Pent Up Behind Aging Dams: Danger

[phantom power]

Lake Isabella Dam is just one acute example of a widespread problem: Of the nation’s 85,000 dams, more than 4,400 are considered susceptible to failure, according to the Association of State Dam Safety Officials. But repairing all those dams would cost billions of dollars, and it is far from clear who would provide all the money in a recessionary era.

The stakes are particularly high not just for Mr. Brassell and the other 4,000 residents of Lake Isabella, but for the 340,000 people who live in Bakersfield, 40 miles down the Kern River Canyon on the edge of California’s vast agricultural heartland. The Army Corps of Engineers, which built and operates the 57-year-old dam, learned several years ago that it had three serious problems: it was in danger of eroding internally; water could flow over its top in the most extreme flood season; and a fault underneath it was not inactive after all but could produce a strong earthquake. In a worst case, a catastrophic failure could send as much as 180 billion gallons of water — along with mud, boulders, trees and other debris, including, presumably, the ruins of Nelda’s Diner — churning down the canyon and into Bakersfield. The floodwaters would turn the downtown and residential neighborhoods into a lake up to 30 feet deep and spread to industrial and agricultural areas.

The potential is for a 21st-century version of the Johnstown Flood, a calamitous dam failure that killed more than 2,200 people in western Pennsylvania in 1889. But corps and local government officials say that the odds of such a disaster are extremely small, and that they have taken interim steps to reduce the risk, like preparing evacuation plans and limiting how much water can be stored behind the dam to less than two-thirds of the maximum.

Still, they acknowledge that the impact of a dam failure would be enormous. “It’s not just the loss of life, potentially,” said David C. Serafini, lead technical expert for the corps on the project. “It’s the economic damages and the environmental damage, too.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/22/science/22dam.html?_r=1

[Wilms]

1. Hey war mongers. Got your WMDs right here. n/t

[WhiteTara]

2. we have one that is close to collapse

in northwest Arkansas.

[northoftheborder]

3. With all the record flood incidents that continue....

...I would think the odds of dams breaking is even higher.

I really think bridge and dam infrastructure is more important than rapid transit.

[XemaSab]

4. I wonder how a drawdown will affect

the numerous refuges around the lake. :(

[pscot]

5. The idea of replacing Bakersfield with a lake

30 feet deep has an undeniable appeal. Bt maybe not all at once.

[hatrack]

6. We should be surprised? Marc Reisner was writing about this 25 years ago . . .

Though the dam removal trend has gathered strength since then, there are lots and lots and lots of structurally dodgy dams out there and the problem only worsens with time.

[starroute]

7. Even if the odds of any one dam failing are small...

... what happens when you multiply that by the 4400 that are at risk? Even if each one has one chance in a hundred of failing over the next 10 years, that would still be one a year.

And they're suggesting a possibility of record flooding in the Midwest this spring when all the snow melts.