles continuing to repeat the issue of Trust with DWR and the public, yet more information is surfacing that adds to these concerns. Recently, a newly formed group, "Oroville Strong!" sent a letter to DWR asking questions & stating issues regarding the Spillway crisis & its impact to Oroville.

DWR responded to their letter in assuring that the integrity of the dam is administered through advising experts, groups, and through layers of FERC & DSOD Inspections. DWR even provided a link url in their response (url to access all of the DSOD Inspection reports going back to 1998) to address "Oroville Strong!" concerns.

But, DWR's response to "Oroville Strong" has just reignited the trust concerns again as a "discovery" of discrepancies** exist in a DSOD Inspection report verses what was filed with FERC in the database storage of Inspection report information (report called a "Performance Report").

DWR/DSOD seemingly "Hid" information of a "water vortex" (i.e. water induced flow formation) above the ground in front of the emergency spillway. This "water vortex" was discovered in a FERC/DWR database document that was NOT mentioned or hinted in the publicly released DWR/DSOD Inspection report. In fact, there is a special photograph, besides the specific notation of this "water vortex", that are NOT included in the publicly released DSOD Inspection report (different photographs, different matrix list of items checked, etc). However, the bigger problem to this new discovery is that DSOD chose not to include this "water vortex" draining into the ground - and the associated investigative photograph of the vortex - in the publicly released DSOD Inspection report.

Water vortex conditions are evidence of a subterranean flow. The Emergency Spillway and the FCO Headworks have a grout curtain of injected material to seal the lower rock of the face of both of these structures from "subterranean flows". When a "vortex" forms, the water penetration velocity is such that a "Coriolis Effect" forms and causes surface water disruption from the downward flow. This is very different than a slow "seepage" process.

Any time a "water vortex" is observed in front of an impermeable boundary at a dam or spillway, this is an important issue to note and track. However, the problem becomes even greater as this item seems to have been desired to be "kept out of the report - intentionally" from the publicly accessible DSOD Inspection report.

What else is being "hidden" via a process of deciding to "not include" Inspection specifics in the regular DSOD Inspection reports? Yet is reported in different documents to FERC? This discovery was almost by accident. It was assumed that all of the Inspection report issues and findings would match in ALL reports from ALL dates. It was only from the prior knowledge from searching through all of the original DSOD Inspection reports (publicly available) is where this notable "discrepancy" stood out when observed in a FERC document. The FERC database is not easy to search through. Most of the important technical information is blocked as secret using the CEII status. So in essence, this discovery, may have been kept blocked if it wasn't selected as CEII as is nearly all of the rest of the information DWR chooses to keep from the public.

If DWR want's to repair their reputation with the public ,regarding their technical competence and transparency, then DWR should identify to the public why there seems to be "differences in the books" on Inspection Reports, especially on notable items DSOD felt was important enough to photograph.

**Multiple photograph differences besides the water vortex "missing" or "removed" from the main DSOD Inspection pdf file report.

(per Oroville Strong letter & DWR's response): DWR provided database link of public access to DSOD Inspection reports: See file 2005(May 17).pdf (this report has NO mention of the water vortex, and NO picture of the water vortex).

https://d3.water.ca.gov/owncloud/index.php/s/j76ZsTk6tDgKxoo

DWR's Wording response to Oroville Strong Letter (that notes their Inspection integrity & reports that are accessible to the public):

https://www.orovillestrong.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Final-Signed-DWR-Response-to-Coalition-Letter_linked.pdf

DWR's response to questions from a letter sent by "Oroville Strong!". Original questions in light grey font. Answers in black font. DWR conveys assurance on technical competency and transparency while providing a url link in the response.

DWR/DSOD May 17, 2005 Inspection report - NO mention of the "water vortex" observed in front of the Emergency Spillway. NO photograph that Inspectors took of this "water vortex". Left out of this Inspection report. Why?

Critical revelation of a "water vortex" + photograph in front of emergency spillway. Kept out of regular DSOD report. (found via careful searching of FERC database - reveals that DWR has a "different" set (superset) of findings in an Inspection Matrix plus associated pictures that are different from the public DSOD Inspection report. FERC & DSOD inspection documents state the exact same date, time, inspectors, of DSOD information from the May 17, 2005 Inspection - yet items left out of public DSOD Inspection report.

[blueplum]

Hi EarthResearcher333.

I hope this is the right place to put this new video from Sac Bee:

http://www.sacbee.com/news/state/california/water-and-drought/article157554339.html

[Repeal The 17th]

Good overview of this massive project.
Lots of activity...
Thanks for posting this!

[EarthResearcher333]

Acting DWR Director Bill Croyle Announces Retirement on July 1

http://www.krcrtv.com/news/local/butte/dwr-acting-director-bill-croyle-announces-retirement/559306185

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - Acting director for the California Department of Water Resources (DWR), Bill Croyle, announced his retirement Friday. His last day at DWR will be on June 30.

Croyle had put his original retirement plans on hold in January 2017 when Governor Brown asked him to serve as Acting Director of the Department. Cindy Messer, DWR's Chief Deputy Director, will serve as Acting Director once Croyle leaves.

According to the DWR, Croyle served as Deputy Director for Statewide Emergency Preparedness and Security at the Department, a role that they say uniquely prepared him to manage the Lake Oroville spillways incident in February.

“I am honored to have served with many talented, dedicated people throughout my career. I am very proud of the work we have accomplished over the years bringing California through drought, flood and most recently, through the Oroville Spillway incident,” stated Croyle. “And now I’m looking forward to picking up my retirement plans where they left off six months ago.”

[PavewayIV]

I wonder if there were any old gold mines in that hill before they built the dam? Remember that peculiar, out-of-place 'bump' under the edge of the spillway when they were shot-creteing it? Maybe that was an old drift they found and plugged up before anyone could photograph/video it.

On the other side of the hill (upstream side of e-spillway) would have been another likely spot for some old-timer to gopher away looking for the mother lode. They may not even have known about those mines when they built the dam. But then again, remember how they just stopped building the second intakes for some reason? Maybe the whole hill is perforated with small hand-dug, long-abandoned mines?

I know it's a bit tin-foil-hat, but if there were hydraulic communication from somewhere upstream of the e-spillway to under the main spillway, then there's your 'piping' and unexplained drainage.

I suppose you could just grout in any tunnels you knew about, but there may have been old ones they didn't because of collapsed or filled openings, etc. Makes me wonder about the weird "not a sinknole" depression on the e-spillway side, too. They were busy coring/grouting something on the upstream side of the e-spillway early on.

[EarthResearcher333]

With the complexity of the metavolcanic rock geology of the spillway hillsides, they may have deep seams that could facilitate subterranean flow. A few posts up (3840) is a page from an unredacted BOC report that noted water disappearing in a test drill at 109 ft down. This was near the discovered 45 ft full depth of "weathered rock" at the blowout erosion area. The BOC report noted that this 45ft area is part of a "seam".

Other BOC information noted that there was a "spring" NW (a bit uphill) from the blowout area (IIRC about 200 ft away).

DSOD inspection reports (post 3761) reveal water seeping under the ES weir causing greening of the grass. The ES weir has seams that leak too, besides the leaking of the footing as it wasn't sealed into the flat bench it rests upon.

The issue of large "bubbles" coming up in front of the ES just after the overspill also suggests areas of "piping" into the rock and flowing to deeper levels. It may be that the "grout curtain" is not sealing very well or that their are fissures deeper below the grout curtain. Either way, this is an "unknown" that should be "known" to prevent any "surprises". I believe that is why they put in the piezometers along the backside of the ES Weir.

I tried to get a fix on the "water vortex" from the May 17, 2005 DSOD inspection report. This picture is a blowup of a "generic" pic they put in the report to say "all is ok" on the Emergency Spillway (leaving out any mention of the "water vortex" and leaving out the close up picture that they had took of the water vortex).

There is one area that had a particular "water disturbance". As this info is not reliable enough, consider it "discussion" material. In any case, here is the location that "may" be what they were talking about in a "water vortex".

P.S. This location is in a sediment area similar to the wet sediment that some thought was a "sink hole" from an optical effect at a distance. However, this possible location is closer to the ES than the "sink hole" discussion/photographs.

Water disturbance (in a calm water condition) - unique & in the same date Inspection where a "water vortex" was noted by DSOD in front of the ES.

Angled translation to the "water disturbance" - at a low spot in a "downward channel" towards the reservoir. This area is a sediment base that remains somewhat dark until receding water levels & evaporation remove the moisture.

[EarthResearcher333]

DWR abandoned the "intakes" (trash racks) on the west side of the dam purportedly due to poor rock deeper below. There were plans to develop a second power facility using this intake system. So this would infer that the rock quality on this side of the canyon had "issues". This would again tend to affirm the possibility of deep seams where water could flow into.

In one of the youtube videos of people flying over the reconstruction area, I noticed another spring or water source in the hillside that created exposed water in a long curved ditch around the hill. The glint of sunlight revealed this thin "flow" stream. This location is above/between the RCC plant and the headworks.

Just another puzzle to noodle.

[abb]

Noticed in Thursday’s pics that they’re drilling/blasting quite a ways up into the undamaged part of the spillway. Just about to the point where the constant slope begins curving downward.

[Ray76]

The Banner mine is in the vicinity.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3524221/posts?page=1514#1514

[PavewayIV]

"...With the complexity of the metavolcanic rock geology of the spillway hillsides, they may have deep seams that could facilitate subterranean flow..."

No doubt. But the old-timer prospectors looked for gold by panning the river to figure out what hillside stream/ravine/gully might be the source. Those erosion features were mostly worn into fractured or softer rock seams on the hillside. Those erosion-revealed seams would have been the exact place they would have started digging promising-looking ore and would have been (at the time) far above the Feather River bed. And if they were hand-digging, they would have followed the fractured/weathered rock seams deeper into the hillside looking for rich ore.

Now I have no idea if there were any kinds of mines like that there. My point is simply that 'fractured rock seams' are the exact spots where they would have started digging. *If* there were any holes in that hillside, that's where they would have been. The 'sinkhole' area is low because it's at the top of a historic erosion gully/weathered rock seam before the dam was built. It always struck me as odd that the original dam engineers didn't level that off more with fill.

Regardless, undiscovered (at the time of build) underground weathered rock seams themselves on either side of a dam abutment are troubling, although DWR seems pretty casual about all the 'natural springs' they seem to find. Proper grouting should take care of them.

"...It may be that the "grout curtain" is not sealing very well or that their are fissures deeper below the grout curtain..."

I wasn't aware that they had built a grout curtain near the emergency spillway weir. The old dam diagrams showed the expected grout curtain under the dam itself and there were some textual references to grouting around the gatehouse Not that it wouldn't have been a good idea to build one under the weir - I just missed any mention of it in the documentation. Is it a vertical curtain directly under it?

[EarthResearcher333]

If you find the document "zh9californiastatew2003calirich.pdf" look on page 97. It shows the Ogee Weir drawings with a note of the grout details at the upstream footing of the Weir. Page 100 notes "Emergency Spillway. The grout curtain was continued under the left reach of the emergency weir near the upstream face, and formed drains were used under the downstream half."

In this case the "left reach" is the left hand view of drawing which is the upstream footing of the Ogee Weir.

Page 101 notes the vertical grout curtain under the Headworks - so this is the inference of what was "continued under the left reach of the emergency weir".

Page 135 details the Grout Curtain for the Dam. Above elevation 750 feet the grout curtain is vertical and runs until it joins the spillway curtain at dam station 21+29.

I'll have to look through other documentation to see if I can find more details on what they did for the headworks and the emergency spillway (depth, spacing, psi - etc).

So based on the documentation, there should be a vertical grout curtain along the face & footing of the Emergency Ogee Weir (but not bonded or sealed to the Ogee Weir footing) (i.e. a natural horizontal footing seepage seam as the Weir is flat & NOT keyed into the weathered rock flat bench it rests upon).

BTW - These large monolith Weir blocks are individuals. They can tip over like missing teeth of a youngster if the back foundation is undercut. Nothing holds these individual blocks together to each other. THAT is what DWR was dreading in the 30 ft per hour back-cutting that was within 30 feet of the largest/highest (64ft footing to peak) monolith adjacent to the headworks.

Thus you take the 64 foot height, and add another 40 feet to the deepest weathered rock gash hole (797ft) you get a 100 foot "V" breach right next to the Headworks. Bye Bye Headworks. So much for those that say the dam was never in danger.

If it wasn't for the accidental incident of Sheriff Honea observing an engineer sitting (& staring at a fresh erosion backcutting photo approaching the ES footings) with his hands holding his head, saying "this isn't good, this isn't good", and the Sheriff overheard these comments, the instigation of what the Sheriff (triggering the evac) & triggered events in getting DWR to react & then release more cfs in the main spillway to arrest the back cutting, who knows what would have happened.. Providential intervention by the Sheriff in my book.

[EarthResearcher333]

I saw that too. It seemed that this upper slab removal was along the east sidewall. Either there are areas they don't like as far as the slab integrity along that edge -OR- they don't like the stability of the foundation of the material that the sidewall is resting on. If it is a sidewall foundational issue, then they are making quite a bit more project work for the upper spillway.

This reminds me of remodeling just one simple thing in an older home. Once you start, you keep seeing other problems/issues. If you are a perfectionist, it can drive you crazy and you end up nearly rebuilding the whole house.

[meyer]

People forget that the Sheriff called for the evacuation. And kudos to him for doing so. You’re so right - no telling what would have happened had he not, but the way the ground was quickly being eroded on the downstream side of the Weir towards the parking lot was for certain a sign that things might become very interesting, very quickly.

It’s very fortunate, also, that the water found a solid channel of good rock between the break in the spillway and the river below. After, of course, eroding thousands of cubic yards of dirt and weathered rock.

[meyer]

This reminds me of remodeling just one simple thing in an older home. Once you start, you keep seeing other problems/issues. If you are a perfectionist, it can drive you crazy and you end up nearly rebuilding the whole house.

My friend, the perfectionist, did exactly that. What started out as replacing a linoleum floor with tile ended up with a project of reinforcing and "sistering" floor joists below because of a very small dip in a couple of them. Throw in a complete rewiring, spray-in insulation on the walls, and new home-built cabinets and a 5 day job became a full summer project. But it's a very nice kitchen now.

Needless to say, he could never be a home builder. Improving from 90% to near 100% perfection costs a lot of money, and people aren't willing to pay that for a house.

[KC Burke]

I just hate it when I have an unexplained vortex in the back yard. It makes me sleep so unsoundly.

[KC Burke]

When abb calls that upper area “undamaged” I am sure he means, un-destroyed. The whole spillway was flexed, de-jointed, undercut and delaminated, but it is only the 40% down to 85% down portion that blew apart forming Moonbeam Canyon.

The current plan as I understood it was to remove remnants, cut out rotten sub-base back to good rock, place RCC or other sub-base and put in new slab from the 40% down point to the 85% down point and then temporarily re-joint seal the upper 40% and the area around the dispersion blocks and do slab repair in those areas next year. I think they have made good progress for what I imagine is a schedule to put the spillway back in use in September some time.

Of course, concurrently with all that the new cut off wall, RCC overlay of Emergency Spillway outflow area and RCC abutment for the ES weir are underway and look to be in fair shape in another three or four months.

[abb]

Lol, yes. “Relatively” undamaged. Any speculation on what the giant cranes are for? I can’t off the top of my head figure what they would be handling that would require that equipment. Maybe conveyor sections from the batch plant to the deposit area?

[EarthResearcher333]

"Any speculation on what the giant cranes are for?"

Well, here's one example. Placing equipment in the lower spillway rock cleaning area. Look at the drone pic from the top of the crane. Quite the height.

Another curious item: Third picture down shows an excavator to which they affixed a large tire to the bucket. The tire is compressed. They cut the tire sidewalls to hang downward so they could use it as a giant squeegee. This allows a "rubbing" of the "fines" debris downhill as this debris is being power washed away leaving clean rock.

Large crane lowering a "Ditch Witch" labeled piece of equipment

Fear of heights view from top of crane boom.

Giant "Squeegee" using a modified tire attached to an excavator bucket.

[meyer]

In the utility industry, the Ditch Witch brand is most commonly known for trenching machines - burying direct-buried electrical cable and water lines comes to mind. A quick peek at their site shows that this might be a type of vacuum or pressure cleaner machine.