As the saying goes, when it rains, it pours.
Over the last week, Murphy’s Law has been on overdrive in Northern California as Oroville dam suffered a series of mishaps, resulting from poor planning, lack of maintenance, and lack of heeding warnings years ago on the part of the state bureaucracy known as the California Department of Water Resources. The result was a badly broken regular spillway, a damaged “emergency spillway” (if you could even call it that, since they had to do emergency prep for two days to even make it usable) and finally, a several county evacuation downstream of about 180,000 people because DWR officials feared the “emergency spillway” would breach.
Given the attention paid to this worldwide, in technical parlance, it would be safe to say the DWR made a global cluster f*** out of their mismanagement of the dam. Even the White House got involved, calling the mess DWR created a “textbook example of the need for spending“.
Our local newspaper, the Enterprise Record, had a scathing editorial using less colorful wording than I have, calling it a “failure on many levels”. And, the Feds aren’t happy, and have sent them a letter demanding some immediate accountability by an independent review, something DWR isn’t used to, since they have a history of being accountable to nobody but themselves.
For example, the re-licensing process for the dam; it was started on 2002, and to be completed by 2007 but has dragged on for 15 years! It only took seven years to build the dam:
Construction was initiated in 1961, and despite numerous difficulties encountered during its construction, including multiple floods and a major train wreck on the rail line used to transport materials to the dam site, the embankment was topped out in 1967 and the entire project was ready for use in 1968.
Combined with the mismanagement under our current weather situation, it’s fair to say that DWR’s oversight of Oroville Dam is a complete and utter failure. Maintenance was deferred, warnings weren’t heeded, and there was a mindset of global warming induced “permanent drought” out of Sacramento. New dams, such as the Sites Reservoir aren’t being built, being stalled in funding, despite a doubling of Califonia’s population since 1968, and monetary focus has been on Gov. Jerry Brown’s pet boondoggles such as “Bullet Trains to Nowhere” and “Water tunnels under the Delta“. Ironically, the tunnels would rely on water from Lake Oroville, which seems to have gotten lost in political space.
People with an ounce of sense proposed killing the bullet train, and putting money towards water storage, but, sadly, it didn’t make it past the rancid political interests of Sacramento and Brown.
All of this has combined to nominate DWR is a poster child for everything that is wrong with California’s government.
So, with that in mind, we have a new challenge from mother Nature ahead: A series of 5 storms over a weeklong period that could give up to 8″ (or more) of rain in the Oroville watershed area. On the short term, NWS is forecasting the storm on Thursday could produce up to 1 to 2 inches of rain in the foothills, with more at higher elevations.
The long-term forecast has rainfall totals withing the watershed that are showing the exact spot where Lake Oroville watershed is located will get 11.62 inches of rain over the next 10 days, the most accumulated rainfall in the entire western USA:
From today’s ChicoER article, there is this quote from DWR:
In a press conference Tuesday, Department of Water Resourecs acting Director Bill Croyle said that there is room in Lake Oroville for upcoming storms and that the inflow was not expected to reach 100,000 cfs.
Given that DWR said 11 years ago that the spillway was safe in response to challenges, then last week they didn’t think there would be any problems with the storms, then kept slipping into disaster mode inch by inch, walking back all the way to “The emergency spillway might fail, therefore evacuations are needed” why should anybody believe one word these bureau-clowns utter?
I sure don’t.
UPDATE: About a half hour after publication, the missing word “spillway” was added to the headline for clarification. The dam itself is not damaged, but the dam spillway is.
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Before any Federal emergency money goes to repair of this dam, we need to know how much revenue it has generated for the State of California and why some of that revenue stream has NOT gone to maintenance and upgrades.
The Lamestream media is already blaming Trump who had nothing to do with any of this and are demanding all taxpayers pay for repairs even though they all boasted just last week that California ‘was the richest state’ and voted against Trump.
I say, let them swim.
With a history of stunning incompetence in Sacramento, about the only corrective action one might expect from them would be to shift the blame from Trump, back to Bush.
I’m ever so glad that Chico is above the dam.
emsnews February 15, 2017 at 11:56 am
“I say, let them swim.”
I say no federal money for a sanctuary state. This will be great practice in self-sufficiency for after Calexit.
I’d like to agree, but I didn’t vote for Guv Moonbeam and am too old to swim far! That said, Caleeforneea has plenty of money to burn on stupid projects and government handouts to people who came here illegally.
Hopefully they can’t.
Yes, if the Fed’s can do nothing more to physically help, then why enable the petulant state with money?
( I live here btw)
https://goo.gl/images/UnL5Ho
The Cal. Water Resources Board should be required to ‘show cause’ why they are competent to continue managing the dam. The penalty for not being able to do so should be requiring the sale of the dam and its operation to a private utility charged to make a profit from the safe operation of the resource. Deferred maintenance my a***!
At this time, my thoughts are with the engineers who is trying to control this mess and avert a dangerous and costly disaster, and with the workers at the dam site trying to control the erosion under difficult and dangerous conditions. These guys probably did not make any of the mistakes that led to this situation, they may not have adequate authority or resources to do their jobs, and are probably facing interference (aka “help”) from know-nothing politicians and others.
All the finger-pointing and background noise is a distraction to the main event. The important question now is do the guys on the ground have the authority and resources to control the problem.
Been there, done that, and all the finger-pointing, background noise and “help” is a distraction they do not need at this time.
Good luck, gentlemen (and ladies). Focus on safety. Let’s be careful out there.
Best, Allan MacRae, P.Eng.
Here are my earlier comments on the Oroville Dam remediation.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/02/12/oroville-dam-spillway-expected-to-collapse/comment-page-1/#comment-2425550
In other news, this was announced yesterday – another potential disaster averted (aka “How I spent my summer vacation”).
ALBERTA SHUTS DOWN LEXIN RESOURCES, LEAVING BIG MESS TO CLEAN UP
‘You don’t see these very often,’ says Alberta Energy Regulator in largest shutdown ever
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/lexin-resources-shut-down-1.3984287
Allan M.R. MacRae
February 16, 2017 at 2:43 am wrote:
In other news, this was announced yesterday – another potential disaster averted (aka “How I spent my summer vacation”).
ALBERTA SHUTS DOWN LEXIN RESOURCES, LEAVING BIG MESS TO CLEAN UP
I miss the Southern foothills of Alberta, but not so much the sour gas wells and the web of pipelines.
I’ve frequently been amazed how oblivious even technical professionals can be of the presence and potential hazards of life surrounded by sour gas wells.
You can’t miss the flaring stacks driving into or out of Calgary after dark, and a hazardous materials officer with the city fire department once told me that it was ” every man for himself” if ever a major sour gas leak occurred near the city core – there was no emergency plan. “Run up to the 17th floor or higher if you’re downtown” was his advice.
That was many years ago, but I’ve noticed, from afar, that the zoning for gas plants and wells with respect to residential areas has become ever less restrictive.
I looked at the orphanwells.ca site, but was disappointed to find no maps. Are there any publicly accessible websites showing maps of sour gas wells, pipelines and/or plants in Southern Alberta?
otropogo – there are maps on the net, but they are not that easy to find.
The dangerous critical sour gas wells that were shut in were about 1 mile from the suburbs of east Calgary, and a big leak with an easterly wind would have killed thousands or tens of thousands, imo.
The City has encroached upon the wells over time, as successive City Councils approved subdivisions closer and closer to the wells.
I understand the “emergency plan” is for the fire dept. to ignite a sour gas well that is close to a community – but how many people would die before the well is ignited? There will be no time to evacuate with an east wind.
Sorry I cannot be of more help.
otropogo – here is one map of Calgary wells – your thoughts?.
https://calgaryrealestatereview.com/2012/01/12/sweet-oil-sour-gas-wells-locations-in-calgary/
No it’s broke, and they don’t have the money to fix it. Well the had the money but they pissed it away down rat holes.
Excuse my accent there; that just seemed to be the lowest energy response I could come up with.
G
Moim zdaniem jebnie!
When does the melt start at that latitude and altitude?
The melt can vary quite a bit depending on changes in the surface winds. During the drought years it has been quite warm early on in the year. Two years ago at this time the Trinity Alps had zero snow on them. Those peaks range as high as 8,000+ feet. That was actually unprecedented. The pendulum has swung back though. This year the mountains around here have snow down to around 3500 feet. The spring runoff will be heavy, especially if the rains continue through March and perhaps through April. I like watching nature roar.
It was an el Nino winter. ‘Unprecedented’ means ‘since recent people came to California. California and Arizona both had epic droughts lasting more than 50 years at a time, terrible droughts, during the last 3,000 years.
goldminor,
“I like watching nature roar.”
So do I.
From a safe distance. Web-cams and such.
No, not /sarc at all.
Nature can roar. And ROAR. Do look at Tangshan, for example; the 1976 earthquake killed – uhhh – lots. Maybe 700,000. Less or more.
Shedloads.
Auto, in the UK, where, happily, we get fewer of Natures roars. And almost none of her ROARS . . .
Storegga Slide – yes, but thousands of years ago.
In the 1970s I lived next to the Klamath River. Standing close to the river was an experience. You could barely hear your own thoughts, so to speak. To talk to someone standing next to you would require shouting in their ear to be heard. In the meantime the ground around you would shake from the movement of boulders crashing down that very large river.
I remember the roar during the Loma Prieta Quake. That was also impressive, and the biggest quake I ever directly experienced.
I remember “The Mouse That Roared”.
“I like watching nature roar.”
I’ve stood next to a set of rapids in the gorge of the Upper Colorado during the spring melt, and that is truly an awesome sight. Standing waves the size of 2 story houses in that torrent, and holes behind them to match.
Billions wasted on Wind Pork…
Fill the great crevasse with windmills and solar panels…
A foot of rain…. that will be a disaster… sad..
Anyone living in the flood zone should pack up as much as they can and find a new place to live.
If the next set of storms doesn’t cause the dam to fail, then the 175% of average snowpack will do it, when it melts in a few weeks. Maybe, just maybe, they’ll come up with a miracle fix to one of the spillways. But, what then? The erosion has already occurred and it might be a very wet spring for the region. It would seem, that at this point, it isn’t IF the dam will fail, but WHEN the dam will fail.
Main spillway stable last four days . Lake level lowering . Emergency spillway being repaired .
Why should we expect failure ?
How is the main spillway stable when it has a huge hole in it eroding the base of the dam?
How is the emergency spillway going to be repaired by dropping rocks into the holes caused by the water release erosion?
Yes. What could possibly go wrong?
I do backhoe work in the mountains. The puny pile of rocks on a huge hillside that has been scoured of all dirt are like billiard balls: they will roll the minute anything hits them like say, water.
These ‘repairs’ are useless. Millions of tons of dirt has to be brought in and packed down very hard to repair this mess. It will not be cheap nor easy or fast and you can’t do a thing when it is too wet.
Logan . Suggest you check Metabunk site , Large amount of info .
Main spillway not eroding at any significant rate , if any . And it’s discharge is hundreds of feet away from the base of the dam . Lots of money required to restore it ….that is the worry , not imminent failure .
Thanks Sweet old bob. The hysteria is amazing, as you said the MAIN spillway broke part way up the chute and way lower than the actual dam. after days of releasing water the outflow has now scoured it’s water track down to bedrock ( which should have been done years ago instead of a “pretty” chute. the 1700 foot long emergency spillway worked. The problem was the added parking lot structure years afterwards that allowed water around the emergency spillway.
Had any thoughts about the detritus build-up at the end of the destroyed area of the main spillway? Blocking the spillway at the end could mean the water just has nowhere to go but up. And we know where that ends.
The “Emergency spillway” is not some entity capable of being “Repaired”.
For “emergency spillway”, read: “It’s the top of the dirt dam.”
It works by residing at an altitude that is LOWER than the altitude of the lake water surface.
At that point the lake water is free to exit from the lake by any means it chooses.
You can’t “repair” stupid !
G
And the main spillway is busted; it doesn’t work properly now.
Bob, you are kinda whack here. The last 2.5 ft over the emergency spillway produced major erosion, some moving back quite close the the emergency spillway wall. Additionally, there is a weak area beyond the emergency spillway to the parking lot. It was already failing from the last episode. The ONLY thing you need to track is the forecast for rainfall, then we will know.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CgBW09wd5so good pics in this video, take your choice whether you believe what the guy is saying.
If they make it through the spring, then they can make repairs before next winter. The danger of warm, heavy rainfall in the coming months is the main worry.
What comes in spring? Massive snow melt. The planning for all this was crazy. They deliberately let the catchment water rise nearly to the top because ‘global warming means no water’. So they wanted to hoard the water.
Then it overtopped the emergency dam. This was all about human stupidity, not nature. California has this typical cycle all the time, anyone there for the last 150 years knows this.
We know that. Unfortunately, the lefties running this state have no clue about the history of the state, or so it would seem. I can’t think of a greater irony then Oroville dam being threatened under the watch of Jerry Brown, as this dam was built under the governorship of his father.
ems, beyond that, years of believing that drought was permanent allowed them to justify skipping on basic maintenance of the spillway. After all they had trains to nowhere to fund.
As a result when they realized the mistake they made this year and opened up the spillway, part of it collapsed.
As we have seen over the last few days, they could have continued to allow water to drain over the spillway at a much higher rate, but they didn’t for fear that erosion would pollute the river downstream. The result of this caution was the height of the water behind the dam is now much higher than it would have been had they been more aggressive in releasing water in the early phases of this disaster.
Speaking of erosion, have you noticed the muck in the water between the damaged spillway and the face of the dam? Silt will steadily deposit there until this is resolved. They will have some cleanup to perform before they can use those turbines again.
Why won’t the turbine outflow just scour all the dirt away from the base of the dam?
It oughta be coming out of there pretty forcefully, no?
@Menicholas; “Why won’t the turbine outflow just scour all the dirt away from the base of the dam?
It oughta be coming out of there pretty forcefully, no?”
The problem for the turbines is the accumulated debris at the intakes of the turbines is not at the bottom . As the lake filled and water was spilled, debris floating on top of the lake was starting to go down the intakes of the turbines (the intakes are at the lake level not the exit level of the turbines) They had to shut down the turbines before they sucked in debris from the top of the lake.
Historically, the snow continues to melt into June. We rely on that. This year is considerable colder than last year, and the snow may last longer. Calculations are that at the current rate of release, the dam will survive.
That said, I’m glad I don’t live in Oroville, I AM sad I still live in Kalifornia, the land of Moonbeam and Hollywood, where emoting is substituted for reason.
Calculations made by the people who said they would not need to use the emergency spillway until they suddenly needed to use it, the same people who said there was no danger until they told hundreds of thousands to evacuate in one hour?
The same people who did nothing when warned that the spillway needed to be repaired?
And that let a small hole grow to a huge gash and then to a gigantic scour at the base?
They should have turn off the flow to the spillway and let the emergency spillway take the flow and called every concrete contractor in the western US to hurry in and get to work.
They multiplied their problem every step of the way.
And last time I checked, calculations of rainfall rates and amounts more than a few days out are uncertain.
Some places will get less than expected, some places more, and a few will get much more than expected.
And who knows what is coming next week, next month…April…?
I would not bet a nickel on those jackasses getting anything right, or even on them getting lucky.
Menicholas. feb 15 2017 6. 14 pm.
“They should have turn off the flow to the spillway and let the emergency spillway take the flow and called every concrete contractor in the western US to hurry in and get to work. western US to hurry in and get to work”
Please That part of the MAIN spillway broke but it had no effect on the dam at all..
Using the emergency spillway to release over 100,000cfs would have turned into the disaster that was completely avoided. By opening the “broken” MAIN spillway and let out up to 100.000 cfs contained the problem. If the “emergency” spillway would have had to let 100,000 cfs go over the top it would have been obliterated. It was only designed to let a +/- 12,000 cfs go over. The problem was the parking lot.
asybot, all correct except the E.S. was suposedly designed to take 250K CFS. Instead it was almost done in by less then 5 percent of that.
Sweet Old … (Can I just call him Bob?) Bob is right. For three days and nights that hillside has been scoured by 100,000 cfps of water. Think of a fire hose blasting negroes off the street in Alabama. Now imagine that fire hose were wider than Interstate 5. That’s whats been blasting the dust off the bedrock at the base of the Oroville spillway. There’s no loose dirt or gravel left to erode.
There was precious little to begin with. Just the stuff that’s built up since the days of hydraulic mining.
The only thing left is the stub end of the spillway itself.
The lake level is 30 feet below full, 871.93
http://cdec.water.ca.gov/cgi-progs/queryF?s=ORO&d=16-Feb-2017+01:15&span=12hours
That’s a nice big soaking storm there but there is just no way it’s going to fill up Lake Oroville with the spillway open.
@ur momisugly worrry about the levees along the Feather and Sacramento rivers if you want to worry about something.
Except that the rock is not what they expected it to be in the first place. So, while the erosion has slowed, it has not stopped. There could be a point where the erosion takes out a chunk lower down, that ends up taking out a chunk higher up. Or, possibly the rest of the spillway fails, since it was doing that without water.
I’m not worrying, because I’m not there. I just don’t think they are being completely honest. They thought the emergency spillway could handle much more water, but found out quickly it could not.
“Sweet Old … (Can I just call him Bob?) Bob is right. For three days and nights that hillside has been scoured by 100,000 cfps of water. Think of a fire hose blasting negroes off the street in Alabama.”
A super sized hydraulic mining jet.
I’m not worrying, because I’m not there. I just don’t think they are being completely honest. They thought the emergency spillway could handle much more water, but found out quickly it could not.
Well actually there’s a lot of hill backing up that emergency spillway on the lake side that was hidden from view by the water, but I think you’re dead on target that the state isn’t being honest with what’s going on here.
The more I look at it the more it seems like battle space prep to ram though the peripheral canal.
Anthony,
I could not agree more. There was no need to run water over the “emergency” spillway as the increase in flows over the damaged main spillway was clearly not going to cause any more problems than increased erosion primarily down the slope. You can see the large rock formations to the right of the damaged spillway and that was good evidence the serious erosion would be contained. The increased releases and the results have proven that. I have little use for DWR and their arrogance generally exceeds their competance.
The flow from the damaged spillway turned clear yesterday afternoon. Means no more erosion. Upstream the break seems to be holding. Now they have to clear the diversion channel between the spillway and the power station. That work started yesterday. Big backhoes and barges being positioned. Once the debris bar is cleared, then they can use the powerstation penstock to remove water at ~ 14,000cfs and cut down flow on the damaged spillway. Problem is time with more rain on the way. To a rough cut, 1″ means 12.5 feet in the reservoir (depends much on snow/rain mix). They want a 50 foot lake level margin. At current 100kcfs they are lowering 8 feet/day and are down about 16-20 feet. So need 4 more days. And would loose it all with just 4more inches of rain.
My understanding, and correct me if I’m wrong, was that the water went over the emergency spillway because everything else was wide open and the lake level was still rising.
wws partly right. The main spillway was used to relieve at a rate of +/- 100,000 cfs. The penstocks could have released another 12,000 cfs but were shut down because of a debris problem. The main spillway was designed to go up to 150,000 cfs but was never used at that level, and you are right eventually the 1700 ft long emergency spillway had to start, and btw NOBODY can control that spillway , no gates , shut off valves etc it is just a levee when the water goes over, ? guess what, it goes over and you can just watch!
wws and asybot: The main spillway was not wide open. It was spilling about 60,000 cfs and the lake level was slowly rising. At that discharge rate the water eventually topped the emergency spillway and they let it run, probably to see what would happen, i.e., whether it could be relied upon. When the area by the parking lot started to seriously erode the towns below were put under mandatory evacuation with the fear that the emergency spillway could fail in an hour.
At that point they ramped up the main spillway to 100,000 cfs or so and then, from the dam records, once the level dropped below the emergency spillway they stopped the main spillway discharge completely at two different times, probably to check for damages at the higher discharge rate. They then resumed the 100,000 cfs rate.
I would guess that they could even increase the main spillway rate above that now if they need to, and it appears they might need to at some point. But until the problem with the emergency spillway is eventually addressed, I suspect they’ll do everything they can to avoid using it, including maxing out the main spillway discharge.
This, at least, is what I’ve gleaned from reports.
With 45 years of engineering experience behind me, I’ve learned that Murphy was an optimist.
No lie. Especially when grandiose schemes to thwart Nature are concerned.
EWS, you win the thread. +1000
I notice that as of today, Wednesday, 15 April, flash flood warnings are now in effect for Oroville through Saturday. If I lived downstream from the dam I might be reluctant to follow their advice that is now safe to go back to my evacuated home.
Wow, just yesterday, the ‘experts’ on fake news TV were telling everyone the coming storms were going to be not very wet.
🙂 Missed it by two months!
I think it is safe for now…safe to go back and pack up as much stuff as you can save and truck out of your house.
As if San Francisco progressives, Hollywood liberals, and Sacramento politicians care about the residents of the Oro Valley or the farmers who need that water…
On February 9, inflow from the North Fork of the Feather River reached 175,615 cf/s. It has in the past flowed at rates as high as 317,500 cf/s. A lot depends on whether this is snow, rain, or warm rain that melts some of the existing 160% snow pack. Weather front #1 looks warm, #2 looks much cooler. For instance the 1964 catastrophic floods were warm rains known as the “Pineapple Express” over existing heavy snow.
Of interest is the little known fact that flooding from the Feather River drainage into the valley was mitigated by the early work on the Oroville dam during the winter of 1964/65. I just found that out since reading up on the history of the dam. It was said that the 1964/65 flood helped fill Oroville way ahead of schedule, but that the containment of the water alleviated problems downstream.. That should have been another clue to consider when assessing future risks to the dam.
In 1964-65 the entire Southwest was drenched in winter rains because of the volcanic eruption dust plus a la Nina. I grew up in the desert and missed school days due to flooding there that winter. We loved it as kids, of course.
Science is settled.
I think you’ll find that the saying is “it never rains but it pours”.
I think you’ll find that your viewpoint of the saying is incorrect:
http://www.dictionary.com/browse/when-it-rains–it-pours
I think you’ll find that the original English saying is “it never rains but it pours”. The later US version is “when it rains, it pours”.
http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/205100.html
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/it-never-rains-but-it-pours
Well, we are in the U.S. So we use the U.S. version to talk about a U.S. issue. If the issue was in Britain, you might have a point.
Hahaha. The Brits school us! Yes, and let’s now discuss how it can rain cats and dogs. I recall, that saying was invented in Britain, too?
“England and America are two countries divided by a common language”
Attributed to George Bernard Shaw, in this and other forms, but not found in Shaw’s published writings.
Quote number 31 on Page 638, the fourth edition Oxford Dictionary of Quotations.
Anthony
Obviously I use the British version which apparently dates to 1726, which coincidentally was slap in the middle of the warmest decade in the CET record until the 1990’s. Incidentally CET has been declining throughout the 21st century.
Perhaps the US version has different roots as it seems to be related to an advert
https://www.quora.com/Where-did-the-saying-When-it-rains-it-pours-originally-come-from
Just shows how interesting the origin of these phrases are
Tonyb
“It never rains in California, but girl, don’t they warn ya?
It pours, man, it pours”- Albert Hammond
“I think you’ll find that your viewpoint of the saying is incorrect:”
I was recently researching the old claim that “The Rain in Spain stays mainly on the plain”.
It turns out this is completely false…the rain in Spain is mainly in the mountains and uplands.
Old sayings have a habit of not standing up to close scrutiny…except for the true ones.
What is true is that the rain in Spain falls mainly when it raining.
Bonus points to the first to name the originators of that last little ditty.
“When it rains, it pours”
I thought that was all about Morton Salt!
If my Scottish mother could see the Ochil Hills from the kitchen window it was, “Oh! It’s clearing up to rain again”!
Sounds like Scotland. And Scottish mothers. Famous for their succinctness, pessimism and ability to forecast weather.
Whenever an alarmist comes up with “but shouldn’t we do SOMETHING just in case?”, I’ll counter with “but shouldn’t we fix dams just in case your prediction of a permanent drought is wrong”…
Headline is misleading. The dam is not damaged in any way. What is damaged is a level control system along the lake shoreline separate from the dam. The lower portion of the primary spillway saw some of its concrete raceway collapse apparently due to undermining of water and erosion of its base. It is now determined that it can operate normally as long as we do not see any undermining of the upper portion. The lower portion presents a cosmetic scar but does not impact operations. The erosion there has been determined to have stabilized.
There was erosion on the upper portion of the hillside near the base of the overflow weir that was apparently caused by scouring. At the time Oroville was evacuated, the full extent of this scouring could not be determined. This was compounded by what appears to be the Sheriff of Butte County panicking and evacuating 50% of the population of the county all at once, including people who would have had several hours to get out of the way had the weir breached. Practically immediately after Oroville was ordered evacuated it was determined that the erosion below the overflow was not progressing as much as had been feared. After the water stopped and daylight came, it was determined that it was not as extensive as had been feared, either.
People need to understand that the weir is not just sitting on top of the ground. It goes pretty deep but exactly how deep I have not been able to find out. It is very likely anchored to bedrock. If it were simply sitting on earth, it would tip over when the water rises behind it. In any case, they determined that the scour was not in danger of undermining the weir and was likely caused by a gyre from water that had overflowed the berm that the weir abuts. That water basically went over the berm and some of it made a left turn and flowed into the area behind the weir making a whirlpool there which scoured out a hole. That could be mitigated in the future by placing something at the end of the weir that prevents water overflowing the berm making that left turn and forcing it to simply flow straight down the hill.
Most importantly, the DAM was never threatened. Had the weir failed, it would not have failed all at once, either. It would have undermined in one spot and that spot would have likely grown but the entire weir would not have failed instantly as was being implied by some reports. Some reports led people to believe a 20 foot wall of water would come instantly down that hill. It would have been most likely started as a flow much smaller than the primary spillway flow and gradually increased. While this was happening, the lake level would have been dropping reducing the pressure so the bigger the failure became, the less pressure would be on it. Worst case, one section of the weir might have failed.
The Sheriff of Butte County could very well have CREATED a disaster with his evacuation order. By evacuating the area all at once, he put about 100,000 additional people on the road *in front* of the people who were in greatest danger. Oroville and immediately surrounding area should have been evacuated first and then the situation re-assessed. Then evacuate people who would be flooded within 1 hour of a breech of the weir. Put everyone else on evacuation warning with the reasoning being that everyone else will have more than an hour to get out (and could spend the warning period preparing) and the roads in front of them would be cleared by then of earlier evacuees. The Butte County Sheriff’s mass evacuation order of 50% of the population of his county simply jammed the roads and slowed evacuation by people in the most at-risk areas.
Noted, headline updated.
Headline is misleading. The dam is not damaged in any way. What is damaged is a level control system along the lake shoreline separate from the dam.
In my book, the “level control system” is part of the dam, just as the safety valves are part of a steam locomotive boiler.
No, the level control system is not part of the dam (your book is wrong). Without the overflow weir, the water would still overflow the hill before it overflowed the dam. The level control system is used for flood control. It is how water is metered out gradually. The problem here was basically a single person made a unilateral call that amplified a bad situation and made it worse. Had that weir actually failed, the Sheriff’s evacuation order could have resulted in increasing the toll, not in saving lives. You do not put people on the road in front of the people who are in the greatest danger. You do not block the exits. That is what the Sheriff did. I have no problem with Oroville being evacuated, that was logical at the time. The problem I have is with areas that were not in immediate danger being evacuated (and would not be in immediate danger for several hours if the weir failed).
The 20 foot wall of water is likely understating the possibilities. In my 37 years of work I have performed many Dam failure models for the US Army Corps of engineers as well as other clients. Once a failure starts it progress quickly especially concrete dam failures. 30 minutes from the beginning to the full collapse of the spillway would be reasonable.
In reality the water does not proceed as a wall but the level would rise so fast you would not be able to escape. The wall of water is more of a theoretical exercise. The top of the flow has less friction so it should travel faster than the base. This should lead to a wall but no wall has been documented in nature
Watch videos of the Japanese tsunami. On the Fukushima flat plains, it simply flowed more and more and at first, did little damage and then more and more and more until it destroyed nearly everything.
There would not have been a 20 foot wall of water. That one scour could have potentially undermined the weir at one single point. That would have resulted in a leak but it would not have caused the entire weir to fail at once. Now it turns out after the fact, it wouldn’t have undermined it anyway.
An excellent comment – and a correct one … keep in mind that the parking lot side of the weir – where the scouring was occurring – has soil nearly to the op on the reservoir side … and at that point it is almost 500 feet of soil before reaching deeper water. There was erosion at the main spillway end as well … but that was almost entirely from the road washing out. The base of the weir there was hardened as part of preparations and that hardened area worked as intended.
Also – most people have little idea how massive that weir actually is. The section profile from the drawings show it as much as 50-60 feet tall and nearly that at the base. The profile also shows a 12′ wide apron 6′ thick on the down slope side (which can be seen in pics) and the 12′ wide by at least 6 foot deep “foot” at the rear – that would fit in a keyway in the footings to prevent movement …
And again … historic photos (and texts) show the spillway – main and emergency – where built in a small saddle or swale on an existing hilltop with bedrock underlying it …
Ok, Scott, the fear must have been that they were afraid the scour would cut around the end of the weir under the berm that the weir abuts. The water is much shallower there. While it would have resulted in an “uncontrolled release of water” because there is no gate there to regulate it, we aren’t talking about a lot of it (relatively speaking). It doesn’t look like the weir itself was really at risk at any point.
Crosspatch … the Sheriff was given info the scour was close to the base and it was progressing seemingly rapidly toward the weir. He was probably told by the water folks that the headcut could reach the base of the weir within 45 minutes and could undercut the weir and cause a failure.
The Sheriff made the safe call under the circumstances … that the scour all but stopped quickly thereafter was something that could not be predicted.
A extremely hard decision – with many lives at stake, and minutes to make the call.
crosspatch, you obviously think the force of water which scoured out the Grand Canyon is going to be stopped by some piddle little dam. Do you believe humans cause global warming too.
crosspatch you are right about what happened at the the spillways and the dam , but I tried to put myself in the shoes of the sheriff. When he was informed of the “break ” to the far side of the emergency spillway it was already getting dark ( 6 pm) and very little light to actually see what was going on. I think he made the right decision.
Look at this water content. I have never seen a number this high before for this region. That is 4 times higher than any of the storms for this winter to date. …https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/surface/level/overlay=total_cloud_water/orthographic=-120.40,37.15,1348/loc=-123.936,38.567
Is this a case of, ” it’s worse than we thought” syndrome? Meanwhile billions have been spent on faux science that an astrologer could have done a better job. Where’s a drought when you need one? Climate change has diverted so much of our attention towards the wrong things. Rather than thinking the rains would never return, much like ‘ this drought is worse than the dust bowl’, it’s California, they should have used this time to prepare for the next round of rains. I guess the photo ops of reservoirs running dry were a self fulfilling predictions of permanent drought. Until it rained. I wonder how many of the faithful are having second thoughts on CAGW? After all, isn’t that the premise of CAGW, dry places get drier. And wet places get wetter?
I know how they can get out of this difficulty. Have a bigger disaster.
You’d think they’d have learned something from the overflow disaster in Australia, caused by a “are-in-a-drought-and-must-conserve-water” mindset.
I stand corrected Forrest.
Places that are alternately dry and wet will remain dry and then wet for, um…well…forever.
I agree…they should have been planning for the inevitable flood. Droughts always…ALWAYS end in floods.
The worse the drought, the worse the floods that will end it, although that last part is not as certain.
The funniest part…the same guy was Governor back in the seventies when a similar drought was blamed on global cooling. I do not remember what they blamed the floods that came in the year after the mid-1970s drought on.
Back then, people had some sense and did not try to blame the weather on anything but random chance and dumb luck.
Exactly.
The best time to prepare for floods is during a drought. Raising dams, strengthening dams, should be an ongoing obsessive occupation in California. The water system there should never be complete, but always seek greater safety, reliability, storage, and improvement.
I’ve also always wondered – during a drought, it is the ideal time to dredge sediment accumulated at the bottom of a reservoir, and dispose of it at the foot of the dam, to be eroded into the river by future outflows. This improves the environment downstream of the dam, extends the life of the reservoir, and improves storage. And yet, I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve seen this done.
Well, one knows Oroville has been affected when the price of crank rises.
How do you know?
That quote does not show up on my commodities listings.
They are a far cry from being secure downstream. It should NEVER have reached overtopping the E-spillway. It exists only to facilitate dam failure in the safest fashion. Officials must be charged, all the way to the Governors chair. Reckless endangerment is clear. GK
+10
I believe letting the emergency spillway operate was a blessing in disguise. It showed how vulnerable it is, and so now they have to beef up that hillside so that if it ever gets topped by 15 feet, rather than only 1.5 feet, maybe the concrete weir will survive. http://www.drroyspencer.com/2017/02/oroville-dam-crisis-eases-emergency-spillway-repairs-in-progress/
Roy … I agree – nothing like a real world demonstration of possible mass casualty to kick idiot career bureaucrats squarely in the, umm … seat of the pants.
In hindsight, as I’ve research and investigated this deeply, and now seen the results … it is inexcusable.
For the record – the “hillside” performed just fine. I don’t think there IS any real need to do significant hardening of the hillside itself … perhaps some intermediary coffer dams in the “channel” down hill to slow the water a bit … but we can see from aerials the channel itself saw minimal erosion and was down to bedrock (green rocks) quickly.
That the bench below the weir … from the base of the weir to the access road and just below the access road … was not only not hardened – but much of it was visibly weather surface rock (red/brown coloring) and even simple dirt … is inexcusable.
There are other concerns that were demonstrated as well. The ~800′ extension of the weir along the parking lot is a SERIOUS issue. It is not a weir – its a small bit of concrete buried a few feet in the ground. And the ground there is shown to be fractured and erode-able.
At just 1.6′ above 901 elevation water was going around the end of that area and down the access road. A look at that access road there shows it is elevated a long distance – over a ravine. Water flowing around the end of the parking lot weir had already cause significant erosion at the corner of the road – and had it washed the road out there would have opened a high velocity path.
That silly and useless parking like “weir” should be replaced with a REAL weir first, then extended further until it reaches high ground (the back of the parking lot. As it is a secondary emergency weir, it should be raised several feet or more as well.
Roy – it will only be a valuable lesson IF the dam survives! That is entirely up to nature NOW. We gave up human control many weeks/yrs ago. If heavy rain come… damn will go. GK
Scott Gates
“That silly and useless parking like “weir” should be replaced with a REAL weir first, then extended further until it reaches high ground (the back of the parking lot. As it is a secondary emergency weir, it should be raised several feet or more as well.”
I thought that was a design feature instead of a fault. If the emergency weir was only to be operated in a true emergency (water over the top of the dam) they then designed the weakest point furthest from the actual dam to minimize the total amount of water that would be released. Otherwise why would they have that crappy little wall at relatively the same height next to the incredibly substantial weir? The weir is 60 feet tall by 60 ft at its base at the widest point, the parking lot wall isn’t much more substantial than a retaining wall.
Eventually the lawyers will weigh in, so dam failure might not be needed for a learning experience that will not be forgotten by the participants. There are several CA state court decisions that might be applicable. Here are a few:
“Paterno” (not the State Penn Paterno) cost CA about $0.5 Billion, as in $500,000,000. Feather River levee failure downstream from the dam.
http://caselaw.findlaw.com/ca-court-of-appeal/1258864.html
http://law.justia.com/cases/california/court-of-appeal/4th/74/68.html
Paterno references include the Bunch, Belair, and Locklin decisions. Belair introduced “reasonableness”.
http://law.justia.com/cases/california/supreme-court/3d/47/550.html
http://web.stanford.edu/~meehan/class/mitjan2000/bunch.html
“In Belair v. Riverside County Flood Control Dist. (1988) 47 Cal.3d 550 (Belair), we held that when a public entity’s design, construction, or maintenance of a flood control project poses an unreasonable risk of harm to property historically subject to flooding and causes substantial damage to it, the property owners may recover damages for inverse condemnation under section 19.”
Locklin introduced “Locklin factors” for liability.
http://law.justia.com/cases/california/supreme-court/4th/7/327.html
Scott,
Your are either a troll, an idoit, or want to see a disaster with regards to a failure of the Oronco hydro project.
why criticize scott for what looks like a well thought out analysis of some design flaws in the emergency structures?
It’s not really a surprise that flaws can show up in emergency structures, since they never get tested in real world conditions, at least not until its too late to make any changes.
Scott and wws,
Read Jerry’s comment (Jerry February 15, 2017 at 4:13 pm)
As far as raising that ‘silly parking lot’, I would suggest lowering it to get the water flowing prior to topping the concrete weir. 10′ may be a good start and remove the pavement. Erosion invited. Leave 150 – 200 ft intact at the end of the concrete weir.
It’s just government bureaucracy working normally. Where’s the beef?
Indeed. When President Obama said “You didn’t build that”, the intent of his argument was that government provides the infrastructure and support for private citizens to pursue their business. More government provides more, so we should all be glad to have the opportunity to pay taxes.
Consider the St. Francis dam as how the government provides support. It used tax payer money to plan and build the dam, and forcibly displace homes and people that were in the flooded area. Then they granted building permits for new homes below the dam, and collected taxes from those homeowners. The dam failed, destroying those new homes and leaving 600 people dead. The government then used tax payer money to solve their liability.
The government built that!
No one seems to mention that the only thing that prevented an obvious catastrophe was that IT STOPPED RAINING. This week will test it again. Good luck.
The damaged main spillway is in no danger of failing. The bottom is destroyed but the top is sound. The only way we’ll have a disaster here is through human error and mismanagement of the problem. If for example they are so scared to run water through the damaged spillway that they allow the emergency spillway to come into use, erode, and fail.
Despite ~100,000 cfs flow for several days now the headcutting has stabilized. There has been no significant additional movement up the hill. This can be seen in photos that show the elecrtic towers
It has not been raining for the past several days.
To say it has stabilized and so that is that sounds like the kind of reasoning we heard in the lead-up to this disaster…which aint hardly over by a longshot.
For all anyone knows the next several weeks and months will see an amount of rain to dwarf what has fallen so far.
How many feet has the lake risen since January?
Do you think that same amount over the spillway will not do any further damage?
If you are an engineer…I would fire you for thinking like that, let alone insisting it is true to the public.
Simply repeating facts Menicholas … the main spillway has been running at 100,000 cfs for 80+ hours … there is plenty of photo evidence that the upstream breach has not advanced in days. That does not mean that will never change, but the best evidence right now is it is safely handling the flow …
At 871.92 the lake elev is down approaching 30 feet since the spillway was ramped up to 100,000 cfs – nearly 500,000 acre feet have passed thru the damaged spillway since flow was up to 100,000 cfs.
And they are close to having to dial down that 100,000 cfs flow. As levels get down to the channel cut on the lake side of the main spillway intake, the intake channel is constricted and is not hardened … they risk erosion of the intake channel if they continue to run at 100,000 cfs
@ur momisugly Scott…it has been pouring rain for the last 2+ hours here in Trinity Co. The area of the Middle Fork Feather River is around 20 degrees F above average, 50F at the moment, and that is at 3500 ft elevation. Plus the forecast for that area is for 10 days of mostly rain, maybe some snow next week. This is far from being over. The Middle Fork is a large portion of the Feather River drainage. They better keep that flow running strong.
goldminor … I agree … but at present they are in a dramatically better situation … the last storm dropped something like 15″ and eventually increase reservoir levels 50′ … but that was at limited spillway flow …
At the press briefing earlier today they noted this storm is predicted to cause 100,000 cfs peak inflow when the water makes it to the reservoir. And right now they have 30′ of freeboard – over 500,000 acre feet of storage …
if the spillway generally holds they can come very close to holding the water level steady … even if they have to scale flow back, still a lotta storage avail … I am cautiously optimistic …. but Mother Nature can be temperamental so nothings guranteed
Scott, about 30 feet of that lake rise came in the almost 3 day period when they shut down the M.S. and did emergency prep on the E.S.
If they can continue to run 100K CFS they will likely be fine. At about plus or minus 75K CFS ( inflow vs outflows) the lake level changes about 9 feet a day.
What else would you expect from Jerry Brown?
50,000 cu ft/sec of water, falling 600ft, according to my calculations (which I have to admit are error-prone and need checking by somebody that makes fewer errors than me) results in a release of 2.5GW of power. Or, over 24 hours, about 100ktons (TNT equivalent).
So, although most of the released energy will result merely in the water temperature being raised a bit, it’s still not suprising that structures of earth or concrete get torn up. And it shows how the upkeep and operation of dams should not be left in the hands of buffoons.
I can confirm that your calculation is wrong, sorry Martin. 🙂
50k cu ft/s is (time to go to SI units, folks! 🙂 ) 50k x 0.02832 m3= 1415 m3/s times 600 ft (183 m) is 2.6 megajoules, or per second 2.6 MW (a factor of 1000 lower than your calculation, it seems).
Multiply this by 86400 seconds in 24h and you get 22.4 gigajoules (GJ).
100 kton are 4180 GJ… so 22.4/4180=0.00535 x 100 kton, or 100 kton/187 (rounded).
Still a lot of energy, but less than what you thought.
Cheers.
I think you are forgetting to convert volumetric flow rate to mass flow rate.
PE = mgh = (50E3 ft^3/s) * (0.02832 m^3 / ft^3) * (1000 kg/m^3) * (9.81 m/s) * (600 ft) * (0.3048 m/ft) = 2.54E9 J/s as Martin A calculated
(2.54E9 J/s) * (86400 s/day) / 4.18E12 J/kiloton) = 52 kiloton TNT equivalent / day.
You are absolutely right, Joe. I forgot the ‘g’ factor in the multiplication of terms, so 10x more. Apologies.
Almost 7 Hiroshimas.
A friend from college rose to became Colorado River Watermaster. His overarching mandate was to make sure he didn’t get “behind the power curve” (to borrow from pilot jargon) and get caught with more water behind Boulder Dam than he could release in time to avert an emergency. Only one time in the history of the dam did the emergency spillway ever come into play, spectacularly, and it was something of a scandal on his watch.
So, ignoring the maintenance issues, why didn’t the overseers of Oroville Dam start drawing it down many weeks ago, when we were already in the well-predicted series of “atmospheric rivers”? They should have seen this coming in plenty of time to avoid the uncontrolled spillover. Yes, the main spillway failure would have still occurred, but that wasn’t the dangerous phase of this debacle. Asleep at the switch.
Why worry about too much water behind the dam when you’re in a permanent drought?
Reminds me of a scene in “Nevada Smith”. Pat Hingle (a trustee) tells Steve McQueen (a prisoner, assigned night watch in the kitchen) “Boy, you got one job – don’t let that fire go out.” “Well, when do I sleep?” “Just don’t let the fire go out.”
Just don’t let that dam overflow.
Inappropriate use of the Precautionary Principle, I guess. It was a 50-50 shot. The gamble was no rain, the reality was lots of rain. That’s the problem with using a principle based on wild guessing and no evidence.
But Sheri, NOAA predicted a series of atmospheric rivers, and after the first such event or two, it should have been obvious what the implications of the subsequent events would be for the reservoir. “Your Job #1: Don’t let the dam overflow. Jobs #2, #3, etc: See Job #1.” There’s no excuse for getting caught by surprise.
A drought mentality is a mitigation factor when sentencing, but should have no affect on a guilty verdict of Reckless Endangerment.
In addition to that, once they did start letting water out and part of the spillway collapsed, they were afraid to let too much water out because that would have increased erosion and caused pollution downstream.
I think in the case of the Brisbane floods it may have been more willful. the alarmists like chaos so a flood is as good as a drought for them. when people feel entitled there is nothing they wont justify to themselves.
Hopefully Jerry didn’t spend all the pseudo bullet train money because that’s one big lawsuit the state is going to have to cover…DWR staffers stealing money for years via apathy to their jobs…what a sad state of affairs that the down-river citizens will have to endure
And with several hundred feet of snow in the Sierra mountains and we get a fast snow melt…Noah, build that Ark fast!
Well, about 200 inches actually:
About 2x normal for this date:
https://www.wcc.nrcs.usda.gov/ftpref/data/water/wcs/gis/maps/west_swepctnormal_update.pdf
Noah was sailing the Ark over the Kerry Mountains at the height of the flood, and the top of Carrauntoohil (the highest mountain in Ireland) was sticking out of the water as an island. A sheep farmer was standing on the island and he hailed the Ark: “Ahoy there, can you give us a lift to Killarney?” Noah’s son said: “I’ll have to ask the Boss”, so Noah came out and told the farmer, “Sorry, no can do, we have strict rules on this boat: only two of a kind, and none of your kind”. So the Ark sails on past, and the Kerry sheep farmer shakes his fist after it, saying: “You can shtick your lift up your jersey, shure ’tis only a shower anyway!”
Stupid gov for dumber constituents enables the ingnorance that empowers the arrogance about man made climate change verse scientific fact. Cali gets what it deserves.