Oroville Dam...DWR gambled with the lives of millions, and has probably lost.

All spring I've been talking about the fact that the decision by California's Department of Water Resources (DWR) to go ahead and--as their favorite on-line commentator/cheerleader Juan Browne likes to say-- "fill 'er up" was foolhardy, grossly negligent, and built solely on the expectation there would be no rain event, or upstream reservoir/dam failures.

(The "repaired" main spillway that should have been running for weeks now. Image courtesy of sanfransisco.cbslocal.com.)

Well, now, they are going to be dealing, potentially, with both. A major rain event begins tomorrow, and is now predicted to dump 4" or more in the catchment area. Then comes this:

https://www.sacbee.com/news/state/california/water-and-drought/article164021327.html

Here is an excerpt:

"At least one of the dams on DWR’s list has attracted attention from area residents. Robert Eberhardt, a Chico X-ray technician, grew concerned when he was boating on Lake Almanor on the Feather River earlier this year and examined Almanor’s spillway.

He said the spillway appeared to be crumbling in places. Photos he shot with his cellphone and shared with The Sacramento Bee appear to show cracks, places where cracks had been filled but the fill material was crumbling away, and even a small cedar tree growing out of the concrete. The lake can hold 1.3 million acre-feet of water, or 300,000 acre-feet more than Folsom.

Eberhardt said he feared that if the spillway was ever used, it could wash away and threaten the integrity of the main earthen dam. 'The entire lake would drain into Oroville Lake and it would happen overnight,' Eberhardt said.

A 2016 annual inspection report compiled by the Division of Safety of Dams noted some “freeze-thaw” damage to the concrete floor, but inspectors said the chute walls were stable and “the structure remains in satisfactory condition for continued use."

(The Lake Almanor cracked spillway. Courtesy of ktvn.com.)

A million acre feet of water entering Lake Oroville in a short period would lead to a catastrophic failure of the entire dam. First, it is likely that the emergency spillway area would be overtopped by 15-20 feet of hard rushing water causing it's new concrete armor to fail and causing it to erode back to its base. When that happens, the entire emergency spillway structure goes, and then the gates at the main spillway, and as the erosion keeps cutting back that whole area, both spillways totally fail, and then the erosion will eventually work its way to the main dam face.

If DWR were not desperately trying to "save face" by refusing to admit/show the public that their $1.3 million "repair" of the main spillway was a failure, they would have been running the MS HARD to keep water levels at around 850' JUST IN CASE what we now know is GOING TO HAPPEN were to happen...i.e. a long and heavy rain event of several inches and day's duration.

DWR's public announcement a couple weeks ago that they would start running the main spillway at 894'--just 7' below the involuntary overtopping of the emergency spillway (a CRAZY DECISION UNDER ANY SCENARIO) is a BLATANT ADMISSION that the MS is already well into failure mode...not to mention the MS gates that are leaking like a sieve.

(The repaired dam during safer times. Image courtesy of kbfk.iheart.com.)

The latter half of this week COULD be a very, very bad time for the folks of the Central Valley, and for America's food supply.

This could be the straw that break the camel's back of our still weak (despite the trumpeted figures) economy.

DWR should start running the main spillway at 100,000CFS RIGHT NOW...let it blow like it did two years ago, and hope that the top section does not erode back to the gates, the way it DIDN'T two years ago. Of course, all the tearing into that hillside that accompanied the "repairs" may have given DWR more information regarding the likelihood of that top section surviving heavy usage than we have available to us.

STILL, doing it NOW is still better than doing it later..OR HAVING IT DONE TO YOU.