Ororville - Curse of Deferred Maintenance

[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.