Airliners.net

flipdewaf wrote:

in what way does the damage limit it's operation?

An unchecked flow has the potential to erode and undermine the western end of the dam itself.

I think the overflow water is still about 2,000 ft and one ridge away from the dam.

But the area where the water breaks out of the spillway could erode the spillway base farther uphill to the point that it could cause the spillway control gates structure to collapse.

The big concern isn't the volume of water in the lake now, but the potential to reach or exceed the highest level ever recorded at this dam if the worst weather predictions are fulfilled.

rfields5421 wrote:

The dam operators have no option to reduce the flow below about 80,000 cft per minute anytime between now and sometime in June; and nobody has any control over how the spillway deteriorates or what path the water chooses to take. Even in a best case scenario, all the dirt and rock that's being washed away is going to have to be replaced, little tiny truckload by little tiny truckload.

I thought they were at 80k CFS not CFM.

I thing the dirt is all gone, right now it looks like bedrock being eroded away.

rfields5421 wrote:

I thought they were at 80k CFS not CFM.

I thing the dirt is all gone, right now it looks like bedrock being eroded away.

Yea, CFS.

More recent picture of the spillway. But I believe that the upper sidewall in the picture is currently washed away.


The LA times says there is a theory that the event began with water runoff alongside the spillway undermining the failed portion.
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-m ... story.html

salttee wrote:

The LA times says there is a theory that the event began with water runoff alongside the spillway undermining the failed portion.
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-m ... story.html

Having the spillway straddle a mix of rock and earth as foundation was a dumb idea. The discontinuities are a fount of problems.
The spillway would have needed supporting pillars into bedrock in the earthen areas. ( does the area see temps below freezing?)

salttee wrote:

The LA times says there is a theory that the event began with water runoff alongside the spillway undermining the failed portion.
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-m ... story.html

Probably the most plausible explanation is cavitation:

In a process called “cavitation,” water flowing fast and in large volumes can rumble over small cracks, bumps or other imperfections in concrete dam spillways as they release water during wet years. The billions of gallons of water bumping off the surface at 50 miles an hour create enormous turbulence that can form tiny water vapor bubbles that collapse with powerful force, and like jackhammers, chisel apart concrete. http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/02/17/o ... -collapse/

There is also a possibility that the ground under the spillway shrank during the drought, leaving voids under the spillway.
What I thought was a salient point from the article is the fact that while the spillway is 178 feet wide, the concrete is just 15 inches thick in the middle.

This reminds me of the near-failure of the Glen Canyon Dam spillway in 1983. There's a few good YouTube videos on that.

I'm no expert, but I think one of feature of a dam's design should be to limit the discharge to a level which the downstream can handle. If you let the level reach 100% that cant be done.
One solution would be to have a restricted outlet at say the 90% level. When the water reaches that height it would discharge at a safe rate, and any excess water would back up into the dam. Hopefully this extra detention will last until the extreme weather event finishes.
Does anyone know if (m)any dams have a design feature like this? Brisbane got flooded several years ago because an upstream dam was allowed to fill up until the discharge couldn't be controlled.

grozzy wrote:

I'm no expert, but I think one of feature of a dam's design should be to limit the discharge to a level which the downstream can handle. If you let the level reach 100% that cant be done.
One solution would be to have a restricted outlet at say the 90% level. When the water reaches that height it would discharge at a safe rate, and any excess water would back up into the dam. Hopefully this extra detention will last until the extreme weather event finishes.
Does anyone know if (m)any dams have a design feature like this? Brisbane got flooded several years ago because an upstream dam was allowed to fill up until the discharge couldn't be controlled.

Dams spillways are designed to be able to discharge water coming into the lake at a 100 year, 200 year, 500 year or 1,000 year flooding event.

Of course the problem is no one has accurate data to say what a 500 or 1,000 year flood event, and few have accurate data for a 200 year event.

The design of a dam/ spillway is to allow enough water out through the spillway/ emergency spillway to prevent the dam being overtopped.

Because no matter how much flooding occurs during such massive water releases it is much less than would occur if the dam were over topped and collapsed.

What you are talking about is not dam design but management of the lake.

We don't know why the lake level was allowed to reach the maximum flood pool level. Was it to try to retain as much water as possible to help California recover from many years of severe drought.

Or was the lake level raised and outflow restricted because other dams / rivers outflow had resulted in flooding downstream in the Sacramento Valley.

I've seen many times that a dam / lake is raised to the maximum possible level because of flooding downstream from other lake releases and uncontainable run off from major rains.

rfields5421 wrote:

We don't know why the lake level was allowed to reach the maximum flood pool level. Was it to try to retain as much water as possible to help California recover from many years of severe drought.

Interesting point.

People around Dallas went absolutely ballistic a few years ago when we had a wet spring that filled the lakes after four straight summers of water restrictions and the threat of rationing.

When the lakes reached their normal levels, and the COE started releasing water, people wanted the dams to keep holding more water until the lakes were at the top of the flood pool levels.

The COE said no. Having lakes up to the top of the flood pool level means that water will have to be released immediately if rains put more water into the lake.

Regardless of possible downstream flooding, causing downstream lakes/ dams to have to release extra water. It sets up a cascade like dominos.

rfields5421 wrote:

Having lakes up to the top of the flood pool level means that water will have to be released immediately if rains put more water into the lake.

Regardless of possible downstream flooding, causing downstream lakes/ dams to have to release extra water. It sets up a cascade like dominos.

That is exactly what we saw here in Vegas in 1983, Lake Powell was in danger of failing, so they released a much water as quickly as they could into Mead which caused a domino effect past Lake Mohave down to Havasu.

The scary thing is, Lake Mead has a capacity 7 times that of ALL the lakes in the Dallas area, or to put it another way, during the emergency release from Mead, enough water was released to fill all the lakes in the Dallas area, from bone dry, to full in 7 days....The spillways at Hoover were used for 5 months straight.....To me that is just an amazing amount of water.

I think few people understand the difficulties dealing with the volume of water we've been talking about.

But I also remember my uncle talking about a pond he kept near his home, which didn't have s proper outlet. "It doesn't matter how much rain there is, when the water gets into the house it is too much"

When I was young there used to be flooding over levees almost every year in southern Arkansas/ northern Louisiana. Now they are rare.

But I will never forget the time I watched as some of my cousins wood frame home was lifted off the blocks by a flood and floated across a field to become stopped in the woods.

Uncontainable water is a near unstoppable force, even today.

After shutting off the spillway flow for a few days here are some new pictures.
http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/03/05/o ... fter-test/

NorCal should have a decent break from rains for a while. And the dry season is also about to begin so they have more than enough time to get started,. They'll have to depend on the "emergency spillway".

salttee wrote:

After shutting off the spillway flow for a few days here are some new pictures.
http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/03/05/o ... fter-test/

That'll buff right out

The way things look the outstanding repairs are now significantly increased in scope.

WIederling wrote:

The way things look the outstanding repairs are now significantly increased in scope.

They are probably going to build a new spillway in a different location.

Because of the dam's location, they originally built a railroad to haul in all the dirt and supplies.

salttee wrote:

WIederling wrote:

The way things look the outstanding repairs are now significantly increased in scope.

They are probably going to build a new spillway in a different location.

The best thing they can do is redesign the "emergency spillway" to become the new spillway while repairs are underway on the main one. Then, once that's done, the main spillway can resume its functions and the emergency spillway reverts to being just that: a last resource for overflow capacity, but one that can send water down in a controlled manner (unlike what we saw a few weeks ago where its integrity was thought to fail because of uncontrolled flow).

It would be wise to rebuilt the current ramp and then extend the emergency spillway using tubes, so it becomes the main spillway with the ramp taking over as the emergency solution.

New picture - actually an old picture - taken in January and shows the beginning of the failure that brought the havoc seen in the above pictures.
That's at least a quarter of a billion dollar crack in the concrete; they've already spent a hundred million on emergency repairs.

100 millions ? Doing what, exactly ?

Aesma wrote:

100 millions ? Doing what, exactly ?

One thing is the fact that moving rock via helicopter gets expensive and they did that for about a week. I saw a video which showed cement trucks lined up as if they were on a LA freeway during rush hour, that gets costly, then there's the river barges with giant earth movers aboard and a herd of bulldozers on the ground. They've moved over 620,000 cubic yards of material so far. Some of the union guys are making $7,000 per week with all the overtime.

The DWR says it's all costing 4.7 million dollars a day.
http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/03/09/o ... n-per-day/

Non of that covers the costs of the evacuation of 180,000 people for two days; that could easily add up to 40 million itself.

Some news sites have put the price so far at 150,000,000.

Amazingly similar to the long term condition of California roads.

mham001 wrote:

Amazingly similar to the long term condition of California roads.

I realize that you never attended a school that required you to explain yourself or provide citations for any of your claims but still, out here in the real world away from Freeperville, you'll have to do better than just blurting out incongruous comparisons, or else all you are doing is mumbling.

The California roads that I drive on daily are in excellent condition, in fact there are many people (and I am one of them) who oppose all the new asphalt and concrete and would prefer the semi rural character that California used to have. As far as the freeways go, I know that I-80 from San Francisco to the Nevada border is in shipshape and I drove from the Bay area to Las Vegas last year and I-680, I-5 and Route 58 were all in excellent shape.

Is it that you know something about the Oroville Dam that you're not explaining very well?

Or is it that you don't like Jerry Brown, is that your problem? He's one of the most honest politicians in the country and he knows his job well, his Dad was once governor you know. The state's finances are in great shape too as you found out in a recent thread.

The California Department of Water Resources has classified a report on the cause of the spillway failure as "SECRET"

Citing potential security risks, state and federal officials are blocking the public’s ability to review documents that could shed light on repair plans and safety issues at crippled Oroville Dam. One of the secret reports is a memo from an independent panel of experts brought in to guide state officials’ repair plans.

The consultants’ first report revealed that Oroville’s spillway was so riddled with design flaws and so badly damaged that the panel concluded it will be almost impossible to repair the structure completely before the next rainy season begins in November.

The panel said it believes the concrete spillway can be made functional enough to release water from Lake Oroville during the next rainy season. But the panel noted it’s “questionable” whether the state has enough time to replace the badly damaged lower half of the 48-year-old spillway. The bottom of the structure is now split from the top by a gaping chasm that extends into the neighboring hillside.

The expert panel’s conclusions, based on a review of reports and an on-site inspection earlier this month, provided a first-ever accounting of structural and design problems that might have caused the spillway to partially collapse on Feb. 7. The consultants described seeing troubling amounts of water flowing from underneath the structure, concrete that was far too thin and dangerous gaps underneath the foundation on which the massive concrete chute sits.

http://www.sacbee.com/news/state/califo ... 63119.html

salttee wrote:

mham001 wrote:

Amazingly similar to the long term condition of California roads.

I realize that you never attended a school that required you to explain yourself or provide citations for any of your claims but still, out here in the real world away from Freeperville, you'll have to do better than just blurting out incongruous comparisons, or else all you are doing is mumbling.

The California roads that I drive on daily are in excellent condition, in fact there are many people (and I am one of them) who oppose all the new asphalt and concrete and would prefer the semi rural character that California used to have. As far as the freeways go, I know that I-80 from San Francisco to the Nevada border is in shipshape and I drove from the Bay area to Las Vegas last year and I-680, I-5 and Route 58 were all in excellent shape.

Is it that you know something about the Oroville Dam that you're not explaining very well?

Or is it that you don't like Jerry Brown, is that your problem? He's one of the most honest politicians in the country and he knows his job well, his Dad was once governor you know. The state's finances are in great shape too as you found out in a recent thread.

I have no idea what dream world you live in but it apparently is void of any reality. Or do you just ignore the news that the Legislature is currently trying to foist $50 BILLION more new fees on us to pay for....fixing the current road backlog? In San Jose, 2 months ago, another new tax levied to ....fix potholes. Anybody who travels by car can tell the difference when crossing the border in immediate, whether it be Nevada or Arizona. I won't get into specifics, but your account of I 680 is a joke, it is a roller coaster.

Here is the first hit on my search, you really should try your own before spouting about what you know little. http://reason.org/news/show/21st-annual-highway-report

1. Wyoming
2. Nebraska
3. South Dakota
4. South Carolina
5. Kansas
6. North Dakota
7. New Mexico
8. Mississippi
9. Montana
10. Kentucky
11. Texas
12. Missouri
13. Georgia
14. Ohio
15. Wisconsin
16. Maine
17. Tennessee
18. Iowa
19. Arizona
20. North Carolina
21. Alabama
22. Oklahoma
23. New Hampshire
24. Nevada
25. Virginia
26. Oregon
27. Illinois
28. Minnesota
29. Utah
30. Idaho
31. Florida
32. Michigan
33. Colorado
34. West Virginia
35. Arkansas
36. Indiana
37. Delaware
38. Vermont
39. Maryland
40. Louisiana
41. Pennsylvania
42. Washington
43. New York
44. Connecticut
45. California
46. Massachusetts
47. Rhode Island
48. New Jersey
49. Alaska
50. Hawaii

Here's the second hit. New Report Ranks 15 California Urban Areas as Having the Worst Roads in the U.S. http://www.rebuildca.org/press/new-repo ... n-the-u-s/

Third hit...
http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/03/04/c ... ing-worse/
California’s roads are some of the poorest in the nation and rapidly getting worse
Sources: Caltrans; Highways.org; U.S. Department of Transportation; U.S. Census Bureau, WNYC Data News Team, Reason Foundation, Calmatters.org, Texas A&M Transportation Institute.

I could go on about the malfeasance of our one party government but your knee would hit your chin with the massive JERK that comes.
It is people like you who are too lazy to do their own damn research that cause me to not bother to post sources, just for you to attack with nothing credible to say.

Your citation, the reason Foundation, is an American libertarian think tank, if "libertarian think tank" is not an oxymoron. It's interesting that they seem to think that red states have better roads.

But what really catches my eye about that site is their claim that South Carolina spends $39,000 per mile to maintain their roads while California spends more than $500,000 per mile on theirs, yet South Carolina's roads (according to them) are in much better shape than California's roads. And you believe nonsense like that. Your complaining about a freeway that passes through terrain which consists of rolling hills being like a "roller coaster" makes no sense either. If you want flat roads move back to Kansas or wherever you came from.

Why are you still flailing on about "roads" three weeks after the last post when the topic of this thread is the Oroville Dam?

salttee wrote:

Your citation, the reason Foundation, is an American libertarian think tank, if "libertarian think tank" is not an oxymoron. It's interesting that they seem to think that red states have better roads.

But what really catches my eye about that site is their claim that South Carolina spends $39,000 per mile to maintain their roads while California spends more than $500,000 per mile on theirs, yet South Carolina's roads (according to them) are in much better shape than California's roads. And you believe nonsense like that. Your complaining about a freeway that passes through terrain which consists of rolling hills being like a "roller coaster" makes no sense either. If you want flat roads move back to Kansas or wherever you came from.

Why are you still flailing on about "roads" three weeks after the last post when the topic of this thread is the Oroville Dam?

See, what did I say? I post a legitimate, *well-respected* yearly study and you claim it's bogus. And ignore the other sources. As if the entire world is out to make California look bad. And the irony, demanding a source for every comment and opinion expressed that you disagree with yet you have NOTHING to refute it. There is no point in discussion with you, you are unable of having a reasonable discussion.

"Lethal Arrogance" by the State of CA

Hundreds of pages of state archives, oral history interviews and other documents reveal a portrait of a man hell-bent on building Oroville and the rest of the State Water Project. Determined to leave a personal legacy, Gov. Pat Brown (Gov. Jerry Brown's Father) misled voters about the State Water Project’s costs, ignored recommendations to delay Oroville’s construction and brushed aside allegations that substandard building materials were being used at the dam. His administration steamrolled past a land-speculation scandal, relentless labor strife and the deaths of 34 workers to get Oroville built on time.

The state got a handle on the crisis, and residents returned home after two days. But full recovery will take two years and cost an estimated $550 million, including the expense of replacing the battered main spillway. That’s five times what it cost to build the spillway in the first place, when adjusted for inflation.

Brown, who was elected governor in 1958, saw Oroville and the State Water Project as a chance to put his personal stamp on California.

“I think it’s a monument to me, and I’m very proud of it,” he told the Berkeley interviewers. The California Aqueduct, which cuts through the San Joaquin Valley to Southern California carrying Oroville’s water, was named for him.

Brown campaigned relentlessly for the project, convincing the Legislature and then the voters to go along.

He cajoled Southern California officials, who were leery about costs, into providing crucial political support. His administration sweet-talked wary Butte County residents into flooding entire towns and removing tens of thousands of acres of land from county tax rolls. In exchange, he promised to make Lake Oroville a tourism mecca, a pledge that has largely gone unfulfilled.

After conducting an independent analysis of the February spillway failure, Robert Bea, of UC Berkeley’s Center for Catastrophic Risk Management, says it did. Bea concluded that numerous corners were cut during the spillway construction. Portions of the concrete chute were too thin; it had a flawed drainage system; and the structure wasn’t properly anchored to the underlying bedrock – findings that have been echoed by preliminary studies by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and a a team of forensics engineers hired by DWR at the insistence of the federal government.

Bea said the failings showed a “lethal arrogance” on the state’s part. “It’s only a question of time until you’ve got major problems, even failures,” he said.

Rogers said the dam’s main spillway apparently didn’t get the same level of attention as the main dam.

http://www.sacbee.com/news/state/california/water-and-drought/article150278687.html

DIRECTFLT wrote:

"Lethal Arrogance" by the State of CA

Your citation is a politically motivated right wing hit piece against Pat Brown, who was an honest and well respected past governor of California. It contradicts itself, while trying to blame Pat Brown for the recent failure, the article states that during construction, "Top engineers and consultants were brought in from all over the world to ensure the dam met the highest standards of that era". The current spillway fault has been determined to have been caused by waterflow vibrations that were unknown back in 1960, and Pat Brown was the Governor for pete's sake, not a design engineer. And where's the lethality in the alleged "Lethal Arrogance"? Nobody died in the current event, but lives were saved in 1964 when the half completed dam prevented a flood.

Much of California's economic prosperity over the last 60 years has been a result of Oroville dam. Pat Brown should have been proud to have brought that project in.

The scandal is in how the current dam managers handled the failure and how they continue to suppress information about the failure. As I understand it, all access to the dam is blocked, the public cannot view the damage or the repair project.

salttee wrote:

As I understand it, all access to the dam is blocked, the public cannot view the damage or the repair project.

I will note that is incorrect based on what I have seen and read. Pretty much anyone can view it just like one can view construction site: At a distance.

A really good source was posted earlier in the thread and I have used it as a good source of what is actually going on with the project. "Blancolirio" is a 777 captain (I think for Delta but I don't know) and has been doing these updates since the failure.

Here is the whole series he has done:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... PeEVoazpUE

His latest post is this one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAWAbslg2vE

Tugg

I saw a video of a meeting of the community with the DWR and there were vocal objections to new fences and no trespassing signs that prevented locals from access to the dam site, as well as many complaints about the dearth of information about the damage and restoration plans. There are several of these meetings posted on youtube, I think this is the one I saw where people complained about access. :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUY3dccNYm8

salttee wrote:

I saw a video of a meeting of the community with the DWR and there were vocal objections to new fences and no trespassing signs that prevented locals from access to the dam site, as well as many complaints about the dearth of information about the damage and restoration plans

When the original report was published it popped up on one of my engineering news notifications. It was soon declared "top secret" by DWR and was pulled.

********
I gave it a brief look thinking I would get back to it later. However, there were some references in the report to some "security issues". It caught my attention enough to Satellite View at that time to see exactly what they were discussing.
I would tell you is that I have only heard vague reference to dealing with those issues and is not going to happen until the end of the 2018 season. The main issue at hand is dealing with the spillway.

So Clue #1 There is going to be limit access to the public until the "security issues" have been resolved.

*******
Quite frankly they could have easily left that section of the report out and released the report to the public from my observations.

However, after seeing the locals in action I can see exactly the DWR has taken the route they have.

Okie

Okie wrote:

There is going to be limit access to the public until the "security issues" have been resolved.

"Security issues" are just so much bullshit; they're just a way of suppressing DWR's dirty laundry. Common, it's an earthen dam, how hi-tech is that, what is there to know? Pictures of the base structure construction back in 1961 are readily available to the public. The spillway is an open book (literally). The hi-tech high voltage power transmission lines are all above ground and easily seen.

Only Trump voters would buy into the "Security issues" nonsense.

salttee wrote:

"Security issues" are just so much bullshit; they're just a way of suppressing DWR's dirty laundry. Common, it's an earthen dam, how hi-tech is that, what is there to know? Pictures of the base structure construction back in 1961 are readily available to the public. The spillway is an open book (literally). The hi-tech high voltage power transmission lines are all above ground and easily seen.Only Trump voters would buy into the "Security issues" nonsense.

I highly recommend you take your "side walk superintendent degree" to Sacramento and get those folks straightened out.

You just tell them they do not have a clue.



Okie

salttee wrote:

DIRECTFLT wrote:

"Lethal Arrogance" by the State of CA

Your citation is a politically motivated right wing hit piece against Pat Brown, who was an honest and well respected past governor of California. It contradicts itself, while trying to blame Pat Brown for the recent failure, the article states that during construction, "Top engineers and consultants were brought in from all over the world to ensure the dam met the highest standards of that era". The current spillway fault has been determined to have been caused by waterflow vibrations that were unknown back in 1960, and Pat Brown was the Governor for pete's sake, not a design engineer. And where's the lethality in the alleged "Lethal Arrogance"? Nobody died in the current event, but lives were saved in 1964 when the half completed dam prevented a flood.

Much of California's economic prosperity over the last 60 years has been a result of Oroville dam. Pat Brown should have been proud to have brought that project in.

The scandal is in how the current dam managers handled the failure and how they continue to suppress information about the failure. As I understand it, all access to the dam is blocked, the public cannot view the damage or the repair project.

Well, don't shoot the messenger. The Sacramento Bee is the paper that covers that area. I don't really know if the Bee "Conservative" of "Liberal". I'll quote the reference again for the "Lethal Arrogance" title:

After conducting an independent analysis of the February spillway failure, Robert Bea, of UC Berkeley’s Center for Catastrophic Risk Management, says it did. Bea concluded that numerous corners were cut during the spillway construction. Portions of the concrete chute were too thin; it had a flawed drainage system; and the structure wasn’t properly anchored to the underlying bedrock – findings that have been echoed by preliminary studies by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and a a team of forensics engineers hired by DWR at the insistence of the federal government.

Bea said the failings showed a “lethal arrogance” on the state’s part. “It’s only a question of time until you’ve got major problems, even failures,” he said.

What I got the from the article, was that the professional focus on the dam itself, was not given to the spillway. As to why, that can be discussed...

The Honorable Pat Brown wanted the dam to be a monument to his term in office. That monument was flawed from the beginning, at least the spillway part was.

DIRECTFLT wrote:

The Sacramento Bee is the paper that covers that area. I don't really know if the Bee "Conservative" of "Liberal".

I've always considered the Bee to be a pretty good rag, but the three staff journalists that wrote this piece are obviously their right wing faction.
It was just a thinly veiled hit piece on Pat Brown or "the liberals", as Pat Brown as well as the current governor Jerry Brown represent liberal politics in California.

I will repeat, this dam played a significant part in California's last 50 years of economic boom. But here the conservatives don't care about economics but are all concerned about a potential public safety issue!

Did they really not reduce the water levels in the dam significantly while they have no working primary emergency spillway? That is unusual by European standards. I also wonder about how they want to fix the spillway. One wonders why they do not install pipes in the damaged overflow, so that they can handle a part of the water flow there and only a smaller part with the new emergency overflow.

Oroville Dam repair is huge, but so is residents’ mistrust

http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/arti ... 227869.php

Kiewit, which has set up a sprawling operations yard at the lake’s main boat launch, with more than a dozen trailers and countless construction vehicles, is being paid $275 million for two years of work.

The expense follows an estimated $200 million price tag for the emergency response to the crisis and is expected to be paid largely with federal emergency funds.

Critics of the Department of Water Resources say deficiencies in the spillways should have been addressed — if not when the dam was built in the 1960s, then in ensuing decades as dam safety science evolved.

While state officials insist they’ve done all they can to keep the dam safe, the team investigating the spillways said it’s looking into the possibility of poor management.

“I’m not sure that we’re going to be pointing blame on any particular person or organization,” said John France, an independent engineering consultant who is leading the investigation. “We’re more trying to focus on what lessons we can learn on how the process may have let us down in terms of not having the proper training or not responding to things the way they should have.”

France said he expects the team’s findings to have implications for other dams in California and beyond.

“There will be some changes in the way the dam safety industry does its work,” he said.

This month, at the direction of Gov. Jerry Brown, the state Division of Safety of Dams sent letters to at least 100 dam operators directing them to re-evaluate their spillways for potential problems.

I wonder how much more Federal Emergency Funds will will tapped for other CA dams spillways shortcomings???

Thanks for the update. Interesting to follow this.

As progress on the repairs to the spillway, and the emergency spillway continues....there are reports that the dam itself could fail and become inoperable....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zHUk5frGN0

The Jan. 2018 estimate for the total cost of the repairs and improvements to the poorly designed and constructed spillway and emergency spillway was..... $800 Million.

I got a response from Dale Kasler, from the Sacramento Bee, that stated that the original cost for the Oroville spillway in today's dollars was a little under $100 Million. And, the original cost for the entire Oroville dam in today's dollar's was about $1 billion.

As a Federal Taxpayer, I do expect the State of California to pick up most the tab for this $800 Million repair of the Dam they sponsored, designed, and built.

DIRECTFLT wrote:

As a Federal Taxpayer, I do expect the State of California to pick up most the tab for this $800 Million repair of the Dam they sponsored, designed, and built.

You conveniently forget that had federal regulators not rejected the modifications to the dam in 2005, deficiencies could have been detected and not let get worse. Had the emergency spillway been redesigned with concrete as some groups had raised concerns about, it would have been allowed to run instead of the regular spillway. The crack could have been repaired for far less. The only reason the crack grew and eventually took out most of the regular spillway was because they couldn't risk more erosion on the emergency spillway, which would have been a worse scenario than the regular spillway's structure crumbling. Because the feds dismissed concerns about the emergency spillway, they also bear the brunt of the repair.

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

DIRECTFLT wrote:

The Jan. 2018 estimate for the total cost of the repairs and improvements to the poorly designed and constructed spillway and emergency spillway was..... $800 Million.

I got a response from Dale Kasler, from the Sacramento Bee, that stated that the original cost for the Oroville spillway in today's dollars was a little under $100 Million. And, the original cost for the entire Oroville dam in today's dollar's was about $1 billion.

As a Federal Taxpayer, I do expect the State of California to pick up most the tab for this $800 Million repair of the Dam they sponsored, designed, and built.

Why is this a huge issue with you? As a Federal Taxpayer, I do expect the state of New York to pick up most of the tab for any construction related to JFK or LGA. As a Federal Taxpayer, I do expect the state of Texas to pick up most of the tab for shoring up levees in Galveston. What is your point? Other than you hate "liberals" and, by extension, California.

Don't dams generally fall under the oversight of FEDERAL government Corps of Engineers and/or Department of Energy or Interior?

einsteinboricua wrote:

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

Sort of like California Dept. of Water Resources designing it correctly from the beginning.

DIRECTFLT wrote:

As a Federal Taxpayer, I do expect the State of California to pick up most the tab for this $800 Million repair of the Dam they sponsored, designed, and built.

As far as I know I have not heard anything about dealing with the headworks issues that I saw in the report that was pulled. I commented here to Swabby when he was referring to the spillway up post.

Okie wrote:

Quite frankly they could have easily left that section of the report out and released the report to the public from my observations. However, after seeing the locals in action I can see exactly the DWR has taken the route they have.

There were some cracked and broken tendon rods (maybe the number was 30?) for the gates affecting 5 of the gates the best I can remember. The rods anchor the gate hinges and only testing method can test less than one foot of length of the 40 foot rods. No telling the damage along the rest of the length.
There was 14 foot long crack that is offset 4 inches I believe it was in gate 8 Headworks which is like 5 or 6 foot thick concrete.

The issue here is that the concrete approach on the lake side to the headworks is of similar construction to the spillway. They have to be very careful about how much they open those gates and the depth of the water on top of the approach concrete because the velocity of the water will wash out the approach along with washing out a path through the dam.
So if those tendon rods fail or the headworks fails then the dam is a gone.

So I am still at a loss if they have made repairs or are going to wait until this winter.

Okie

Okie wrote:

There were some cracked and broken tendon rods (maybe the number was 30?) for the gates affecting 5 of the gates the best I can remember. The rods anchor the gate hinges and only testing method can test less than one foot of length of the 40 foot rods. No telling the damage along the rest of the length.
There was 14 foot long crack that is offset 4 inches I believe it was in gate 8 Headworks which is like 5 or 6 foot thick concrete.

The issue here is that the concrete approach on the lake side to the headworks is of similar construction to the spillway. They have to be very careful about how much they open those gates and the depth of the water on top of the approach concrete because the velocity of the water will wash out the approach along with washing out a path through the dam.
So if those tendon rods fail or the headworks fails then the dam is a gone.

So I am still at a loss if they have made repairs or are going to wait until this winter.

Okie

Is this the "security issue" you were talking about?
Yea, can't let the Sacramento Bee find out about that or pretty soon we'll have ebolian infiltrators. (My spellchecker thinks they might be Bolivian infiltrators)

California is a net donor to the federal govt. Most net recipient states are red. I'm sick of these right wing lies that don't have any factual basis. If you're gonna pick on a blue state, you have the likes of Illinois and new mexico.