Nearly 200,000 remain under evacuation near California dam

[Geee]

Washington Times:

OROVILLE, Calif. (AP) — Nearly 200,000 people remained under evacuation orders Monday as California authorities try to fix erosion of the emergency spillway at the nation’s tallest dam that could unleash uncontrolled flood waters if it fails.

About 150 miles northeast of San Francisco, Lake Oroville — one of California’s largest man-made lakes — had water levels so high that an emergency spillway was used Saturday for the first time in almost 50 years after its main spillway was damaged during recent heavy rain.

The evacuation was ordered Sunday afternoon after engineers spotted a hole on the concrete lip of the secondary spillway for the 770-foot-tall Oroville Dam and told authorities that it could fail within the hour.

“I’m just shocked,” said Greg Levias, who was evacuating with his wife, Kaysi.

“We have two boys and our dog,” said Kaysi Levias. “All the stuff we could fit in the trunk - clothes and blankets.”

[clearvision]

What a CF. They have been given reports over the past 10 years of issues like power lines in the overflow area (they have been airlifting power lines the past few days to remove them), a main drain valve in the dam needs massive repairs so they can't let water thru without running generators. Reported year was the power plant could not let water thru without hookup to powergrid (which it is not at the moment because of moving said powerlines). Reported was the powerplant could be shut off because sediment/debris from the overflow could block the water path from the power plant (which it has). Also already reported was need to reinforce the hillside from the emergency (now renamed yesterday auxiliary) spillway otherwise it might erode and cause spillway failure (which it has). ALSO, pictures of them inspecting the failed spot on the main spillway in 2013.

 

California has spent little to nothing on repairing, maintaining, beefing up their dams to spend money elsewhere. Now we will all have to help pay for the improvements at 10x the cost.

[clearvision]

“It is important to recognize that during a rare event with the emergency spillway flowing at its design capacity, spillway operations would not affect reservoir control or endanger the dam,” wrote John Onderdonk, a senior civil engineer with FERC, in the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s San Francisco Office, in a July 27, 2006, memo to his managers.

“The emergency spillway meets FERC’s engineering guidelines for an emergency spillway,” he added. “The guidelines specify that during a rare flood event, it is acceptable for the emergency spillway to sustain significant damage.”

 

 

LINK

 

In other words it is OK to flood out 200,000 people on 1 hours notice because we don't want to spend a few million now.

[clearvision]

Just reading a report on EPA and California Environmental groups 10 years ago fighting the move of the power lines because it might harm birds and changes to the bottom pool because it might harm water critters. How those water critters doing now?

 

By the way, there were questions about all the little salmon in a hatchery down stream and what was happening to them with the muddy fast water.... What would normally happen to them in droughts and floods without the dam?

[Geee]

What a CF. They have been given reports over the past 10 years of issues like power lines in the overflow area (they have been airlifting power lines the past few days to remove them), a main drain valve in the dam needs massive repairs so they can't let water thru without running generators. Reported year was the power plant could not let water thru without hookup to powergrid (which it is not at the moment because of moving said powerlines). Reported was the powerplant could be shut off because sediment/debris from the overflow could block the water path from the power plant (which it has). Also already reported was need to reinforce the hillside from the emergency (now renamed yesterday auxiliary) spillway otherwise it might erode and cause spillway failure (which it has). ALSO, pictures of them inspecting the failed spot on the main spillway in 2013.

 

California has spent little to nothing on repairing, maintaining, beefing up their dams to spend money elsewhere. Now we will all have to help pay for the improvements at 10x the cost.

 

Money needed to defend sanctuary cities and other such dire needs

[Draggingtree]

 

What a CF. They have been given reports over the past 10 years of issues like power lines in the overflow area (they have been airlifting power lines the past few days to remove them), a main drain valve in the dam needs massive repairs so they can't let water thru without running generators. Reported year was the power plant could not let water thru without hookup to powergrid (which it is not at the moment because of moving said powerlines). Reported was the powerplant could be shut off because sediment/debris from the overflow could block the water path from the power plant (which it has). Also already reported was need to reinforce the hillside from the emergency (now renamed yesterday auxiliary) spillway otherwise it might erode and cause spillway failure (which it has). ALSO, pictures of them inspecting the failed spot on the main spillway in 2013.

 

California has spent little to nothing on repairing, maintaining, beefing up their dams to spend money elsewhere. Now we will all have to help pay for the improvements at 10x the cost.

 

Money needed to defend sanctuary cities and other such dire needs

 

But California has the $40.000 a month to put Eric Holder on the states payroll

[Valin]

[Valin]

 

What a CF. They have been given reports over the past 10 years of issues like power lines in the overflow area (they have been airlifting power lines the past few days to remove them), a main drain valve in the dam needs massive repairs so they can't let water thru without running generators. Reported year was the power plant could not let water thru without hookup to powergrid (which it is not at the moment because of moving said powerlines). Reported was the powerplant could be shut off because sediment/debris from the overflow could block the water path from the power plant (which it has). Also already reported was need to reinforce the hillside from the emergency (now renamed yesterday auxiliary) spillway otherwise it might erode and cause spillway failure (which it has). ALSO, pictures of them inspecting the failed spot on the main spillway in 2013.

 

California has spent little to nothing on repairing, maintaining, beefing up their dams to spend money elsewhere. Now we will all have to help pay for the improvements at 10x the cost.

 

Money needed to defend sanctuary cities and other such dire needs

 

 

 

And Lets not forget the Choo Choo Train! Toot Toot

[clearvision]

 

 

What a CF. They have been given reports over the past 10 years of issues like power lines in the overflow area (they have been airlifting power lines the past few days to remove them), a main drain valve in the dam needs massive repairs so they can't let water thru without running generators. Reported year was the power plant could not let water thru without hookup to powergrid (which it is not at the moment because of moving said powerlines). Reported was the powerplant could be shut off because sediment/debris from the overflow could block the water path from the power plant (which it has). Also already reported was need to reinforce the hillside from the emergency (now renamed yesterday auxiliary) spillway otherwise it might erode and cause spillway failure (which it has). ALSO, pictures of them inspecting the failed spot on the main spillway in 2013.

 

California has spent little to nothing on repairing, maintaining, beefing up their dams to spend money elsewhere. Now we will all have to help pay for the improvements at 10x the cost.

 

Money needed to defend sanctuary cities and other such dire needs:angry:

 

And Lets not forget the Choo Choo Train! Toot Toot

But if they had the high speed rail they could evacuate faster....

[clearvision]

Well I think someone's survey did not come out well.

[Geee]

Jerry Brown’s California Legacy is a Dam Failure

 

 

The Oroville Dam — at 770 feet, America’s tallest — is on the verge of failing. And Sacramento, which has been fiddling for decades while Rome burns, is running for cover.

This isn’t just any dam; it’s the primary storage facility located on the Feather River for the State Water Project, the state-owned conveyance system that provides drinking water to more than two-thirds of California’s population.

If the dam were to fail, it could inundate not only the city of Oroville but numerous other communities downstream, including Yuba City, Marysville and even West Sacramento.

At the moment, the emergency spillway is being used for the first time since Governor Ronald Reagan approved its construction, and almost 200,000 people have been evacuated.

What’s Governor Jerry Brown doing?

The same thing he’s been doing for decades — obstructing progress. California has been so busy defying President Donald Trump in order to protect illegal aliens from deportation that it forgot to do the things government is supposed to do, like maintain infrastructure. Governor Brown is now going hat-in-hand to beg the Trump administration for emergency funds.

 

http://www.breitbart.com/california/2017/02/13/jerry-brown-california-governor-legacy-dam-failure/

[Valin]

Entropy and Oroville, or…This Is What Happens When We Think We Are God
John Schroeder
Monday, February 13, 2017

There are some things that simply cannot be changed. One of those things is something scientists like to call “The Second Law of Thermodynamics.” I won’t bore you with the science, but you can think of it as how scientists codify the notion that nature is going to do what nature is going to do and if we want to change it we have to put a lot of energy into it. It is corollary to the notion of inertia, which more people are aware of, but The Second Law has much broader application than does Newton’s First. Practically speaking, if we are going to do something like dam a river, The Second Law of Thermodynamics tells us that we are going to have to expend a lot of energy (that means dollars in the real world) to build the dam and, even more importantly, to maintain it. The river is going to keep wanting to be a river, not a lake, and our continuous effort is required to keep it a lake or else it is going to go back to being a river. The United States supposedly learned this lesson the hard way back in 1889.

 

But the events currently unfolding in and around Oroville, California say that maybe that lesson has not sunk in so well. Make no mistake, this is already an unmitigated disaster. Nearly 200,000 people have been evacuated. That is a fail of itself. (Not to mention the untold amount of water being lost in a severely water starved state.) The only question now is how much worse is this going to get. The possibilities are horrifying to contemplate.

 

(Snip)

 

At the bottom of this disaster lies the seemingly simple notion that we think we are in charge, not God. In reality there is nothing simple about that notion, and the results of holding it are monstrously disastrous. Reality is not ours to define, it is ours to live in and to cope with. The laws of physics do not change just because we think we have different priorities. In a sense this is the same as the driver that thinks their hurry allows them to ignore traffic laws – the difference is instead of a single car killing a single pedestrian, a wall of water and debris carrying the force of all the vehicles in the state could run over hundreds of thousands of people. And all because we forget who we are in the created order of things.

 

If you are a person of prayer please pray today that this disaster does not worsen. But add to those prayers a prayer for wisdom for the people of California that just do not seem to get it. If you have not been a person of prayer, this might be a good time to start. But always remember there is someone to pray to – and thankfully He does not live in Sacramento.

[Geee]

Obama Stimulus Funds Went to California Dam in ‘Good Shape,’ But Not Oroville

 

California received $34.5 billion from the stimulus

 

The 2009 stimulus package funded millions of dollars for safety improvements for a dam in California that was in “good shape,” but not to the Oroville Dam that is now on the verge of a spillway crisis.

 

Nearly 200,000 residents north of Sacramento were ordered to evacuate after fears that erosion would cause the emergency spillway to fail, which would lead to “catastrophic flooding“ from a 30-foot wall of water.

 

Despite more than a decade of warnings about Oroville, there is no public record of the country’s tallest dam receiving any of the more than $34 billion from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act sent to California for infrastructure projects.

 

Over $22 million in stimulus funds did go toward safety improvements to the Folsom Dam, which was described as in “good shape” at the time the grant was awarded in 2009.

 

“The dam is in good shape but is starting to show its age,” a Bureau of Reclamation spokesperson said of the Folsom Dam at the time.

 

The stimulus was intended to “shore up the nation’s aging infrastructure,” said former representative Mike Thompson, a Democrat who served California’s 1st District where the Oroville dam is located before being redistricted to the 5th.

 

Thompson lauded numerous stimulus projects, which included $2.2 million for “more attractive” sidewalks and $2.5 million for a 205-acre “zero net energy” community on the University of California Davis campus to put a greater “emphasis on walking” and bicycling.

 

http://freebeacon.com/issues/obama-stimulus-funds-went-california-dam-good-shape-not-oroville/

[Valin]