US
From The Daily Caller
Tim Pearce
Energy Reporter
5:19 PM 08/11/2017
California is receiving $22.8 million from federal disaster officials to aid in cleanup procedures for the February collapse of the Oroville River Dam spillway, the Federal Emergency Management Agency announced Wednesday.
The Oroville River Dam crisis led Lake Oroville to overflow and endangered hundreds of thousands of people.
Both federal and state governments had been warned about the condition of the spillway from as far back as 2005. The crisis caused $500 million in damages. California contends the federal government should pay 75 percent but, depending on the findings of federal investigators, the state may receive significantly less, the Ventura County Star reports.
“That [$22.8 million] was just the first of many reimbursements,” California Department of Water Resources (DWR) spokeswoman Erin Mellon said, according to the Ventura County Star.
Despite what Mellon says, emergency federal funds to the state may be cut off if federal regulators believe the crisis was caused by lack of routine maintenance.
“Is there a maintenance issue here, because they’re not going to cover that. If it’s an emergency response, they’re going to cover,” then-DWR director Bill Croyle told lawmakers in May according to the Ventura County Star.
Three environmental groups filed a petition to Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to reinforce the Oroville River Dam spill in 2005. The groups claimed that the dam, completed in 1968, did not meet modern safety standards. FERC rejected the petition on the advice of the California DWS, The Mercury News reports.
During the dam’s last inspection in 2015, regulators inspected the spillway “from some distance,” the regulators’ report said according to the Redding Record Searchlight.
HT/TA
I will. And as a taxpayer (if you are), you should too. It is the death of a thousand cuts (or more). Billions and billions are wasted this way just at the Federal level. If you add in all the state and local governments it is a staggering amount. I know for a fact that I pay well over 50% of my income in Federal, State, and Local taxes and fees. It is infuriating to think that so much of it is wasted by incompetent/corrupt government officials. Frankly, if you are not outraged, then you are part of the problem.
Best media coverage of the Oroville Dam is by this vblogger:
https://www.youtube.com/user/blancolirio
Phil. (August 16, 2017 at 5:41 am )
I’ve been busy this week but decided to check back to this thread. Thanks for your input. You seem to be informed of the flows , pool elev, etc. I looked into it as it was happening and pretty much moved on since.
If you are an engineering type with basic hydraulics understanding and an understanding of a ballistic curve (basic physics of horizontal velocity vs acceleration of gravity) it is relatively simple to plot a back of the envelope curve. Locate the profile of the discharge chute (spillway) and bring your ballistic curve of the water onto the chute below the ‘ski jump’. If I find time I’ll look over my always cluttered desk and maybe I can find the notes I used in my earlier calculations and show my work. But to be honest my tractor repairs are much more important to me now.
There are two ways to get 90,000 cfs through the chute. Lower velocity and deeper depth OR higher velocity and less depth. If the operator allows the pond level to rise 50 ft before release then the discharge will be under higher pressure and therefore the velocity will be much greater for a given flow rate. The ballistic curve will change at the ‘ski jump’.
If the original design was done to allow for releases to begin to maintain pool elev at I believe was about 814′ (bottom of spillway ?) and the operator brought the pool elev up another 50 ft or more to bank/conserve water then that could have led to a flow velocity exceeding the design criteria of the spilllway. Over 6 million lbs. of water per sec. accelerated by gravity and ….. well the result is obvious.
Quick note for any who may not grasp a quick pressure calculation on H2O pressure at depth. The pressure on the water at the bottom of the spillway gate with a 50′ pond/pool level above would be 3,120 lbs/sq ft. (over three thousand lbs. per sq. foot). The water would come out of the open gates quite forcefully and fast. If I have time I’ll show my work when I look into my hydraulics handbook. Anyways, I now have tractor parts in hand so back to serious/important work that I don’t need to explain.
A link to the profile and measurements of the spillway/chute and gates would be greatly appreciated. There was a lot of discussion on metebunk and I really don’t have the time to go through it again now.
If one of you hydraulic engineers would like to step in, have at it.
Some pics of the ski jump:
https://www.metabunk.org/attachments/20170216-135932-rvyvp-jpg.24739/
https://www.metabunk.org/attachments/flr2014-jpg.24951/
https://www.metabunk.org/attachments/20170210-223837-9hube-jpg.24434/
Dave, you just need to attach the concave-downward slope of the spillway as shown in the photos and you got a winner!