Opinion: Current worries about Oroville are legit
Jim Stone
There are significant worries about the new spillway at Oroville, which can cause the entire dam to collapse with ease. They are:
1. Water leaking out the base of the dam (never a good thing).
2. Dirt coming out of drain pipes under the spillway, which should be totally clean water. If there is dirt, there is erosion, UNDER the spillway.
3. Water coming up between the slabs on the spillway. This means water can get under the slabs and lift them up.
4. Some slabs have already lifted enough to cause concern.
5. When tested, the entire spillway started to oscillate at a low frequency, thus causing them to shut it down before it shook itself apart.
6. Gates in such bad condition they cannot be shut off well enough to allow repair people to walk on the spillway without channeling the water away from where they are working.
7. An enormous snowpack in the mountains.
8. A dam with water 900 feet deep that has been allowed to get to less than 20 feet of overtopping, with a large amount of water on the way.
I am not ready to say it is going to blow yet, however, if there were no problems with the spillway, they should have been releasing water 65 feet ago. Why did they not do this? That sure looks suspicious.
Let's all hope the points above are only doom, they really do have it under control, and will be able to let it rip when needed, without consequence. One way or another, we are going to know, very soon. The water will definitely overtop this week or next week if they don't start using that spillway.
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