California Drought

[dickfoster]

Spoils: I don't know the specifics for this but in general: in the 1800's, Hydraulic Mining was used all along the Sierras. This used giant 'monitors', jumbo fire nozzles, to make erosion and wash gold down into sluice boxes. Erosion like we've seen in these recent photos was the objective.

This dumped so much spoils, light material, into the rivers that 70 miles downstream from Oroville there are still abandoned 1800's sailing vessels buried under sediment at the Sacramento waterfront. Back then floods buried farmland under infertile mud, and the beds of the rivers loaded up with sediment and became higher, increasing the severity of flooding. The environmentalists of the 1870's got hydraulic mining outlawed because it was imposing huge costs on everyone downstream.

This present event had its strongest effect in the fish hatchery downstream that got overwhelmed with mud so the fish were trucked elsewhere. Farther downstream - I don't know. That stuff won't get flushed down to the ocean very rapidly so there has to be some effect.

You should see what that mining did up here. Much of it still looks like a moonscape to this day. Plus they dumped a bunch of mercury into the sluice boxes to mix with the fine gold dust to recover it. That stuff is still laying in the bottoms of streams up here too. It's hard to imagine the massive amounts of earth that was washed away downstream until you see it with your own eyes. Millions upon millions of cubic yards of earth were simply gouged out of the hills around here.

 

[bcp]

Hydraulic mining.



Bruce

 

[turnkey4099]

There was hydraulic mining outside Nome Alask during the gold rush. Moon scape pretty well describes the scene

 

[RobertN]

If you look at fishing regs, some rivers, and SF Bay indicates to limit amount of fish caught there. Because of this... It is still affecting us 150 years later...

You should see what that mining did up here. Much of it still looks like a moonscape to this day. Plus they dumped a bunch of mercury into the sluice boxes to mix with the fine gold dust to recover it. That stuff is still laying in the bottoms of streams up here too. It's hard to imagine the massive amounts of earth that was washed away downstream until you see it with your own eyes. Millions upon millions of cubic yards of earth were simply gouged out of the hills around here.

 

[MossRoad]

I've read that most of the the cost for this repair falls on the water contractors who bought the water rights for the volume of water that comes down the Feather River and gets pumped down the aqueducts to San Joaquin Valley agribusiness, with some of it going beyond to Los Angeles and San Diego. In what I read, those who need flood protection in the vicinity have a minor part in paying costs so have little voice in decisions on improvements. I hope someone can add a clearer description of this issue.

Map and photos.
California's Water Supply, A 700 Mile Journey

[first lift] "pumps water 250 feet uphill ... 44,000 horsepower ... 7,000 cubic feet per second." [comparison - 14k cfs was going over the emergency spillway].


[second lift, over the hill to Los Angeles] "2,000 feet up the mountain ... highest water lift in the world. ... uses about 60 megawatts, enough electricity for a small city.

80,000 horsepower, running on 14,400 volts. It's clear from the smile on Choyce's face that he's thrilled by the power.

"I love it. Producing 2,000 psi to push water 2,000 feet up over the mountain."

There's 14 pumps....
"[FONT=&quot]Choyce says each pump could fill an Olympic size swimming pool in six seconds."

That's kinda mind boggling! [/FONT]:confused2:

 

[California]

There's 14 pumps....
"Choyce says each pump could fill an Olympic size swimming pool in six seconds."

That's kinda mind boggling!:confused2:

A California quote I just recalled: "Money can make water run uphill!" Lots of money and water, in this case.

Look out Western Canada!

 

[California]

Status 10 am Friday 3/10: The maximum is now going through the turbines.

Lake Oroville level rising slowly
Oroville Dam: Flows through power plant increased to maximum discharge rate

anticipate using the main spillway again around March 17 when the lake level reaches about 865 feet.

Once in use again, flows down the main spillway will be set at a rate of about 40,000 cfs in addition to the 13,000 cfs flowing through the power plant.

That total of 53,000 cfs would be one-third the capacity of the flood control system downstream so these are typical flows with this kind of wet season.

About half of the debris has been removed so far.

It seems to me when they resume use of the spillway that will dump more debris and wash out the haul roads.

 

[AchingBack]

Status 10 am Friday 3/10: The maximum is now going through the turbines.

Lake Oroville level rising slowly
Oroville Dam: Flows through power plant increased to maximum discharge rate

About half of the debris has been removed so far.

It seems to me when they resume use of the spillway that will dump more debris and wash out the haul roads.

Are you going to be mining culverts for nuggets?

 

[California]

Are you going to be mining culverts for nuggets?

No. In 30 years playing on our mining claim upstream from there in the Sierras, we learned it's called 'hobby mining' for a reason.

Somebody with a metal detector is sure to find something, might even pay for his detector. But we won't hear from the hundreds who search and find almost nothing.

Gold mining in the past 100+ years has been a 'fleece the investors' game 99% of the time with only a few of the largest corporations consistently making money for anyone.

Even with all that mess in the river, there wasn't much native bedrock (where the gold settles) exposed and washed down. Plus there's access rights issues for now so anything visible will have been picked up by all those contractor employees in there who do have access, long before the public can go in.

Summary - nobody's going to get rich from this.

 

[MossRoad]

...

Summary - nobody's going to get rich from this.

At least from the gold, that is...