[Wallace T.]

Infrastructure built in the mid-20th Century cannot last forever. Liberals ignore these items in favor of the welfare state, their urban constituents, and environmentalism. Additionally, the affected area is a red zone in an extremely blue state. The Republicans have had no power in California since Pete Wilson left office. Therefore, this area suffered from not-so-benign neglect.

[agere_contra]

I agree that the perception probably was that the only people who would be affected by the poor maintainance would be those evil red-state voters between Oroville and the Butte. They paid their taxes, but the teachers pensions, illegals and trains needed it more.

But as the Californian elites are slowly discovering: if Oroville ends up going off-line because of this, then it’s going to be bad for them.

I don’t think there’s going to be a ‘worse case’ un-zipping of the spillway, or a collapse of the emergency spillway.

But just taking this dam down to maintainance levels for a year is going to have a profound effect on water availability in CA.