Is California's Oroville Dam In Trouble?

[Hovannes]

Water shed for Lake Oroville and the crippled Oroville Dam is getting another severe influx of a chain of "atmospheric river" rain storms. Snow level will vary. Five days of rain. Friday all the way through Tuesday, and with what meteorologists are saying will be the most severe impact on Monday & Tuesday. Not a good scenario at all. Prayers up for all involved.

Goose roots for death! How else can he shake his head and say tsk, tsk.

I'm praying for the people in the towns below the dam because it is dicey up there, but I certainly don't wish anyone's death.

[Goose55]

Water shed for Lake Oroville and the crippled Oroville Dam is getting another severe influx of a chain of "atmospheric river" rain storms. Snow level will vary. Five days of rain. Friday all the way through Tuesday, and with what meteorologists are saying will be the most severe impact on Monday & Tuesday. Not a good scenario at all. Prayers up for all involved.

Goose roots for death! How else can he shake his head and say tsk, tsk.

Why in the world would I do that when I have friends and loved ones up there? Give account for your rash statement, or cease from such outlandish comments.

[hugodrax]

Water shed for Lake Oroville and the crippled Oroville Dam is getting another severe influx of a chain of "atmospheric river" rain storms. Snow level will vary. Five days of rain. Friday all the way through Tuesday, and with what meteorologists are saying will be the most severe impact on Monday & Tuesday. Not a good scenario at all. Prayers up for all involved.

Goose roots for death! How else can he shake his head and say tsk, tsk.

Why in the world would I do that when I have friends and loved ones up there? Give account for your rash statement, or cease from such outlandish comments.

Big words, bird boy. Show some cheer and hope for a change.

[durangopipe]

The lake is over 40' below the top and still dropping.
They've let out a lot of water.

[Goose55]

This report makes me feel just how maxed out our old world is. ....

"By 2020, 65% of dams in the U.S. will be past their designated lifespan of 50 years; the Oroville Dam itself was built 49 years ago. As dams age, physical weaknesses, cracks, and leaks require more frequent and expensive repairs to keep them operational and safe. The American Society of Civil Engineers classifies nearly 4,000 dams as “deficient,” meaning these facilities have aged to the point where they are more susceptible to failure.

"The ongoing crisis for residents in the Oroville region highlights the real-world consequences of aging facilities. The crisis in Oroville not only caused severe flooding in communities along the Feather River below the dam, but also threatened the stability of the drinking water supply for millions of residents in central and southern California.

"In 2005, three environmental groups filed a motion during the Oroville Dam’s relicensing process, warning that the emergency spillway did not meet safety standards and could lead to flooding and threaten lives. The motion was denied after state agencies responsible for paying for the upgrades determined that they were “unnecessary.”

read more at
http://fortune.com/2017/02/18/oroville- ... nia-flood/

[FredS]

Goose - You remind me of the people freaked out over 'peak energy' or the decline of 'cheap energy' and our petroleum based economy. It may or may not be true that we are on the downhill side of global petroleum supplies. And it may or may not be that our aging dams will start failing. But it's important to temper all the gloomy forecasts with the optimistic truth that there are literally hundreds of thousands of engineers, professors, students, equipment operators, bureaucrats, miners, roughnecks, financiers, and just regular working folk who are working every day to make sure we don't run out of energy or get swept away when dams collapse. You seem to think that nobody is doing anything to address these problems. And that's just wrong.

[Goose55]

Goose - You remind me of the people freaked out over 'peak energy' or the decline of 'cheap energy' and our petroleum based economy. It may or may not be true that we are on the downhill side of global petroleum supplies. And it may or may not be that our aging dams will start failing. But it's important to temper all the gloomy forecasts with the optimistic truth that there are literally hundreds of thousands of engineers, professors, students, equipment operators, bureaucrats, miners, roughnecks, financiers, and just regular working folk who are working every day to make sure we don't run out of energy or get swept away when dams collapse. You seem to think that nobody is doing anything to address these problems. And that's just wrong.

For the love of God, I hope you are right. Because, as the excerpt from the previous article I posted showed, warnings from folk like you listed were ignored. I believe a lot of folk, right now (especially those who live beneath Oroville Dam), would like to know why.

"In 2013, the American Society of Civil Engineers conducted its most recent quadrennial survey of the nation’s infrastructure, and it gave the U.S. a
‘D’ for maintenance of dams."

a "D"?

Help me understand why this is, especially in light of your comments above.

[FredS]

Goose - You remind me of the people freaked out over 'peak energy' or the decline of 'cheap energy' and our petroleum based economy. It may or may not be true that we are on the downhill side of global petroleum supplies. And it may or may not be that our aging dams will start failing. But it's important to temper all the gloomy forecasts with the optimistic truth that there are literally hundreds of thousands of engineers, professors, students, equipment operators, bureaucrats, miners, roughnecks, financiers, and just regular working folk who are working every day to make sure we don't run out of energy or get swept away when dams collapse. You seem to think that nobody is doing anything to address these problems. And that's just wrong.

For the love of God, I hope you are right. Because, as the excerpt from the previous article I posted showed, warnings from folk like you listed were ignored. I believe a lot of folk, right now (especially those who live beneath Oroville Dam), would like to know why.

"In 2013, the American Society of Civil Engineers conducted its most recent quadrennial survey of the nation’s infrastructure, and it gave the U.S. a
‘D’ for maintenance of dams."

a "D"?

Help me understand why this is, especially in light of your comments above.

In another thread last week, I explained why our infrastructure is only receiving band aid repairs and not proper maintenance and upgrades. We're paying more in taxes now than ever, but - as a nation - we've decided to spend more of that money on social programs and wars. Both the libs who want to fund social programs and the hawks who want to fund wars are not giving enough weight to the warnings of experts. Like I said, there are hundreds of thousands of men and women working every day to keep the thing patched together, but without adequate funding for upgrades and research in to better techniques and materials, they're falling behind. Consider me part of the problem. I have the mindset that I will never vote for a tax increase of any kind. Not for a new library, or overpass, or anti-tobacco campaign, or soccer field, or airport improvement, or dam upgrade. I currently pay about 30% of my income in taxes of various sorts - if that's not enough to keep the roads in good shape and provide computers to public schools then my legislators better figure out a way to shuffle the deck chairs because I'm not going to voluntarily give them more money to squander.

[Goose55]

Goose - You remind me of the people freaked out over 'peak energy' or the decline of 'cheap energy' and our petroleum based economy. It may or may not be true that we are on the downhill side of global petroleum supplies. And it may or may not be that our aging dams will start failing. But it's important to temper all the gloomy forecasts with the optimistic truth that there are literally hundreds of thousands of engineers, professors, students, equipment operators, bureaucrats, miners, roughnecks, financiers, and just regular working folk who are working every day to make sure we don't run out of energy or get swept away when dams collapse. You seem to think that nobody is doing anything to address these problems. And that's just wrong.

For the love of God, I hope you are right. Because, as the excerpt from the previous article I posted showed, warnings from folk like you listed were ignored. I believe a lot of folk, right now (especially those who live beneath Oroville Dam), would like to know why.

"In 2013, the American Society of Civil Engineers conducted its most recent quadrennial survey of the nation’s infrastructure, and it gave the U.S. a
‘D’ for maintenance of dams."

a "D"?

Help me understand why this is, especially in light of your comments above.

In another thread last week, I explained why our infrastructure is only receiving band aid repairs and not proper maintenance and upgrades. We're paying more in taxes now than ever, but - as a nation - we've decided to spend more of that money on social programs and wars. Both the libs who want to fund social programs and the hawks who want to fund wars are not giving enough weight to the warnings of experts. Like I said, there are hundreds of thousands of men and women working every day to keep the thing patched together, but without adequate funding for upgrades and research in to better techniques and materials, they're falling behind. Consider me part of the problem. I have the mindset that I will never vote for a tax increase of any kind. Not for a new library, or overpass, or anti-tobacco campaign, or soccer field, or airport improvement, or dam upgrade. I currently pay about 30% of my income in taxes of various sorts - if that's not enough to keep the roads in good shape and provide computers to public schools then my legislators better figure out a way to shuffle the deck chairs because I'm not going to voluntarily give them more money to squander.

Some might call me a fatalist, and/or anti-American, but I look at it all as "handwriting on the wall." No kingdom or nation is eternal but God's.

Where did the expression "handwriting on the wall" come from? The Old Testament book of Daniel, and in the middle of Babylon's King Belshazzar’s glorious feast,

Dan 5:1-4
"Belshazzar the king made a great feast,.. Then they brought the golden vessels that were taken out of the temple of the house of God which was at Jerusalem; and the king, and his princes, his wives, and his concubines, drank in them. They drank wine, and praised the gods of gold, and of silver, of brass, of iron, of wood, and of stone.

Then he saw the writing of a disembodied hand (likely, an angel, or God Himself), on the wall...

"MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN. This is the interpretation of the thing: MENE; God hath numbered thy kingdom, and finished it. TEKEL; Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting."

But I know there are those who much prefer to be told how good, and great and powerful the U.S. is.

[hugodrax]

Goose - You remind me of the people freaked out over 'peak energy' or the decline of 'cheap energy' and our petroleum based economy. It may or may not be true that we are on the downhill side of global petroleum supplies. And it may or may not be that our aging dams will start failing. But it's important to temper all the gloomy forecasts with the optimistic truth that there are literally hundreds of thousands of engineers, professors, students, equipment operators, bureaucrats, miners, roughnecks, financiers, and just regular working folk who are working every day to make sure we don't run out of energy or get swept away when dams collapse. You seem to think that nobody is doing anything to address these problems. And that's just wrong.

For the love of God, I hope you are right. Because, as the excerpt from the previous article I posted showed, warnings from folk like you listed were ignored. I believe a lot of folk, right now (especially those who live beneath Oroville Dam), would like to know why.

"In 2013, the American Society of Civil Engineers conducted its most recent quadrennial survey of the nation’s infrastructure, and it gave the U.S. a
‘D’ for maintenance of dams."

a "D"?

Help me understand why this is, especially in light of your comments above.

In another thread last week, I explained why our infrastructure is only receiving band aid repairs and not proper maintenance and upgrades. We're paying more in taxes now than ever, but - as a nation - we've decided to spend more of that money on social programs and wars. Both the libs who want to fund social programs and the hawks who want to fund wars are not giving enough weight to the warnings of experts. Like I said, there are hundreds of thousands of men and women working every day to keep the thing patched together, but without adequate funding for upgrades and research in to better techniques and materials, they're falling behind. Consider me part of the problem. I have the mindset that I will never vote for a tax increase of any kind. Not for a new library, or overpass, or anti-tobacco campaign, or soccer field, or airport improvement, or dam upgrade. I currently pay about 30% of my income in taxes of various sorts - if that's not enough to keep the roads in good shape and provide computers to public schools then my legislators better figure out a way to shuffle the deck chairs because I'm not going to voluntarily give them more money to squander.

Some might call me a fatalist, and/or anti-American, but I look at it all as "handwriting on the wall." No kingdom or nation is eternal but God's.

Where did the expression "handwriting on the wall" come from? The Old Testament book of Daniel, and in the middle of Babylon's King Belshazzar’s glorious feast,

Dan 5:1-4
"Belshazzar the king made a great feast,.. Then they brought the golden vessels that were taken out of the temple of the house of God which was at Jerusalem; and the king, and his princes, his wives, and his concubines, drank in them. They drank wine, and praised the gods of gold, and of silver, of brass, of iron, of wood, and of stone.

Then he saw the writing of a disembodied hand (likely, an angel, or God Himself), on the wall...

"MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN. This is the interpretation of the thing: MENE; God hath numbered thy kingdom, and finished it. TEKEL; Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting."

But I know there are those who much prefer to be told how good, and great and powerful the U.S. is.

I saw this bumper sticker today I thought rather clever:
"Don't Believe Everything You Think." It made me laugh.

You can love the Father without praying he kills everyone, sir. Not every accident is a judgment of God or you, me, and everybody else would have been struck down long ago.

[Goose55]

Goose - You remind me of the people freaked out over 'peak energy' or the decline of 'cheap energy' and our petroleum based economy. It may or may not be true that we are on the downhill side of global petroleum supplies. And it may or may not be that our aging dams will start failing. But it's important to temper all the gloomy forecasts with the optimistic truth that there are literally hundreds of thousands of engineers, professors, students, equipment operators, bureaucrats, miners, roughnecks, financiers, and just regular working folk who are working every day to make sure we don't run out of energy or get swept away when dams collapse. You seem to think that nobody is doing anything to address these problems. And that's just wrong.

For the love of God, I hope you are right. Because, as the excerpt from the previous article I posted showed, warnings from folk like you listed were ignored. I believe a lot of folk, right now (especially those who live beneath Oroville Dam), would like to know why.

"In 2013, the American Society of Civil Engineers conducted its most recent quadrennial survey of the nation’s infrastructure, and it gave the U.S. a
‘D’ for maintenance of dams."

a "D"?

Help me understand why this is, especially in light of your comments above.

In another thread last week, I explained why our infrastructure is only receiving band aid repairs and not proper maintenance and upgrades. We're paying more in taxes now than ever, but - as a nation - we've decided to spend more of that money on social programs and wars. Both the libs who want to fund social programs and the hawks who want to fund wars are not giving enough weight to the warnings of experts. Like I said, there are hundreds of thousands of men and women working every day to keep the thing patched together, but without adequate funding for upgrades and research in to better techniques and materials, they're falling behind. Consider me part of the problem. I have the mindset that I will never vote for a tax increase of any kind. Not for a new library, or overpass, or anti-tobacco campaign, or soccer field, or airport improvement, or dam upgrade. I currently pay about 30% of my income in taxes of various sorts - if that's not enough to keep the roads in good shape and provide computers to public schools then my legislators better figure out a way to shuffle the deck chairs because I'm not going to voluntarily give them more money to squander.

Some might call me a fatalist, and/or anti-American, but I look at it all as "handwriting on the wall." No kingdom or nation is eternal but God's.

Where did the expression "handwriting on the wall" come from? The Old Testament book of Daniel, and in the middle of Babylon's King Belshazzar’s glorious feast,

Dan 5:1-4
"Belshazzar the king made a great feast,.. Then they brought the golden vessels that were taken out of the temple of the house of God which was at Jerusalem; and the king, and his princes, his wives, and his concubines, drank in them. They drank wine, and praised the gods of gold, and of silver, of brass, of iron, of wood, and of stone.

Then he saw the writing of a disembodied hand (likely, an angel, or God Himself), on the wall...

"MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN. This is the interpretation of the thing: MENE; God hath numbered thy kingdom, and finished it. TEKEL; Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting."

But I know there are those who much prefer to be told how good, and great and powerful the U.S. is.

I saw this bumper sticker today I thought rather clever:
"Don't Believe Everything You Think." It made me laugh.

You can love the Father without praying he kills everyone, sir. Not every accident is a judgment of God or you, me, and everybody else would have been struck down long ago.

You mean I don't have to pray like King David, that my enemies entrails be torn out and strewn about the landscape?

[hugodrax]

Goose - You remind me of the people freaked out over 'peak energy' or the decline of 'cheap energy' and our petroleum based economy. It may or may not be true that we are on the downhill side of global petroleum supplies. And it may or may not be that our aging dams will start failing. But it's important to temper all the gloomy forecasts with the optimistic truth that there are literally hundreds of thousands of engineers, professors, students, equipment operators, bureaucrats, miners, roughnecks, financiers, and just regular working folk who are working every day to make sure we don't run out of energy or get swept away when dams collapse. You seem to think that nobody is doing anything to address these problems. And that's just wrong.

For the love of God, I hope you are right. Because, as the excerpt from the previous article I posted showed, warnings from folk like you listed were ignored. I believe a lot of folk, right now (especially those who live beneath Oroville Dam), would like to know why.

"In 2013, the American Society of Civil Engineers conducted its most recent quadrennial survey of the nation’s infrastructure, and it gave the U.S. a
‘D’ for maintenance of dams."

a "D"?

Help me understand why this is, especially in light of your comments above.

In another thread last week, I explained why our infrastructure is only receiving band aid repairs and not proper maintenance and upgrades. We're paying more in taxes now than ever, but - as a nation - we've decided to spend more of that money on social programs and wars. Both the libs who want to fund social programs and the hawks who want to fund wars are not giving enough weight to the warnings of experts. Like I said, there are hundreds of thousands of men and women working every day to keep the thing patched together, but without adequate funding for upgrades and research in to better techniques and materials, they're falling behind. Consider me part of the problem. I have the mindset that I will never vote for a tax increase of any kind. Not for a new library, or overpass, or anti-tobacco campaign, or soccer field, or airport improvement, or dam upgrade. I currently pay about 30% of my income in taxes of various sorts - if that's not enough to keep the roads in good shape and provide computers to public schools then my legislators better figure out a way to shuffle the deck chairs because I'm not going to voluntarily give them more money to squander.

Some might call me a fatalist, and/or anti-American, but I look at it all as "handwriting on the wall." No kingdom or nation is eternal but God's.

Where did the expression "handwriting on the wall" come from? The Old Testament book of Daniel, and in the middle of Babylon's King Belshazzar’s glorious feast,

Dan 5:1-4
"Belshazzar the king made a great feast,.. Then they brought the golden vessels that were taken out of the temple of the house of God which was at Jerusalem; and the king, and his princes, his wives, and his concubines, drank in them. They drank wine, and praised the gods of gold, and of silver, of brass, of iron, of wood, and of stone.

Then he saw the writing of a disembodied hand (likely, an angel, or God Himself), on the wall...

"MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN. This is the interpretation of the thing: MENE; God hath numbered thy kingdom, and finished it. TEKEL; Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting."

But I know there are those who much prefer to be told how good, and great and powerful the U.S. is.

I saw this bumper sticker today I thought rather clever:
"Don't Believe Everything You Think." It made me laugh.

You can love the Father without praying he kills everyone, sir. Not every accident is a judgment of God or you, me, and everybody else would have been struck down long ago.

You mean I don't have to pray like King David, that my enemies entrails be torn out and strewn about the landscape?

Well, it is fun every once in a while.

[Hovannes]

You mean I don't have to pray like King David, that my enemies entrails be torn out and strewn about the landscape?

That's Morley's job around here.

[Goose55]

They drained CA's Lake Oroville Reservoir down 50 feet with the damaged spillway, but take a look at what damage has been done to the hillside just beneath the earthen dam.



More storms have begun to pummel the watershed in Northern CA, and the first is a very cold one, with 5 feet of snow above only 5000 feet. But storms behind it are warm storms.

What a mess. Prayers up for all concerned.

Next week forecast for a lot of warm rain..
https://www.wunderground.com/q/zmw:95940.1.99999

[Rusty]

They drained CA's Lake Oroville Reservoir down 50 feet with the damaged spillway, but take a look at what damage has been done to the hillside just beneath the earthen dam.



More storms have begun to pummel the watershed in Northern CA, and the first is a very cold one, with 5 feet of snow above only 5000 feet. But storms behind it are warm storms.

What a mess. Prayers up for all concerned.

Next week forecast for a lot of warm rain..
https://www.wunderground.com/q/zmw:95940.1.99999

Ah yes, but the good news is that there definitely is bedrock in the hillside. And not to be forgotten is that there isn't going to be flood threatening people downstream. That's a victory picture when the offered new water volume is way beyond the capacity of the system. It'll be interesting to see what they do with the hillside. Big Civil Engineering is coming to Oroville. Seeing the hillside composition may lead to the conclusion that building a spillway on the earthen hillside wasn't a great solution. It's interesting how deep the earth and loose layer is. They may have to go down to bedrock for adequate support for the spillway. The engineering of the existing spillway clearly wasn't adequate. However, the bedrock saved them.

All your hand wringing was for not. It's as FredS & I told you. The dam wasn't ever in trouble. What is your next hand wringing project?

[A_Morley]

Now the good gods forbid
That our renowned Rome, whose gratitude
Towards her deserved children is enroll'd
In Jove's own book, like an unnatural dam
Should now eat up her own!

[Goose55]

They drained CA's Lake Oroville Reservoir down 50 feet with the damaged spillway, but take a look at what damage has been done to the hillside just beneath the earthen dam.



More storms have begun to pummel the watershed in Northern CA, and the first is a very cold one, with 5 feet of snow above only 5000 feet. But storms behind it are warm storms.

What a mess. Prayers up for all concerned.

Next week forecast for a lot of warm rain..
https://www.wunderground.com/q/zmw:95940.1.99999

Ah yes, but the good news is that there definitely is bedrock in the hillside. And not to be forgotten is that there isn't going to be flood threatening people downstream. That's a victory picture when the offered new water volume is way beyond the capacity of the system. It'll be interesting to see what they do with the hillside. Big Civil Engineering is coming to Oroville. Seeing the hillside composition may lead to the conclusion that building a spillway on the earthen hillside wasn't a great solution. It's interesting how deep the earth and loose layer is. They may have to go down to bedrock for adequate support for the spillway. The engineering of the existing spillway clearly wasn't adequate. However, the bedrock saved them.

All your hand wringing was for not. It's as FredS & I told you. The dam wasn't ever in trouble. What is your next hand wringing project?

Yes, really quite remarkable to see in that pic how the force of that 100,000 cubic feet per second water exposed the bedrock. I can understand your statement about major engineering coming to Oroville. As to whether or not they can design and build a new spillway before next years rainy season, is the big question. I say it can't be done in a period of just months. Maybe just leave it as it is. A natural spillway.

But the only concern with that would be further up the existing spillway, and whether that could give way.

My next hand wringing project? Not much happens here where I live. Only summer heat & monsoon deluges. I am sure something will happen out there that raises my level of anxiety.

[Goose55]

Oroville Spillway 6 March NEW CLOSE UP VIDEO DETAILS ON SPILLWAY WORK

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xa_Q1R7mGs

[Rusty]

Oroville Spillway 6 March NEW CLOSE UP VIDEO DETAILS ON SPILLWAY WORK

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xa_Q1R7mGs

Pretty good. Now update the title to something like "The reengineering and repair of the Oroville dam complex".

[Goose55]

Oroville Spillway 6 March NEW CLOSE UP VIDEO DETAILS ON SPILLWAY WORK

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xa_Q1R7mGs

Pretty good. Now update the title to something like "The reengineering and repair of the Oroville dam complex".

Yes, this was a very informative YouTube. Looks like they were spraying concrete under the broken top portion of the destroyed main spillway. A band-aid at best. There's a s--t load of snow (200% of normal) in those mountains and it's all going to melt soon. We'll see what the sprayed concrete will do.

Someone here (I forget who) said man's futile efforts to harness the power of water is an illusion. They sure did get that right.