Ororville - Curse of Deferred Maintenance

[Jeff C.]

https://alumni.berkeley.edu/california-magazine/just-in/2017-02-14/dammed-if-we-do-what-could-happen-if-oroville-dam-fails

[Lew Riffle]

So what? We all know the sky is falling.......

[JasonB]

"Nobody gets promoted for filling potholes." I hadn't really thought about it along those lines, but probably a legitimate issue.

[Darian]

All levels of government (and the public) seem to respond to concerns/issues only when they become a crisis. Human nature???

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

We can only hope mother nature is good to us.......

[Ned Morris]

I assume most of you have read Cadillac Desert so this should be no surprise as this nearly happened 35 years ago at Glen Canyon Dam. Imagine if that sucker went and then the spillway at Hoover Dam were in big trouble? In fact that is the only time in Hoover Dam's history water went over the spillway (March 1983). All the Bureau of Rec and Army Corp of Engineers Dams were built on Hydro runoff models that were even outdated 70 years ago. With the onset of climate change and with storm events such as this past winter it's just a matter of time before we have a catastrophe. Rain at 8,000' - 9,000' feet on 18-20' snowpack not good. I'd sure love to see what 50 year models CA Dept. of Water Resources Hydrologists are coming up with today.

[OceanSunfish]

All levels of government (and the public) seem to respond to concerns/issues only when they become a crisis. Human nature???

I'm pretty sure there are few countries and its citizens that would take offense and consider the problem NOT "human nature" but more of being an American. Perhaps that is what you meant to say...... USA Public sector problem only.

[wineslob]

I have been personally affected by this. My place of work is in the evacuation zone and I had to "drop everything" this past Sunday and head home for 3 days. Since then I've seen and heard lots of "armchair experts" pontificating about the lack of this, that, and the other thing in trying to lay blame on someone. I've even read that Gov. Brown has replaced the non Union workers on the auxiliary spillway repairs with Union Workers and that the aux. spillway WILL fail in the next week. All, as far as I can determine, are false. There's a lot of B.S. out there.
On the Saturday that the spillway had started to fail I just happened to be talking to a engineer who was part of the team that does the inspection of the spillway (we were on a rock hounding trip). I asked him had they seen anything to be alarmed about (2013 was the inspection date) . He said no they had not. So the question came up, what the he** happened? He just said, "all dams and their auxiliary systems fail. It's just trying to predict when". :eek:

[Darian]

All of the misinformation aside, how does the statement, "all dams and their auxiliary systems fail. It's just trying to predict when" apply to the deferred maintenance question?? Seems a bit fatalistic but maybe I'm not understanding this correctly? In the case of the auxiliary systems at Oroville dam a recommendation by a regulator to armor the emergency spillway was apparently deferred and the result is actual economic and physical damage beyond the scope of the dam itself....

[Ralph]

I was on the Board of Directors of SYRCL when we (and FOR and Sierra Club) pressed for armoring the dam. I clearly remember a diagram that showed the water flowing around the emergency spillway and eroding it. There of course were many chilling illustrations of water eroding through the raw dirt skirt below the spillway. These have all come to pass. The real foe here was NOT the State or the Feds, but the collective water agencies of Southern California who own >70% of the water in the reservoir and would have had to foot the bill. They protested vigorously and successfully that such expensive repairs weren't worth the effort. If their families lived in the flood plain they would have likely petitioned differently. But never mind infrastructure, we have a 20 billion dollar wall to build.

[OceanSunfish]

Are you saying that the erosion and demise of "emergency spillway" would take the main spillway with it? When I saw the pictures of the water flowing over the levee/wall (AKA "emergency spillway) I immediately thought the main spillway would also give out.... Yes?

Don't forget about the $60+ billion dollar "twin tunnels"!!!

[wineslob]

I was on the Board of Directors of SYRCL when we (and FOR and Sierra Club) pressed for armoring the dam. I clearly remember a diagram that showed the water flowing around the emergency spillway and eroding it. There of course were many chilling illustrations of water eroding through the raw dirt skirt below the spillway. These have all come to pass. The real foe here was NOT the State or the Feds, but the collective water agencies of Southern California who own >70% of the water in the reservoir and would have had to foot the bill. They protested vigorously and successfully that such expensive repairs weren't worth the effort. If their families lived in the flood plain they would have likely petitioned differently. But never mind infrastructure, we have a 20 billion dollar wall to build.



All of the misinformation aside, how does the statement, "all dams and their auxiliary systems fail. It's just trying to predict when" apply to the deferred maintenance question??

Ralphs response is correct. It came down to the users saying NO to expenditures.