Discussion > The Oroville Dam
Robert Christopher
Here is a link, posted earlier but, I think, lost in unthreaded:
UCLA: Pacific Ocean’s response to greenhouse gases could extend California drought for centuries
And some more comment:
Denial is a River in California: Can Oroville Spark New Dam Building?
Robert Christopher
While advocates of California secession — both on the left and operating from abroad — have hoped to make the case that the Golden State can stand on its own, Brown’s repeated requests for help underline the fact that the world’s sixth-biggest economy is still dependent on the rest of the country.
The latest request, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, asks for money for flood relief, including for repairing the damaged spillways of the Oroville Dam, which nearly failed last month, resulting in the temporary evacuation of 200,000 residents downstream of the dam.
Breitbart: Calexit? Jerry Brown Asks Trump for Aid — for the 4th Time
Robert Christopher
Mar 20, 2017 at 12:49 PM | Robert Christopher
An interesting GUEST post at Judith Curry's listing all possible ways things COULD go wrong. Unlike Climate Science's scary warnings, real historical evidence and examples are used.
The technical reports that were all ignored by California, are now coming to light, along with the bills for ignoring them. Trump can ask Californians how much of their current burgeoning debt crisis results from dependency on Climate Science advice about Global Warming.
Why US Taxpayers should have to compensate California for wasting their own money, and that of future generations, on vanity projects, based on Fake Science, whilst other US States have seen unemployment rise, is not Fake News.
golf charlie
Not as bad as the headline :) , but there is a good set of diagrams that record the recent history:
Oroville Dam Comes Close To Folding
Scientists Are Asking if Rapidly Filling the Reservoir Can Produce a Damaging Earthquake
Despite years of warnings, nothing was ever done …
Robert Christopher
SAN FRANCISCO - California is not just fighting nature as it attempts to repair the nation's tallest dam, badly damaged last month by surging storm waters. It's also racing the clock.
Safety experts say there is no time for delay in a state plan to restore the 235-metre Oroville Dam, and they warn California would face a "very significant risk" if a damaged spillway is not in working order by fall, the start of the next rainy season.
A Nov. 1 target to fix the spillway presents "a very demanding schedule, as everyone recognizes," said a report prepared by an independent team of consultants and submitted to federal officials last week.
...
The experts called it "absolutely critical" that the dam's state operators not use the faulty emergency spillway again.
...
Fully repairing the spillway will likely take two years, the consultants said. California still has at least a month left in the current, unusually wet rainy season. A record snowfall in the Sierra Nevada will send more runoff into Lake Oroville as weather warms.
CTVNews: California may face 'significant risk' if Oroville dam isn't restored
Robert Christopher
Mar 22, 2017 at 12:51 PM | Registered CommenterRobert Christopher
Thank you for making URL's clickable. A courtesy to readers than many commenters overlook. All the same your 12:51 URLs appear to be fubar.
I find the Oroville Dam saga fascinating in many ways. It has been made clear that dams are in some ways more dangerous than nuclear reactors yet are managed sufficiently casually that the inspection of the Oroville spillway was done from a distance - nothing as finicky as actually walking along it to inspect it from close up.
Amazing that it was being flown by the seat of the pants, with its untested emergency spillway being put into operation with reassuring statements about its safety, followed shortly after by an unplanned and unrehearsed evacuation.
It's not clear to what extent California's "permanent drought" (™ Climate Science) led to the neglect of the dam's maintenance, likewise the diversion of California state funds from infrastructure maintenance to political correctness activities.
In the past I have pondered what will eventually bring about the demise of the great Climate Change Mass Delusion. Catastrophes resulting from blind faith in the predictions of 'climate science' are one of the things that may end it.
Martin A
Mar 23, 2017 at 7:45 PM by Martin A
Re: Mar 22, 2017 at 12:51 PM by Robert Christopher
Despite years of warnings, nothing was ever done …
It is a saga in the making, indeed, with a long way to run! Perhaps it is a good candidate for a book or thesis, though I would bet that the Politics and Finance would 'outshine' the Science and Engineering issues.
Oroville has made it into the list of wikipedia's hydroelectric power station failures:
wikipedia: List of hydroelectric power station failures
but not yet into the list of dam failures, which do have the deaths tabulated:
wikipedia: Dam failure
I wonder whether the problem is that Nuclear Power is a bit out of the ordinary for the man in the street, but building a dam to stop the tide advancing - well, it's what is done to keep warm on many an English beach in the Summer.
Robert Christopher
Still a big challenge ahead:
An engineering expert who visited the troubled Oroville Reservoir said this week that it would be nearly impossible for the state to complete temporary repairs to its fractured and eroded main spillway by a target date of Nov. 1.
In a report submitted to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission this week, a panel of five independent consulting engineers warned that “a significant risk would be incurred” if the main spillway was not operational after October, which is the traditional start of California’s rainy season.
However, an engineering and risk management expert who was not part of the consulting panel told The Times this week that he doubted the state could meet such a close deadline.
“I think that is a challenging timeline,” said Robert Bea of UC Berkeley’s Center for Catastrophic Risk Management.
Bea, a retired civil engineering professor who led an investigation into failure of the New Orleans levee system after Hurricane Katrina, visited the reservoir recently to review inspection documents, as well as the report by the Independent Board of Consultants.
/cont...
LosAngelesTimes: State water agency unlikely to meet deadlines to repair Oroville Reservoir, expert says
Robert Christopher
"Bill Croyle, acting director for the agency, estimated that crews may have to release water down the main spillway two more times before June"
I begin to see why getting the spillway bodged back into fully operational condition by 1 Nov might be difficult.
Martin A
Oroville 24 March Update ..."The Plan"
clipe
Mar 25, 2017 at 7:53 PM | Martin A
The knackered concrete will be easy to remove. The good stuff will be very time consuming, and (just guessing) a series of controlled explosions may not be the preferred solution.
The Emergency Spillway will be available should it be required now, and beyond November 1st, and the reservoir capacity can be reduced further until the work is complete. Work ought to be completed by 01/11/17, but should be able to continue beyond that date.
It is good that Engineers are now dictating to politicians about real problems facing California now. Politicians, led by Climate Scientists have been causing panic for years about non-existent problems. It is only fair that Politicians have their jobs placed in jeopardy.
golf charlie
See our discussion on the fragile nature of the Oroville Dam’s spillway and the race against time and Mother Nature for proper repairs to be completed. Joining in is Oroville Mercury-Register Editor David Little. The broadcast takes place Tuesday at noon. A link will be set up with this article to view the broadcast.If you want to ask questions in advance of the broadcast, click here and send us an email.
Noon PDT is what? 20:00 BST?
clipe
Repairing the spillway with Climate Scientists has some appeal, and their structural integrity would be more solid and reliable than their science.
golf charlie
Don't think so gc. Climate scientists peeled off by the rampaging waters will smash into undamaged parts of the spillway down flow, causing even more damage.
(Based on a real life experience when helping the town of Lumsden just to the north of Regina resist rising floodwaters of the South Saskatchewan River. Someone suggested lining the levees with crushed car bodies from the Regina steelworks. Fortunately wiser heads prevailed when I and others suggested the river could use the crushed cars as missiles to batter down the uppermost parts of the levees composed only of newly packed sandbags. Eventually the floodwaters were held at bay by six feet of sandbags laid by hundreds of volunteers in a single night.)
Supertroll
Mar 28, 2017 at 4:55 PM | Supertroll
It was a shame to waste scrap metal that could have been recycled.
Rumours abound of unwanted gangsters being incorporated into the concrete foundations of US buildings, and it was part of the plot line of Wilt by Tom Sharpe, set in the fictional Fenland Community College, some of the best comedy to come out of East Anglia until CRU.
golf charlie
This is the guy who needs to get this dam Oroville dam sorted!
California Gov. Jerry Brown reacted with outrage to President Donald Trump’s executive order on Tuesday that reversed several of President Barack Obama’s executive orders, regulations and policies on climate change.
In a phone conversation with the Los Angeles Times, Brown lashed out at Trump:
California Gov. Jerry Brown warned that President Trump has just made a “colossal mistake” in gutting the federal government’s effort to combat climate change, which will ignite a response Trump is unprepared to handle.
“It defies science itself,” Brown said in a call to The Times shortly after Trump signed an executive order that aims to bring an abrupt halt to the United States’ leadership on global warming. “Erasing climate change may take place in Donald Trump’s mind, but nowhere else.
“Yes, there is going to be a countermovement,” Brown vowed, predicting Trump’s actions will mobilize environmentalists in a way President Obama never could. “I have met with many heads of state, ambassadors. This is a growing movement. President Trump’s outrageous move will galvanize the contrary force. Things have been a bit tepid [in climate activism]. But this conflict, this sharpening of the contradiction, will energize those who believe climate change is an existential threat.”
Breitbart: Jerry Brown Calls for ‘Countermovement’ Against Trump on Climate Change
Robert Christopher
Shouldn’t the renowned experts such as Al Gore, Jerry Brown and President Obama answer the question?
AmericanThinker: So how did the California drought end?
Robert Christopher
Mar 29, 2017 at 10:54 PM | Robert Christopher
Governor Jerry Brown has not increased California's chances of getting US Taxpayer's Financial support.
Governor Jerry Brown is now jeopardising the financial future of California, to make a political demonstration to save his career, that he gambled on failed Climate Science.
Trump has no reason to interrupt Brown as he digs a grave big enough for as many Democrats keen to join him
golf charlie
Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells, California:
EastBayTimes: Talk Back letter writers are shaken by Oroville Dam failures
Robert Christopher
clipe
clipe
From the Talkback letters:
If there’s not enough money in the budget, perhaps the rich and the big corporations are not paying their share of taxes.Kathleen Whitney
Oakland
California dreaming.
clipe
Clipe & Robert Christopher
Cracks are appearing in the "cover-up". A Politically busting Blow-Out seems more likely due to this dam.
golf charlie
'Environmentalists' still trying to cause havoc (3:20) by restricting the rescue efforts:
Oroville Dam Crises 03 15 2017 [March 15th, 2017, Republican Congressman, for California's 1st congressional district, Doug] LaMalfa urges President Trump to help facilitate Dam spillway repair
Pictures until 2:00, then some speech. There appears to be little in the last two minutes of the clip.