Sadly, Scott explains how this crisis was easily avoidable. The points of failure in Oroville's infrastructure were identified many years ago, and the cost of making the needed repairs was quite small -- around $6 million. But for short-sighted reasons, the repairs were not funded; and now the bill to fix the resultant damage will likely be on the order of magnitude of over $200 million. Which does not factor in the environmental carnage being caused by flooding downstream ecosystems with high-sediment water or the costs involved with evacuating the 200,000 residents living nearby the dam. Oh, and of course, these projected costs will skyrocket higher should a catastrophic failure occur; which can't be lightly dismissed at this point.
California needs to give up the sanctuary cities concept before they siphon money from the states that are abiding by laws otherwise, we are all indirectly funding California’s desire to harbor illegals.
This is one of the most obvious and illustrative examples of playing politics with people’s lives that I’ve seen.
I wonder if this dam would have been kept in good working order if Hollywood was the town just below it.
“This is all you need to read from the article. Now Governor Moonbeam is asking Trump for emergency funding when this could have been avoided, and of course is Trump refuses, then it’s his fault.”
Yes. But Trump could negotiate a payment plan from California. Make California pay for it, but with a payment plan. That would be great! Maybe it push California over the edge to secession - ha! (And gouge them with an exorbitant interest rate.)
The way I’d approach this from the Trump perspective is that I’d send in Federal help in the form of the Core of Engineers, and they could assess then if feasable, take complete ownership and control over the dam and perhaps the entire water control project until such a time as it is stabilized and in proper working order again. Then SELL it back to CA if they want to buy it. Otherwise, charge them a fee for maintaining water supply, lake levels, and such.
Maybe turn the operation over to TVA or BPA, both of whom seem to have a handle on operating a river system.