California Drought

[California]

Over on Metabunk some knowledgeable engineers are posting.

This post is interesting, as well as those following:
Oroville Dam Spillway Failure | Page 5 | Metabunk

 

[coldsteelva]

Evacuations have been ordered. I guess the sky really is falling.

188K Ordered to Evacuate Near Damaged Calif. Dam | NBC Connecticut

 

[houstonscott]

Where's the governor? Hiding... Anyone think a few sandbags dropped from two helicopters is the fix. GET OUT! The fix was to do repairs during a 200 year drought when the lake was way down, oops. You couldn't drain that lake now if it was 100%, that snow pack alone will take all summer to drain. If that watershed gets heavy rain during a warm spring snow melt and yes a new channel could be cut and bye pass that dam and drain that lake quickly. That could destroy everything to the delta. I watched that dam being built as a kid, fly fished the feather before the dam and the lake after. Did a report in school about its construction. I know the area well.

 

[Buppies]

Where's the governor? Hiding... Anyone think a few sandbags dropped from two helicopters is the fix. GET OUT!

These type of comments belong in the political forum not here

 

[Egon]

Looks like the Orville dam has failed. Anyone watching this.... Water has migrated around dam completely and is draining the lake 3/4 of the way below the emergency spillway. Just time now. If main spillway can't drain lake quickly enough and there's not much chance of that now, there's going to be a catastrophe.

Looks like HS's prediction is comming to fruitation!!!

An aside question; can the owners of the water be held responsible for any downstream inconvenience?

 

[RedNeckGeek]

Looking out my back door to Lake Oroville I can see that there's still plenty of water, within a few feet of where it was yesterday at this time. I'm watching local news now 5:30AM Monday) and there is no indication of any flooding in the Feather River basin below the dam. That jibes with lake elevation data coming out of CDEC; the 5:00AM reading was 898.19'. That's almost 2' below the outlet for the auxiliary spillway, so it is no longer being overtopped. No word yet from DWR if the "boil" found late yesterday afternoon is still flowing. If it is it would be an indication that the auxiliary spillway itself is in the process of breaching, and that's the concern that triggered the evening's evacuations.

Thankfully the shameful fear mongering that's occurring here and across the Interwebs is just that. Officials continue to reiterate that the dam itself is not and has never been threatened. And this latest concern with the auxiliary spillway seems to be mitigated by the drop in lake level that was achieved overnight.

 

[houstonscott]

Looking out my back door to Lake Oroville I can see that there's still plenty of water, within a few feet of where it was yesterday at this time. I'm watching local news now 5:30AM Monday) and there is no indication of any flooding in the Feather River basin below the dam. That jibes with lake elevation data coming out of CDEC; the 5:00AM reading was 898.19'. That's almost 2' below the outlet for the auxiliary spillway, so it is no longer being overtopped. No word yet from DWR if the "boil" found late yesterday afternoon is still flowing. If it is it would be an indication that the auxiliary spillway itself is in the process of breaching, and that's the concern that triggered the evening's evacuations. Thankfully the shameful fear mongering that's occurring here and across the Interwebs is just that. Officials continue to reiterate that the dam itself is not and has never been threatened. And this latest concern with the auxiliary spillway seems to be mitigated by the drop in lake level that was achieved overnight.

That's good news, but you don't risk millions on a maybe. It's not fear mongering it just good practice and self evident there could be unknowns in front of us, the experts built the thing, look at it now...

 

[coldsteelva]

This dam is 'old' but is completely sound, HOWEVER the dam can only hold back water so long as the water remains below its top. The reason the emergency spillway exists is because there is a larger threat from a dam being overtopped and then failing. The emergency spillway is being used for the first time ever and it is evident that no maintenance or updating to make sure it too was 'sound' was ever done. Additionally, the long period of drought, would have killed off trees, grasses and other stabilizing growth and left the earth weakened along the emergency spillway. Also, the main spillway, which has a gaping hole, thus allowing water to undermine it and erode the area adjacent to the main spillway is also not sound. It seems that no money at all had been spent to study/evaluate/strengthen the main spillway ever. It's only purpose in life is to guide water to the river, but in your time of need, it fails as a result of water that it should have been designed to withstand.

I will never understand how CA does things.

 

[RedNeckGeek]

As a retired engineer my heart goes out to the people working to reason their way toward a solution. They are dealing with 40+ year old infrastructure and most of the people that designed and built it are no longer available to lend their experience and guidance to the effort. They're also up against Mother Nature and have no control over the path she takes. If these challenges weren't enough, the attitudes held by much of the press and the public are especially unfriendly to technology, especially that which impacts the environment. The biggest contribution this forum can make is to facilitate the dissemination of factual information related to the spillway failure to counter the fear mongering that's already going on and the witch hunts that will surely follow.

 

[Raspy]

As a retired engineer my heart goes out to the people working to reason their way toward a solution. They are dealing with 40+ year old infrastructure and most of the people that designed and built it are no longer available to lend their experience and guidance to the effort. They're also up against Mother Nature and have no control over the path she takes. If these challenges weren't enough, the attitudes held by much of the press and the public are especially unfriendly to technology, especially that which impacts the environment. The biggest contribution this forum can make is to facilitate the dissemination of factual information related to the spillway failure to counter the fear mongering that's already going on and the witch hunts that will surely follow.

Exactly. Well put.