Posts
Expert:
What You Need To Know About The Oroville Dam Crisis
And
why our entire national dam system is as vulnerable
To
make sense of the fast-developing situation at California's Oroville
Dam, Chris spoke today with Scott Cahill, an expert with 40 years of
experience on large construction and development projects on hundreds
of dams, many of them earthen embankment ones like the dam at
Oroville. Scott has authored numerous white papers on dam management,
he's a FEMA trainer for dam safety, and is the current owner of
Watershed Services of Ohio which specializes in dam projects across
the eastern US. Suffice it to say, he knows his "dam"
stuff.
Scott
and Chris talk about the physics behind the failing spillways at
Oroville, as well as the probability of a wider-scale failure from
here as days of rain return to California.
Sadly,
Scott explains how this crisis was easily avoidable. The points of
failure in Oroville's infrastructure were identified many years ago,
and the cost of making the needed repairs was quite small -- around
$6 million. But for short-sighted reasons, the repairs were not
funded; and now the bill to fix the resultant damage will likely be
on the order of magnitude of over $200 million. Which does not factor
in the environmental carnage being caused by flooding downstream
ecosystems with high-sediment water or the costs involved with
evacuating the 200,000 residents living nearby the dam.
Oh,
and of course, these projected costs will skyrocket higher should a
catastrophic failure occur; which can't be lightly dismissed at this
point.
Scott
explains to Chris how this crisis is indicative of the neglect
rampant across the entire US national dam system. Oroville is one of
the best-managed and maintained dams in the country. If it still
suffered from too much deferred maintenance, imagine how vulnerable
the country's thousands and thousands of smaller dams are. Trillions
of dollars are needed to bring our national dams up to satisfactory
status. How much else is needed for the country's roads, railsystems,
waterworks, power grids, etc?
Both
Chris and Scott agree that individuals need to shoulder more personal
responsibility for their safety than the government advises, as --
let's face it -- the government rarely admits there's a problem until
it's an emergency. Katrina, Fukushima, Oroville -- we need to
critically parse the information being given to us when the
government and media say 'it's all under control', as well as have
emergency preparations already in place should swift action be
necessary.
Dutchsinse is foreseeing an earthquake
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.