We know now that Oroville should have been upgraded; probably the Oroville, Folsom, and Nimbus Dams all should have been. BUT with what was known in 2009 the decision was more rational than the Free Beacon reports. Having lived through winter 1996-1997, that was a monster! There was massive flooding, sections of Interstate 5 were shut down, yada, yada, yada. In light of that, being 1 foot short of spilling over the auxiliary spillway would have been seen as a vindication of the designed capacity of the main spillway. And as I mentioned elsewhere, winter 2004-2005 was another monster, and again, a vindication of the dam design.
Folsom Lake is much smaller than Lake Oroville, so why would that be a particular concern? A look at a map provides a simple answer. Folsom lake is no mere pond, and immediately downstream is Lake Natomas, also man-made. The map would show something else. Lake Natomas is situated in suburbs of Sacramento. A failure of Folsom Dam would swiftly precipitate a failure of the Nimbus Dam, and massive flood waters would sweep into Sacramento and its suburbs. There is no ~60,000 acre Yolo Bypass type flood diversion area between Folsom Lake and Natomas Lake, nor between Natomas Lake and Fairoaks, Carmichael and Rancho Cordova. The Nimbus Dam is right at the border of the cities of Orangevale and Fairoaks, in those cities.
If you follow the map downstream, you see the American River flows near CSU Sacramento, and joins the Sacramento River just above the State Capitol (which, obviously, is surrounded by numerous government buildings). It also flows under the I-5 bridge over the American River, would probably affect the I-80 bridge over the Sacramento River, and under the I Street and Tower Bridges into Sacramento. If one puts sarcastic joking aside, a failure of the Folsom Dam could devastate the central hub of Interstate transportation through California. The next nearest east-west Interstates are in LA and Portland. US 50 would probably be shut down, and SR58 out of Bakersfield is not suitable for high volume traffic (I've driven it many times).
I'm not saying the decision made in 2009 was correct, only that the decision was not irrational, and that all 3 dams should have been upgraded. And if you can't tell, ignorant, armchair, 20-40 hindsight criticisms like this article - ignorance easily mitigated by staring at a map for 50 or 10 minutes - do get me a little POed.
Once again, one or two sentences of thoughtless ignorance - I'm not criticizing you, H2BM - takes a "lengthy post" to demonstrate the thoughtlessness and ignorance.
ETA: It occurred to me, in the Free Beacon article, the words "Good Shape" when used to describe Folsom Dam are in quotes, suggesting it was so described by some official document. How was the Oroville Dam described in the same or similar documents in 2009. Is this a dog-that-didn't-bark omission? An omission that makes the 2009 decision less irrational than the Free Beacon is suggesting?
