California Drought

[Egon]

Ah - Pictures, they are nice but I just do not know if they are the right ones or understand the significance of the those that I have seen.
I 'm also not sure if pictures can show the subsurface structures or not?

 

[houstonscott]

DONNELLY: Jerry Brown's California Legacy is a Dam Failure


Dam! California wackos didn’t listen to environmentalists


I think I'd send Brown packing.

 

[houstonscott]

Ah - Pictures, they are nice but I just do not know if they are the right ones or understand the significance of the those that I have seen. I 'm also not sure if pictures can show the subsurface structures or not?

Yeah, that emergency weir fails and that lake could cut a new channel and empty in few hours. It just depends on weather now.... Let's hope they don't get anymore rain or snow.

 

[coldsteelva]

Forecast for rain on Wednesday - don't forget to account for the weather upriver and in the tributaries of the Feather River.

 

[dmccarty]

...
According to a report on PBS today, there was a study done on the Oroville Dam that found the auxiliary spillway was unsound. Unsound for the very reasons we've now seen. A dirt hillside that could undermine and fail. The feds are in charge of the dam, not CA. The Feds decided that it wasn't a problem, based on what I don't know, and moved on. Now it is a problem.

What I read was that if the emergency spillway was used it would take damage. The damage was expected. If damage was a bit of erosion so be it. Not a big deal. However, in one of the lawsuits, the worry was that the damage would cause the concrete portion of the emergency spillway to fail. Which was the concern over the last day or so. The solution would have been to pour concrete on the down stream side of the emergency spillway. FERC said that the concrete was not needed, the dam was built to specifications and was safe. The state government agency(ies) building the dam said it was good enough and they did not want to spend the money on the extra concrete.

I think it is pretty obvious at this point that the specifications were not good enough nor was it a correct decision to not pour the concrete. Me thinks said concrete will get poured in the future.

Later,
Dan

 

[Raspy]

dmccarty,

I agree completely.

It seems they never believed the emergency spillway would actually be used. They had no logical reason to dismiss the recommendation to pour concrete at the base of the spillway.

Sure enough, when it was actually used it began to fail immediately, as could be expected.

We just don't know how stable that lip is. Maybe it could be severely undermined and still hold. Who knows. But if it fails the draining would be spectacular.

If you look at some of the pictures where the water is going over the top, you can see it is also spilling over the small edge alongside the parking lot. A parking lot curb is part of the main structure holding back the water! Eeeek.

 

[orezok]

Oroville Dam: Feds and state officials ignored warnings 12 years ago

They knew.

Yep... They know in Texas also!

Texas Has Thousands Of Bad Dams, Two In Houston Deemed ‘Extremely High Risk’ – Houston Public Media

 

[ultrarunner]

It would seem people have short memories...

We still have many areas with water rationing in place...

I can't even begin to count all those that went around saying it would never rain enough in California to EVER refill the reservoirs... talk of a 100 year drought... the end of AG... etc.

When a few said all it would take is a very wet season to replenish... they were dismissed.

No one wanted to be tied to similar projects like the massively expensive desalinization plants that were built and never used...

Dams are still being removed in the West...

 

[bcp]

Here's a photo that gives a sense scale to the regular spillway.

Recent Oro Dam spillway inspections found nothing suspect

Bruce

 

[houstonscott]

It would seem people have short memories... We still have many areas with water rationing in place... I can't even begin to count all those that went around saying it would never rain enough in California to EVER refill the reservoirs... talk of a 100 year drought... the end of AG... etc. When a few said all it would take is a very wet season to replenish... they were dismissed. No one wanted to be tied to similar projects like the massively expensive desalinization plants that were built and never used... Dams are still being removed in the West...

Where's the desalination plant that was built and never used?

 

[Mike68]

Where's the desalination plant that was built and never used?

Try this link. The ones in yellow are idle.

Storms are Nature's desalination plants. All man has to do is capture and store the water that falls from the sky. Something that CA seems unwilling to do. They are OK with building expensive and inefficient desal plants with tax payer money (crony capitalism). Or destroying another State's ecosystem (Colorado River Basin). How much damage does it do to the microclimate to divert as much water as they do to LA?

 

[scdeerslayer]

Here on the gulf coast, they "over hype" hurricanes to get people to leave early.

That's so there isn't a panic just before the storm gets there and people won't be able to get out in time. Remember Hurricane Rita?

 

[ultrarunner]

Where's the desalination plant that was built and never used?

This is the one I was thinking of and didn't even know it was in the news...

My cousin is a water engineer that did a lot of work in Dubai and he mentioned they sourced parts from California...

Santa Barbara working to reactivate mothballed desalination plant - LA Times

 

[kcflhrc]

I was a Water Engineer on Saturday, fixed my leaking yard hydrant. :laughing: With a crescent wrench no less :confused2:

 

[houstonscott]

This is the one I was thinking of and didn't even know it was in the news... My cousin is a water engineer that did a lot of work in Dubai and he mentioned they sourced parts from California... Santa Barbara working to reactivate mothballed desalination plant - LA Times

yeah, there's just one in the State that just opened in Carlsbad at a cost of 900 million. Cheap compared to price of fixing just the spillway at Orville.

 

[turnkey4099]

dmccarty,

I agree completely.

It seems they never believed the emergency spillway would actually be used. They had no logical reason to dismiss the recommendation to pour concrete at the base of the spillway.

Sure enough, when it was actually used it began to fail immediately, as could be expected.

We just don't know how stable that lip is. Maybe it could be severely undermined and still hold. Who knows. But if it fails the draining would be spectacular.

If you look at some of the pictures where the water is going over the top, you can see it is also spilling over the small edge alongside the parking lot. A parking lot curb is part of the main structure holding back the water! Eeeek.

If I followed all the developments correctly, if that concret barrier falls, only the top 20-30 ft of the lake would drain.

 

[aczlan]

If I followed all the developments correctly, if that concret barrier falls, only the top 20-30 ft of the lake would drain.

That is what I understand the situation to be.

Aaron Z

 

[sld]

We've seen the integrity of the spillway. Let's hope the dam is built better!

 

[bigdeano]

I've posted some photos of the Oroville Dam taken today from a helicopter over in the Photos Forum. Enjoy.

 

[houstonscott]

I've posted some photos of the Oroville Dam taken today from a helicopter over in the Photos Forum. Enjoy.

Great shots. It's obvious the weir has major damage and has almost been undermined in two places. The undermining on the right is shocking, it almost went... It's also obvious that the undermining would drop the lake well below the 30ft that the weir protects. If the rain takes the lake level over that weir again the lake will drain right there...