California Drought

[turnkey4099]

Here's an interesting video of the Washington Scablands. Unrelated to Oroville, but flooding on a huge scale.

Channeled Scablands of Washington State (Patrick Stewart) - YouTube

Thanks for the link. I'll be sending it on....and spending a lot of time watching the other clips that are listed with it.

Fascinating area. I am about 30 miles fromthe center of one of the main outflow channels. Driventhrough it many times, even was a rod-man on a usgs crew running level lines up one channel.

 

[TomSeller]

That's not very likely, tall dams require really long fish ladders. If they had built one on Grand Coulee dam it would have been over twenty miles long and required more concrete than the dam itself. The Oroville dam is taller than Grand Coulee....

How about a fish elevator then?

 

[jerrybob]

How about a fish elevator then?

Wouldn't work......fish don't have fingers or thumbs to push the buttons......they'd never be able to get off.

 

[prichard]

Wouldn't work......fish don't have fingers or thumbs to push the buttons......they'd never be able to get off.

Well maybe an escalator? Wouldn't want them to get worn out climbing a 700' ladder.

 

[bcp]

Oroville Dam Workers Fired for Posting Spillway Photos to Social Media | FOX4


Butte County Sheriff's Office arrests pair suspected of taking Oroville man’s car, running him over mid-evacuation | The Sacramento Bee


Bruce

 

[sailfast]

There should be no exceptional or extreme drought in CA after this last round of storms. So much for the dire predictions of 100 years without appreciable rains and the sky is falling we're all gonna die chicken little forecasts. How many times can scientists be wrong and still keep their jobs? Sure, they'll couch their positions with percentages and all kinds of excuses when they're proven wrong. I wish someone would take them to task once in awhile.

Kevin

All this rain does NOT help the wells, it is all surface water.
Aquafers still at critical levels, that is what they were talking about.

 

[houstonscott]

Look at it this way, Oroville went from empty to full in one big storm. Another similar storm sends the entire volume over the spillways main and emergency. That's scary.

 

[RedNeckGeek]

Just got back from a quick motorcycle trip down to Death Valley and ran the state route 70 corridor between Oroville and Marysville both directions. There was a LOT of water in the lowlands on both sides of the road on the way down, and a LOT MORE yesterday on the way back. But from what I could see it was all flood plain crop land and not much damage was being done to homes and the like. Farther south toward Sacramento and beyond the ground is covered in places and puddles abound, but again not much of any bad flooding. Heck, it even rained in Death Valley for two of the days I was there, filling many low spots on Highway 190 with enough water to interrupt traffic at times and leaving a thick layer of mud that required heavy equipment to remove. But through all this the folks running the Oroville Dam did get the water level down to the 850' level and are holding it there through the storms that are coming in now. Part of the reason is that these storms haven't generated the 140,000 CFS inflows that helped trigger the problems at the dam in the first place, the other part is with the main spillway damage pretty much written off, they won't hesitate to raise outflows as necessary to keep the water levels in check.

As for the California Drought, the topic we're all supposed to be discussing in this thread, the official classification maps show almost all of Northern California has recovered and is no longer in drought, while much of the southern state still suffers some effects. One wet winter like the one we're having now isn't going to cure the drought, especially since drought is a natural part of the state's climate. The DWR has a long way to go in establishing realistic water use guidelines, and an even tougher row to hoe in getting anyone here to pay attention to them. But that's what it's gonna take before we can shrug off the effects of drought, an "inconvenient truth" that most don't want to hear.

 

[California]

Oroville Dam Workers Fired for Posting Spillway Photos to Social Media | FOX4

'Oroville Dam Workers' were employed by the contractor making the emergency repairs. They violated that employer's longstanding policy against making social media posts re their projects.

They weren't employed by the dam. If anyone interpreted this Fox news as a coverup - no.

 

[sseelhoff]

'Oroville Dam Workers' were employed by the contractor making the emergency repairs. They violated that employer's longstanding policy against making social media posts re their projects.

They weren't employed by the dam. If anyone interpreted this Fox news as a coverup - no.

So you're blaming those dam contractors?

 

[California]

In contrast to what? Who do you blame for firing them?

 

[jerrybob]

Well maybe an escalator? Wouldn't want them to get worn out climbing a 700' ladder.

Escalators can be a problem......I knew a blond gal years ago that was on an escalator when the power went out......she was stuck there for nearly three hours.

 

[dickfoster]

In contrast to what? Who do you blame for firing them?

Maybe you don't blame anyone but those who did the deed, the workers, for firing them. What ever happened to personal accountability? When in doubt abstain.

BTW speaking of accountability where is Moonbeam? He has be obviously absent with all of the recent activity. In most states if anything like this were going on the governor would be in and on the news daily Perhaps if he had not been so busy spending our money on illegal aliens and his pet high speed rail project our infrastructure would not be in the sad shape it is today. Our highways, bridges, dams and levees have been neglected for much too long. I know for a fact that the highways in all the surrounding states are in much better shape than ours. You can tell when you cross a state border by the condition of the highway alone.

 

[California]

Our highways, bridges, dams and levees have been neglected for much too long. I know for a fact that the highways in all the surrounding states are in much better shape than ours.

True, I agree with you.

I have some personal insight on this: A friend worked 40 years in a State agency responsible for prioritizing projects. She said it was a constant battle to allocate funds between renovation and new projects. New projects always have 'stakeholders' - developers, resort owners, etc etc who want greater traffic capacity to their outlying projects that will become profitable as soon as new freeways are built to get out there. They have made huge gambles on improved infrastructure and they then apply pressure to decision-makers to get the project built that will make their gambles profitable. This can include backing political candidates who can help them attain their objectives.

Opposite these interested parties are the engineers who claim existing infrastructure needs to be maintained or it will fall apart. Guess who actually gets the funding, time after time.

And another aspect: In the Pat Brown era it was a given that California's population would boom, and many expensive projects were undertaken to prepare for this boom and make California attractive for investment. The Central Valley Project, the dams and aqueducts that send NorCal's water to the growers in the central valley and to Los Angeles, is the most obvious example. The growers' arid lands were made profitable, their payoff for supporting the projects was immediate. Los Angeles was made capable of supporting a larger population, the value of everything there increased.

Win/win ... except - all those major projects were supported by bonds. Californians today, ie the people who arrived due to the attractiveness these works created, are now responsible for paying off the bonds, and are complaining about how high their taxes are, partly due to the bonds that created the California they see today.

Its complicated.

 

[dickfoster]

True, I agree with you.

I have some personal insight on this: A friend worked 40 years in a State agency responsible for prioritizing projects. She said it was a constant battle to allocate funds between renovation and new projects. New projects always have 'stakeholders' - developers, resort owners, etc etc who want greater traffic capacity to their outlying projects that will become profitable as soon as new freeways are built to get out there. They have made huge gambles on improved infrastructure and they then apply pressure to decision-makers to get the project built that will make their gambles profitable. This can include backing political candidates who can help them attain their objectives.

Opposite these interested parties are the engineers who claim existing infrastructure needs to be maintained or it will fall apart. Guess who actually gets the funding, time after time.

And another aspect: In the Pat Brown era it was a given that California's population would boom, and many expensive projects were undertaken to prepare for this boom and make California attractive for investment. The Central Valley Project, the dams and aqueducts that send NorCal's water to the growers in the central valley and to Los Angeles, is the most obvious example. The growers' arid lands were made profitable, their payoff for supporting the projects was immediate. Los Angeles was made capable of supporting a larger population, the value of everything there increased.

Win/win ... except - all those major projects were supported by bonds. Californians today, ie the people who arrived due to the attractiveness these works created, are now responsible for paying off the bonds, and are complaining about how high their taxes are, partly due to the bonds that created the California they see today.

Its complicated.

Well I for one never complains about money spent on repairing and upkeep for roads and the like but I do object to spending money on illegal aliens and building new stuff when we haven't the resources to support what we already have. It's silly when on the same news cast you see them trumpeting new shopping malls, housing developments etc. then in the same broadcast bemoan the lack of water and power to supply the existing population. I think the politicians just see more votes and more tax base and that's enough to get their nod. Maybe it's high time that this state learned to live within it's means for a change. Perhaps if they weren't so hostile to business and industry they would discover that they have plenty of tax resources right here at hand.

Got any idea where Moonbeam is in light of current events? I've heard he has prostate cancer but if he's too ill to perform his duties he should resign. We've had him as governor for too long as it is. For any state that is being hammered as we are now the governor should be front and center.

 

[houstonscott]

Yup, there's lots of money for bridges, dams and other infrastructure. But people vote in those who take it and spend it on other stuff, and they'll vote them in again this next time. If you voted for bike trails, if you voted for high speed trains, if you voted for buses, BART, Marin ferry, if you wanted bike lanes painted, you are the problem. All the crap funded by bridge tolls and gas and diesel usage taxes, stolen for crap that isn't self funding.

 

[Raspy]

Got any idea where Moonbeam is in light of current events? I've heard he has prostate cancer but if he's too ill to perform his duties he should resign. We've had him as governor for too long as it is. For any state that is being hammered as we are now the governor should be front and center.

Hmmm. I guess you missed it:

Gov. Brown Issues State of Emergency in Response to Oroville Dam Spillway Trouble | FOX4

Oroville spillway: Gov. Jerry Brown requests direct federal aid "to save lives"

Oroville spillway: Gov. Jerry Brown requests direct federal aid "to save lives"


BTW, the 70s just called. They want the term "moonbeam" back.

 

[California]

Now lets see if President Trump will approve federal disaster funds responding to Governor Brown's request.

The locals directly affected so far, those living in evacuation centers or in their cars, are in the 'red' interior counties of California. This is going to be interesting ....

 

[prichard]

Deleted. Sorry don't want this to end up in the political forum.

 

[Barry 1]

Now lets see if President Trump will approve federal disaster funds responding to Governor Brown's request.

The locals directly affected so far, those living in evacuation centers or in their cars, are in the 'red' interior counties of California. This is going to be interesting ....

He approved it 6 days ago-where were you?