California's Lake Oroville Main Spillway Severely Damaged/Eroded. Oroville Dam's Recently Reconstructed Main Spillway Fundamentally Flawed

Not that I've heard. Hot spots on the north side of North Complex fire today, but it seems to have stopped proceeding southwest right at Lake Oroville - as shown on map:

[link to www.facebook.com (secure)]

Weird... I could have sworn I saw a picture posted somewhere of the whole general area around the emergency spillway burning. Camera angle from across the river. This would have been from yesterday or the day before. The spillway itself was visible on the right side of the image. None of the fire maps show that area as burnt. Maybe an old image? Was there ever a fire there before?

there was one here maybe a couple weeks ago. I assume that fire is out now.

Hey guys, do not miss reading this one:

[link to www.wired.com (secure)]

If you are the kind of person who does not read long articles, read this one anyway. It is perhaps the most significant piece on the central valley situation I've ever read. They are due for another "ark storm" and the O dam won't hold.



The Great Flood of 1861–1862 was a preview of what scientists expect to see again, and soon.

the ARkStorm scenario is a cautious approximation; a megastorm that matches 1862 or its relatively recent antecedents could plausibly bury the entire Central Valley underwater, northern tip to southern. As the report puts it: “Six megastorms that were more severe than 1861–1862 have occurred in California during the last 1800 years, and there is no reason to believe similar storms won’t occur again.”

near the end.....In the wake of the 2017 near-disaster at Oroville, state agencies spent more than $1 billion repairing the damaged dam and bolstering it for future storms. Just as work was being completed in fall 2018, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission assessed the situation and found that a “probable maximum flood”—on the scale of the ArkStorm—would likely overwhelm the dam. FERC called on the state to invest in a “more robust and resilient design” to prevent a future cataclysm. The state’s Department of Water Resources responded by launching a “needs assessment” of the dam’s safety that’s due to wrap up in 2020.

Who thinks the state will invest in a more robust and resilient design??? LOL....except that it isn't funny.

Does this look like it?

[link to imgur.com (secure)]

Don't know the user or actual date of the picture, just that it was posted there around the 19th.

Almost looks shopped. I'm not seeing the concrete e-spillway and there wouldn't be that much fire around/on it. Looks like the old dirt version with all the brush, but spots of the fire seem to close to the top. Maybe just perspective.

I've been following Three Gorges Dam (nothing happened) and saw that the original design engineers - U.S. not Chinese - also used unrealistically low probable maximum flood values for the Yangtze River based on the last couple of hundred years of history. The floods this year were near the 1000-year estimate and the dam has only been there for a decade.

Oroville's design PMFs were based on recorded precipitation values that only went back to 1890. I'm sure they knew about the great flood decades before that, but didn't have measurements for the Feather River basin that far back.

The spillway is there... in it. old pic now.

That was the Potters fire a couple of weeks ago. It burned right up to the main spillway wall as well as right down to the boat launch parking lot.

You can't really see the E spillway from that perspective.

If you can ever get the lower spillway cam to actually load, you can see the areas burned.

[link to www.parks.ca.gov (secure)]

748.96 47% FULL AND @ 75% OF HISTORICAL AVERAGE....IT WAS AS LOW AS 748.76

IT DROPPED 3.25 FEET IN 16 DAYS.

THIS LOOKS SERIOUS! UH.

747.07..STILL DROPPING! UH.

DROPPED APPROX. 2 FEET IN A WEEK!

745.74
NEW DATA ANY SECOND...STILL DROPPING IT LIKE CRAZY!

46% FULL

75% OF HIST ORICAL AVERAGE

745.70 NOW!

DROPPED OVER A FOOT AND A HALF IN TWO DAYS..

RIGHT ABOUT 1.66 FEET. UH!

MORE LIKE A FOOT AND A THIRD....PERHAPS TWO-FIFTHS.

I was reading about CA moving to all electric cars by 2035, and the serious lack of adequate and reliable electricity for charging.

You'd think they would do everything possible to keep this dam going for power supply. They could have spent the last six months grouting the leaks in the spillway hill, and trying to fix the gates. But nothing.

I guess they need the money to provide free hormones and chop it off treatments for trans kids.

Yeah, all electric vehicles by 2035 and they cannot even keep the lights on now. Laughable.

From what I have read, 100% of the power generated by Oroville Dam powers the California Water Project. None is for domestic or commercial use. It takes a lot of power to move that water from the Sac Delta down the aqueduct through the central valley and up over the Tehachapi mountains into So Cal. As I understand, that is where all of the Oroville Dam power goes.

We could be blacked out here right under the dam, but DWR needs to keep that water moving to the So Cal swimming pools and golf courses. Gotta keep the Hollywood Elite happy.

Of course it looks serious, because it is.

And the 'Oroville Dam Needs Assessment' mentioned in the article contains lots of blacked out, redacted information 'due to security'. DWR doesn't want anyone to know the obvious - that the main spillway gate structure is severely deteriorated and hanging by a thread.

Another large storm with the reservoir at full elevation could cause the entire thing to be washed downhill. But they would rather just evacuate people and let it fail rather than fixing it.

Thankfully, I have high ground just two miles east, where I will sit and watch the shitshow unfold.

Here is a link to the actual 'Oroville Dam Needs Assessment' from DWR. I have posted it here before.

You'll never find the actual document in a web search, because DWR has cleverly named it 'Tribal Informational Meeting Update on Delta Conveyance Meeting Package'. I am not joking.

[link to water.ca.gov (secure)]

Look for the redacted information (in this public document) beginning on page 8.

there is much more going on than the above to fix and it cannot be fixed... it concerns the dam itself and not the spillways and gates. .construction errors during building.. the dam itself will fail... when.. who knows.

doing spillway work will not fix the interior of the dam. But of course there is leakage thru and under the long area the spill way is on..

Interesting.

So, the dam really needs a high capacity low level outlet or two to drain water in an emergency. Maybe in the abutments.

The dam really really needs this. The Hyatt power plant is not adequate.

This needs to be done to have a safe dam.

Are they actually doing it?

Lol.

Sorry Crunch. Hope you get a dry winter.

744.16

46 PERCENT FULL AND 74 % OF HISTORICAL AVERAGE! DHOOM. UH.

The abutments are what was screwed up during construction.

741.43

45% FULL AND 74% OF HIST. AVG. UH.

IN APPROX. 7.5 DAYS IT HAS DROPPED APPROX. 2.75 FEET! HOW LOW CAN IT GO....?!...

741.34

NEW DATA IN 5 MINS...

WHAT WOULD 10/13 BE WITHOUT ...OROVILLE!

741.31

it has dropped ...1/10TH OF A FOOT IN 3 DAYS! DOOM.