Oroville Dam: Feds and state officials ignored warnings 12 years ago
http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/02/12/oroville-dam-feds-and-state-officials-ignored-warnings-12-years-ago/"Three environmental groups — the Friends of the River, the Sierra Club and the South Yuba Citizens League — filed a motion with the federal government on Oct. 17, 2005, as part of Oroville Dam’s relicensing process, urging federal officials to require that the dam’s emergency spillway be armored with concrete, rather than remain as an earthen hillside.
The groups filed the motion with FERC, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. They said that the dam, built and owned by the state of California, and finished in 1968, did not meet modern safety standards because in the event of extreme rain and flooding, fast-rising water would overwhelm the main concrete spillway, then flow down the emergency spillway, and that could cause heavy erosion that would create flooding for communities downstream, but also could cause a failure, known as “loss of crest control.”
<snip>
"It is important to recognize that during a rare event with the emergency spillway flowing at its design capacity, spillway operations would not affect reservoir control or endanger the dam,” wrote John Onderdonk, a senior civil engineer with FERC, in the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s San Francisco Office, in a July 27, 2006, memo to his managers.
“The emergency spillway meets FERC’s engineering guidelines for an emergency spillway,” he added. “The guidelines specify that during a rare flood event, it is acceptable for the emergency spillway to sustain significant damage.”
It's worth noting that in 05-06, Arnold was Governor and GWB was President.
= new reply since forum marked as read
That is what got him in!
More bang for your buck NOT!
Some people were stupid enough to vote for this fraud!
And that car tax thing is now history and is now back in place.
I know people living in this region of the State and there is nothing but mud mud mud to be seen everywhere and rushes of water to be seen outside your living room window!
I-50 is closed due to mud slides and no end is in sight as they are expecting close to at least another 6" of rain in the coming week. I-50 is the main route of travel to the Stateline to Nevada and I-80, the other main route surrounding Colfax, CA was closed too as it simply broke and fell off into another big HOLE about 2 weeks ago.
The party ain't over yet and if that dam goes, so will the whole of the central valley. It will end up being a flooded out Sacramento, the capitol of the State. As for the rest of the state in the vicinity, good damn luck as they need it already!
If the damage goes so far as to effect San Francisco, you'll hear those rich crybabies living in the Millennium Tower weep as they are living on a bunch of toxic landfill but *shush*, don't tell anyone because that is why it is sinking into the rot (and dead bodies) it was built on!
You ain't seen nuthin' yet!