Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Oroville aux spill to fail within the next 60 min!!

Oh the aux. No - that is on the ridge next to the dam. That ridge was there before the dam was built.

Ridge in background...

These photo's are of the same hole. The people are standing on a eroded roadbed, not at the base of the spillway headwall

Been years since I calculated hydraulic pressures for x feet deep water, and never have designed a dam.

It's certainly possible the outflows could be too high to control, and cause flooding downstream. especially if part of the emergency spillway breaks loose, and lets more water over the dam unexpectedly.

But the whole dam fail and let a 700 foot wall of water loose? I don't see that happening.

EXACTLY,....the entire length of that face, whether the "actual dam" or the "Ridge" should be tied together on a linear axis AND vertical or angular axis) with MASSIVE high tensile cable, rebar, grouted in anchors,....let me add "rustproof,....e,g. Epoxy or Hot dipp galvy,.....and said tie entombed in some volume of erosion proof overburden.

not there, .....is it ?

GTC

But then it wouldn't be an earth-fill dam. Not arguing that point...at this point.

So if you remove that ridge, lake level will not change?

And as such, from the day it is constructed it is looking for a chance to fail (although not with the fervor of a levee).

I never said that. Just that the material under the aux is not earth fill. It's (apparently) 30' of whatever was already there over bedrock. That first 30' - nobody expects that to last long.

You fellas are right about that hole by the road,....there's another deep hole further out that spill wall, and I figured THAT was what the enlarged showed.

Once again,....SMALL beer within the context of the geo-morphology of that "ridge".

Calling that crap, "Bedrock" is a travesty,...

GTC

Kinda doubt that any of what we are seeing under the aux is bedrock - yet. I know that the other end of the dam is very much against solid bedrock. Seen it from the inside. Supposedly, they took core samples on the spillway side, but I have no idea how extensive or complete to information that provided. I don't think I;d want to lay all my hopes on erosion stopping at 30' - but that seems to be the accepted wisdom there.

Interesting propaganda video here....

http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/infrastructure/a25209/oroville-dam-sunny-future/

Is the Golden Gate Bridge in danger? All that water ends up in SF Bay, so if enough dams let out too much it should overwhelm the bay.

Have you READ the geo-morphology eval and classification that I posted about this "Bedrock ?"

GTC

Not hardly.

For me a relevant question is did they extend the base of both spillways to bedrock?

Not sure if they have disclosed that?

If both spillways are anchored to the bedrock with the method Greg explained earlier they have a chance even if the soil erodes around them?

And yes Steelhead, technically the "ridge" is acting as part of the dam.
The ridge goes and so does lake water.

Spillway and or ridge failure will result in approximately the top 30 feet of the reservoir spilling down the valley, that's a chitload of water.

The dam itself failing is a bigger disaster with the entire contents of the reservoir fooding down the valley.
The dam appears sound at this point.

And to be clear for people who haven't been following this, the spillway is not on the earth filled main dam.
Many dams have the spillway on the face, this one does not.

So - this info they're putting out about 30' to the bedrock meaning only a 30' wall of water would imply that the concrete emergency "spillway" - which is, in fact, at least on the south end, actually a section of dam itself (because of the natural slope in that direction)...is embedded directly upon bedrock. I guess. Or not....

Fester has reasons to be worried. Someone is downplaying this for sure.

Rather than looking at this as a place to vent, fling schidt, we should be taking the LONG view at this and asking,....do we WANT to continue to trust the "leadership" and "authority" emanating from Sacramento California ?

Do you want to DEFEND this kind of blatantly stupid, "engineering?".... or see the end of it's era ?

This infrastructure restoration,repair,remediation is going to be a hot button issue.

Look at some of the stupidity ALREADY being posted by left-lib media about how this illustrates why Trump's initiative HAS to fail, fer chrissake.

GTC

GTC

The 30' wall of water would be if the dam was filled to top and the 30' cap of the emergency spillway failed.

What isn't being addressed is the failure of the main spillway, a failure that is well below the top of the dam and if that failure led to the dam failing at that level...

No, I think you're mistaken.
The concrete apron of the emergency spillway abuts the main spillway, and appears to be close to the depth of the main spillway. Whether it allows water to spill over clear up to the main spillway is unclear to me, but if that concrete apron lets go, along with whatever erosion follows, it will be just as bad.

I'll tell you what,....you knock a hole 3' wide at the top of that miserable joke, and watch just how quickly that 30' for the full width goes away,....and the presumption that all will be well in la-la engineering land and loss of the ridge line will stop there is just that,....presumption.
Picture the 30 feet gone, and then ponder the phenomena called CAVITATION.

GTC

Absolutely.