poll: are we obligated to save the primitives of California?

[SVPete]

I'm torn between saying "They put themselves in this, they can get themselves out," ...

Not sure what you mean by this, BSS.The situation at Oroville dam is that heavy rains have Lake Oroville at somewhere in the neighborhood of 125% of full capacity. The state started dumping water out the spillway - a week or two ago - and stopped when it was discovered that a section of concrete had washed away, and a pit had been dug by the rushing water. I've not heard any word that there was poor maintenance or that the capacity of the spillway was exceeded.

So, how did Californians - citizens or government - "put themselves in this"?

Let me give a contrasting situation. California - citizens and government - have dug themselves a yugenormous financial pit of bond and pension debt. I'm sure you - and others on Oroville dam related threads - have seen my comments/pleas that you write your Congress-Critters, asking that they vote against any bail-out of CA finances. I do that because, even though I haven't voted for a bond measure in decades, and voted against the idiot-pols who played footsie with unions and juggled CA's books, California is responsible for the mess California created. And I'm a resident of California.

Hypothetically, I'd love for Trump to arm-twist and leg-twist Moonbeam into a limbless torso (metaphorically). In the real world even slight "persuasion" would all but certainly backfire yugely.

[Ralph Wiggum]

I live in California and say let them fend for themselves.

Yep.

[BlueStateSaint]

Not sure what you mean by this, BSS.The situation at Oroville dam is that heavy rains have Lake Oroville at somewhere in the neighborhood of 125% of full capacity. The state started dumping water out the spillway - a week or two ago - and stopped when it was discovered that a section of concrete had washed away, and a pit had been dug by the rushing water. I've not heard any word that there was poor maintenance or that the capacity of the spillway was exceeded.

So, how did Californians - citizens or government - "put themselves in this"?

Let me give a contrasting situation. California - citizens and government - have dug themselves a yugenormous financial pit of bond and pension debt. I'm sure you - and others on Oroville dam related threads - have seen my comments/pleas that you write your Congress-Critters, asking that they vote against any bail-out of CA finances. I do that because, even though I haven't voted for a bond measure in decades, and voted against the idiot-pols who played footsie with unions and juggled CA's books, California is responsible for the mess California created. And I'm a resident of California.

Hypothetically, I'd love for Trump to arm-twist and leg-twist Moonbeam into a limbless torso (metaphorically). In the real world even slight "persuasion" would all but certainly backfire yugely.

My statement is far more in line with your paragraph immediately below your question, than the paragraph immediately above it.  Oroville is a unique situation.  Let me give you one that is a lot like it, not too far from me, which not a lot of people know about.  It's called the Gilboa Dam, which is the northernmost dam in the New York City water system.  It's maybe 50 miles from me.  When Hurricane Irene hit in 2011, the weather reports for Gilboa indicated that the dam would be overtopped by a foot of water--until an hour before the storm hit.  Lo and behold, the weather report now said that the dam would be overtopped by eight feet.  (I got this directly from the engineer in charge of the dam operations.)  If the NYC Board of Water hadn't sunk half a billion dollars (I saw the paperwork as part of my job) into dam stabilization in the years before 2011, the dam would have catastrophically failed, wiping out several towns downstream before the water hit the Mohawk River, and the city of Schenectady would have had major flooding.  Damage would have easily reached a billion dollars.

If Oroville fails, of course we as a country should help out.  Just as if Gilboa had failed, it would have required a major, countrywide effort to clean up and restore the dam.  So will Oroville, on a much larger scale.

[SVPete]

My statement is far more in line with your paragraph immediately below your question, than the paragraph immediately above it.  Oroville is a unique situation.  Let me give you one that is a lot like it, not too far from me, which not a lot of people know about.  It's called the Gilboa Dam, which is the northernmost dam in the New York City water system.  It's maybe 50 miles from me.  When Hurricane Irene hit in 2011, the weather reports for Gilboa indicated that the dam would be overtopped by a foot of water--until an hour before the storm hit.  Lo and behold, the weather report now said that the dam would be overtopped by eight feet.  (I got this directly from the engineer in charge of the dam operations.)  If the NYC Board of Water hadn't sunk half a billion dollars (I saw the paperwork as part of my job) into dam stabilization in the years before 2011, the dam would have catastrophically failed, wiping out several towns downstream before the water hit the Mohawk River, and the city of Schenectady would have had major flooding.  Damage would have easily reached a billion dollars.

If Oroville fails, of course we as a country should help out.  Just as if Gilboa had failed, it would have required a major, countrywide effort to clean up and restore the dam.  So will Oroville, on a much larger scale.

It's not really a good analogy, BSS. Oroville Dam is more than 40 years newer and of very different construction. Gilboa Dam had to be upgraded in 2005, and again. more extensively, in 2013. Oroville Dam has not shown any need for upgrade or significant repair until this damage to the main spillway. And having lived in California since returning in the late 70s, I know it would have experienced as much or more stress during strings of major storms in winter 1996-1997, in winter 2004-2005 and in December-January, 2015-2016. IOW, had there been significant defects, they probably would have been found a decade or two ago ago.

So, no. Californians - citizens and government - did not "put themselves in this" situation. California doesn't control the weather. California did not fail to maintain the Oroville Dam. To date, I have heard zero claims of operational errors. BTW, between a respite in storms, the limited but significant use of the main spillway, the auxiliary spillway, and the normal operation of the hydroelectric plant, Lake Oroville is down to 101% capacity as of this afternoon. I posted two articles about this in the GD thread I started about this situation.

[I_B_Perky]

From what I read the main spillway's concrete eroded and now the emergency spillway's concrete has eroded. Says both are going to fail. Not sure exactly what that means or how it effects the dam. I saw a lot of water going down the emergency spillway in a video.

This article says the emergency spillway is gonna fail in the next hour. 

http://abc7news.com/news/evacuation-order-issued-after-oroville-dam-predicted-to-fail/1751364/

Now I have no idea how a spillway eroding and failing causes an entire dam to fail.... guess it does.

How I voted? Not one damn penny.  They are all yelling about seceding so let them see how it works when you are you own country.

[fatboy]

I think we could say that the engineers at the dam never thought that the emergency spillway would be put to use.

We have a dam in my township, literally a mile from my place (downhill from me). If it ever broke it would create havoc for sure. It also has a similar emergency spillway with no controls. The local police use the banks of this spillway as a pistol range. But in this case there isn't enough water coming into the lake to be a problem, only problem would be if the actual dam failed.

Since I'm a firefighter in the township and we do rescue we get a tour of the dam about every 3 years. Quite impressive even for a small dam that creates a 1000 acre lake. I have been up the spillway all the way to the inlet tower and have seen some of the gate valves that control the flow. It's about a quarter of a mile walk up the  pipe that carries the water, very weird experience.

Obviously the Army Corps of Engineers shuts off the water while we are in the spillway and their guys bring their own communications  system with them but they cannot shut the water flow completely off, not a lot of water but some flows now matter how hard they try to shut the valves off. We have a special wheeled cart that we can use to take rescue gear up the spillway if needed, the pipe is sort of egg shaped. Not an easy walk.

[Adam Wood]

1.) Are you aware that there are farmers in the Sacramento Valley, just as there are in the San Joaquin Valley? They irrigate their lands, too. And just as there are significant cities in the San Joaquin Valley, there are significant cities in the Sacramento Valley. Strangely, the residents of those Sacramento Valley cities drink water, too.

2.) Are you aware that, just as the Sacramento Valley is named for the Sacramento River, the San Joaquin Valley is named for the  San Joaquin River? And just as the Sacramento has tributaries like the American and Feather Rivers, the San Joaquin has at least one significant tributary, the Merced?

3.) Ever heard of the Delta Mendota Canal? It takes water from the Delta - much of it from the Sacramento River,obviously - all the way south into Fresno County (you know that's in the southern part of the Central Valley, right?).

4.) Are you aware that San Joaquin Valley farmers' drought of the past 5-10 years was court-ordered? By FEDERAL courts? Don't blame NorCal for that. Blame the Enviros and FEDERAL courts that used the Endangered Species Act to deny water to San Joaquin Valley farmers. ETA: BTW, if you were alluding to the long debated (5+ decades in various versions of the proposal) Peripheral Canal, this court order would have made it irrelevant, since the water would have come from the delta, whose salinity - suitability for the Delta Smelt - was the primary factor in this infamous court decision.

5.) Had you been less ignorant in your accusation, the tone of my response would not have been sarcastic. You drop your accusatory tone and I'll gladly drop my sarcasm. OK?

Relax.  The only ones I was "accusing" of anything are the enviroweenies who created the San Joaquin mess in the first place.  I'm well aware that those fruitcakes caused this problem in order to protect the pileated moonbat-darter or whatever it is.

I merely meant that as a lighthearted expression of their idiocy.  I was not making any sort of indictment of northern California.

[Delmar]

Wow.  I never saw this coming.

Mon Feb 13, 2017, 01:27 AM
Star Member itsrobert (13,445 posts)

President Bush and Gov Arnold ignore the warning and said no to Oroville Lake upgrade in 2005


http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/02/12/oroville-dam-feds-and-state-officials-ignored-warnings-12-years-ago/

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10028638878

Response to itsrobert (Original post)Mon Feb 13, 2017, 01:42 AM
Star Member AJT (234 posts)
2. Any reason Governor Brown

didn't revisit it?

[HAPPY2BME]

Now is a great time for them to secede.

Either that, or deport 25% of the state, which is comprised of illegal aliens from Mexico.

[SVPete]

Wow.  I never saw this coming.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10028638878
 

Had not heard of that. I'm nonplussed that the Enviros got something correct. Since it was a petition in a Federal re-licencing process, it would never have "risen" to Bush's or ARRRRRRRGHHHHnold's desk. But if DU-folk want to play the blame-game to that level of absurdity, Gubernor Moonbeam has had 6 years to fix the potential issue. Since ARRRRRRRGHHHHnold's first term as Gubernator was serving out Gray Davis' second term, he was in office little more that Moonbeam has.

(If it isn't somewhat obvious, I regard ARRRRRRRGHHHHnold and Moonbeam as CA's two worst Governors in the past century or so, if not in the state's history.)

[VelvetElvis]

Because of past practices we have taken on the obligation to save them. Somebody has to carry their worthless asses or none of the helpless losers would live to see adulthood.

OK, trying really, really hard....
Nope.
Still not seeing the downside of that.

[freedumb2003b]

1. As I said on another thread, this proposition has not even qualified for the ballot, let alone been voted on and passed. The MSM won't cover people who oppose that lunatic idea because we're boringly normal and because Trump. Just because the MSM won't show us doesn't mean we don't exist. So no one knows how many CA'ians are that stupid. Invalid premise, invalid conclusion.

2. As I said on another thread, CA'ians' share of Federal taxes went to "Assistance of a humanitarian nature" in the Gulf and Atlantic states (and Hawaii) when they were hit by hurricanes. CA'ians' share of Federal taxes went to aid central US states hit by tornados. CA'ians' share of Federal taxes went to aid central, northern, and northeastern US states hit by massive snowstorms. It's called being a state of the US, and CA has done its share.

3. While I'm confident of CA bureaucracy's ability to double or triple costs, the estimate I saw yesterday was $100M. Not pocket change, obviously, but an order of magnitude lower than "billions". But, since we're talking "billions", how much did Hurricane Katrina cost? How much damage was done in the 2013 Moore, OK tornado (hint, it's 10 figures)? Well, CA's taxpayers paid their share of "Assistance of a humanitarian nature".

1.) Are you aware that there are farmers in the Sacramento Valley, just as there are in the San Joaquin Valley? They irrigate their lands, too. And just as there are significant cities in the San Joaquin Valley, there are significant cities in the Sacramento Valley. Strangely, the residents of those Sacramento Valley cities drink water, too.

2.) Are you aware that, just as the Sacramento Valley is named for the Sacramento River, the San Joaquin Valley is named for the  San Joaquin River? And just as the Sacramento has tributaries like the American and Feather Rivers, the San Joaquin has at least one significant tributary, the Merced?

3.) Ever heard of the Delta Mendota Canal? It takes water from the Delta - much of it from the Sacramento River,obviously - all the way south into Fresno County (you know that's in the southern part of the Central Valley, right?).

4.) Are you aware that San Joaquin Valley farmers' drought of the past 5-10 years was court-ordered? By FEDERAL courts? Don't blame NorCal for that. Blame the Enviros and FEDERAL courts that used the Endangered Species Act to deny water to San Joaquin Valley farmers. ETA: BTW, if you were alluding to the long debated (5+ decades in various versions of the proposal) Peripheral Canal, this court order would have made it irrelevant, since the water would have come from the delta, whose salinity - suitability for the Delta Smelt - was the primary factor in this infamous court decision.

5.) Had you been less ignorant in your accusation, the tone of my response would not have been sarcastic. You drop your accusatory tone and I'll gladly drop my sarcasm. OK?

You realize very few people read long posts.

I stopped after 1.5

[SVPete]

You realize very few people read long posts.

I stopped after 1.5

OK. And if I have that much to say, should I mini-spam the thread with 5 consecutive posts ... and still be ignored after the second one? It's easy to raise a half dozen points worth discussion with a single sentence or clause. If no one has the attention span or interest to read the appropriate responses, why call this a discussion forum? I could draw a kpete analogy, but I think I've said as much as I should. Besides, this post now has 6 sentences.

[DumbAss Tanker]

You'd think all those drought years would've been a great time to fix the thing...

[HAPPY2BME]

You'd think all those drought years would've been a great time to fix the thing...

======================

[SVPete]

Mon Feb 13, 2017, 01:27 AM
Star Member itsrobert (13,445 posts)

President Bush and Gov Arnold ignore the warning and said no to Oroville Lake upgrade in 2005

http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/02/12/oroville-dam-feds-and-state-officials-ignored-warnings-12-years-ago/

"itsrobert" hereby displays his ignorance of ARRRRRGHHHHHHHNOLD. When it came to the Enviros, when they screamed "Jump!" The Adulterernator asked "How high?" on the way up. ARRRRRGHHHHHHHNOLD supported and defended (against Proposition 23, IIRC) every enviroreg that this driving CA businesses bankrupt or out of state.

[Ogre]

I voted no because piss-poor planning on California's part does not constitute an emergency for the federal government.

The State of illegals had ample opportunity to repair the causeway before it became a problem and failed to do so.

Maybe their jackass of a governor should use hope, prayer, and healing white light to correct the problem instead of dipping into other peoples wallets.

[catsmtrods]

I have to many good friends there. True decent conservatives. Happens they are all in northern Calif. away from the coast. Kinda like I am in this freak show called NY!   

[I_B_Perky]

I think we could say that the engineers at the dam never thought that the emergency spillway would be put to use.

Piss poor planning is what it is.  I live downstream from 3 dams on three different rivers. These three rivers eventually go into the one where I live. Anyone of them fail I'm river debris someone will find in the Ohio days later.  I can sympathize with those folks out in mexifornia downstream.

Back last year we had a similar situation where the main gates could not drain faster than what was coming in at one them. I thought to myself at the time what moron engineer come up with that idea?

Engineers... can't live without them, can't live with them.

[HAPPY2BME]

DRAMA (the DAM is not in danger of breaking, but this sells lots of news)

===========

California prepares for catastrophe: Battle continues to stop dam collapse that would drown the area under 100ft of water and sparked an evacuation of 200,000, leaving ghost towns behind

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4218388/Residents-near-Oroville-Dam-evacuated-flooding-fears.html