New DWR photo has a high resolution capture of the upper main spillway Optical B/W Stripe "Shift" Target. The Target is observable on the far spillway sidewall. A special High Resolution zoom of the target reveals a "shift" of the damaged section of the spillway downslope from up to 1.16 inches (0.87 inches mean). DWR has not said anything to the public regarding this substantial "broken section shift". THIS SHIFTING damaged section of the full width of the spillway chute does NOT have ANY ROCKBOLT ANCHORS. The rockbolt anchors start immediately above this optical target location. Thus, the "shifted" section is over 52 feet in length and is anchored on the orange/red highly weathered rock. note: Image processing is required to determine the Black & White stripe shift distance as the original 25+ MegaByte image is protected by DWR from download of their gallery in photoshelter. note: all camera angle curvatures were compensated for in the analysis.
"First Sighting" - On the April 14 restart of the spillway, a DWR "drone" view of the Target was not "edited", thus a snip capture (couple of seconds) Target image became available for the first time. This also revealed the presence of the same downslope shift, but only at a 1024 HD resolution. However, I was waiting for confirmation from a higher resolution image. This image was posted to DWR's photo gallery April 19. note: As the April 14 "Drone" footage was taken during the recent restart of the spillway, the "shift" would have occurred in the prior spillway release started on March 17, 2017. At that time, DWR ran the spillway up to 50,000 cfs on March 17th (total outflow data) but by March 21st the flow was reduced to 40,000 cfs. It may be possible that the damaged section downslope "movement" was detected at the higher cfs rate and then was slowed due to this detected movement. Now DWR is operating the spillway flow at 35,000 cfs, perhaps for good reason.
DWR Photo Metadata: "A mist cloud rises from the Lake Oroville flood control spillway, as the California Department of Water Resources continues to discharge 35,000 cubic feet per second (cfs) of water from the spillway to continually manage lake levels. Photo taken April 19, 2017."
Note the camera mounted on the near spillway sidewall where the chain link fencing is cut away. There is a second camera mounted near the end of the damaged section at the water fall.
Optical Target panels Bolted onto Damaged Sidewall to detect downslope "shifting". This section is approx 54 feet upslope from the plunge pool where concerns were that this part of the upper spillway (slabs & sidewall) would fail and break away.
New April 19 DWR photo captures a view of the Optical Target Panel. Hi Resolution zoom of the target reveals a "downslope shift" of up to a max of 1.16 inches with a 0.87 inches mean avg. note: EXACT value not released or noted to public by DWR.
