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

Yup, a 10X and right on the money

again, think cavitation

That headwall and grout curtain are ONLY valid with OVERBURDEN holing em' down.

Scout swims very well but just in case ...

Here is a link to historic pictures when they built the damn.

As you can see the areas that are eroding, don't seem to have been re-enforced, so they could basically result in an new channel right around the existing damn.

http://www.nbclosangeles.com/multim...ia-Water-Reservoir-Photos-413590093.html

The Teton Dam was not even close to full when it failed...

Different causes there though. Nothing to do with the spillway. IIRC, erosion didn't begin at the top.

That's the rub,....lose 30', and that whole schitaree below's likely to go away, too.

GTC

Here's a good one from the link Spotshooter posted.



It seems to me like they're blowing away the "bedrock" with just a firehose or ...

Maybe they're just cleaning it up a bit.

I have a feeling that this is not the only spot in America failing due to negligence among other things. America in general needs a good overhaul.

Hmmm, seems like some guy that's been in the news a lot lately has been saying this very thing for about a year or so.
Time to either eliminate the free life or do work for it/them.
More of this IS going to happen if we don't start doing major infrastructure work.

Could not have been erosion from the top because the dam was not close to full. Water made its way through the earthen fill dam and cavitated some hellacious holes pronto.

The Oroville Dam could fail in essentially the same way if water makes it through the "bedrock."

Glad to see you putting that in quotes,...and dead certain that with the project at completion seeing available funding (to steal) available, some serious stabilization of a very poor that was probably called out on the original prints was bypassed, omitted, lied about, and swept under the rug.
...and again, witness the Nimitz Freeway for the same ethical code failures.

GTC

They're prepping it for an acid wash, and some gunnite, prior to starting a big pour.

Man, the shots of those boys cad welding that humongous rebar brings back a memory or two. No masks, ....get er' done and have a smoke,....kaff, kaff, kaff,...

Yup, and people do not realize how lucky folks were the Teton Dam collapsed while being filled instead of 130' below the top. The next 100' was a Hell of a lot more water than the first.

There was also similar "bedrock" there that was the problem. And it was volcanic tuff as I recall with better properties than foliated basalt.

Art....the water would never have flowed out of the emergency spillway if the lake weren't full...and the lake would have never completely filled if the DWR people hadn't cut the flow back on the main spillway from the 90K + CFS they were releasing prior to the decision to cut the flow and try out the emergency spillway. On top of it all, I seriously doubt the "EMERGENCY" spillway was designed to operate with the main spillway gates over half way closed.

Follow the money...

You'd have to work hard to find a much WORSE material than foliated basalt with all that schist the "foliant" for a subgrade / anchor point.
This on a heavily faulted tectonic zone ?

GTC

Just a question to ponder. At some point this discussion is all about money.

Could the dam have been built "better"? Sure. At what price?

It's easy to armchair quarterback this 40 years later. At the time this dam was being built I'm sure it was millions over budget and people were screaming and ranting to stop the pointless expenditures.

The Sierra Club and other organizations stated that there was a need to do certain things - like concrete over the entire top/pathway of the emergency spillway. I'm sure that would have only added another $25mm (*in 1967 dollars) to the project. That's money the state really didn't have at the time.

At some point, we have all been faced with the money vs. quality aspect of things. Maybe it was personally (*could have installed the better grade vinyl windows...) or professionally (*maybe hired a better worker). No matter, at some point, it's a balancing act.

Today, the issue is the mismanagement of letting the water get so high that the spillway needed to be used. That's certainly worth discussion. We had means to mitigate risk and that wasn't done. That's still the answer I want to hear about. Maybe I missed the answer...so if someone has it I'd like to know.

The rest of this...blaming the past and armchair quarterbacking things...isn't really helping the case of the present. A Sikh mosque opening their doors to people for shelter, that's a worthy thing. People coming together in a time of need is worthy of discussion.

Let's not squander a moment to bring a divided state (*and country) together. This disaster is a chance to bring us together.

Consider taking a moment to inventory your home...and think "if the dam does break, I can give the following to the people in loss".

....and a whiff of patchouli oil floats by on the breeze, while in the backround, Hari Krishna's yodel, accompanied by drums and tambourines.

GTC

I can guarantee if the dam fails, whatever money was saved by building it almost good enough, and maintaining it almost good enough will be several orders of magnitude shy of the cost of the devastation.

Probably sufficient to bankrupt the already teetering California government mismanagement.

How much has been spent on Jerrys bullet train??? Or his giant water tunnels??? There are priorities...then there are priorities...

Fixed it.