California let's worry about every other thing except infrastructure!

[SASKFARMER3]

Ah let's look at California this isn't about trump.

It's about a liberal voting public that thinks peace love and make belief work. Forget about building infrastructure and boom you have this.

Stars will probably blame trump

Oh wait agstar already is!

[bucket]

Agstar77

I agree but I don't think the neglect fell under Trumps short watch....but I bet he's paying more attention to it than the previous administration.....he talked about repairing infrastructure during the campaign....

Trudeau would tax it.

[blackjack]

I would put this one on the terminator,Arnie

[agstar77]

The majority of dams in the U.S. are privately owned. Large dams are regulated and controlled by the Federal Government. So , yes it is Trumps problem now. He has said little about infrastructure since he was elected other than pipelines where he has a major investment.

[bucket]

I don't think he will ignore the commerce created by that dam. .......

[dmlfarmer]

I disagree with many of the comments on here. First, northern California has not had "normal" rainfall as S3 claims. From Oct 1 (start of water year) until mid January rainfall has been 218% of normal. And a recent measurement in area of dam shows 292% of normal precipitation over just 4 months.

Second, I would like someone to back up the claim that the problem of the dam is structural rather than as a result of erosion of the amount of water that is having to be released to prevent overflow. The emergency spillway is operating for the first time ever, as it should with excessive water being contained. All reports I have read blame the dam problems on erosion due to the volume and speed of the water rather than say a crack in the dam.

Third, science tells us that climate change will cause more extreme weather events and more often. Is that not what this is. For to northern California to go from 6 years of drought to a year with 3 times normal rainfall sounds rather extreme.

To blame this on anyone other than nature is equivalent to blaming Saskatchewan farmers for the excessive rainfall they have experienced for the last 10 years or so.

[bucket]

The photos show the hole in the spillway.

The whole purpose of water agencies is to monitor the moisture. The lake itself was down quite a bit so they plenty of time to release excess flows long before it was sucharged a flow to rip the spillway apart.

There is a little bit of incompetence with this incident than to blame it on nature....

[rockpile]

dml - thank-you. A fact checker and everything you said is correct. Agstar - the Oroville Damn was built and is owned by the California Department of Water Resources and 100% paid for with state money. blackjack - you could be onto something there. Problems have been detected since the early 2000's and repairs done including the 2013 undercut that caused the hole every seems to be talking. But no one ever understood what might happen if it got used under circumstances like these. The 2013 Bow River floods caught a whole lot of people off guard because that much water at once was deemed out of the realm of possibility.

[furrowtickler]

The spill way failed at less than 50% capacity .
It was designed to handle 200,000 cfs
It was at less than 100,000 when the failure occurred. That's a structural problem.
They tried to keep the water outflow around 50,000 so not cause further damage to the spillway , forcing water to go over the emergency spill way for the first time .
So yes it was failure of maintenance that led to a potentially bad situation .
They should be able to drain enough out before the next rain event . But they will not have much time to repair any damage .

[bucket]

Well maybe the climate change theorists should write a new formula for the new realities....and maybe someone should wake up.


We have a valley here that was dry in the summer and they have dumped water thru it all winter for no good reason.

[sumdumguy]

When it's dry for so long, it is normal to not worry about flooding. Let's not go too hard on them. They are busy organizing the next protest.

[Oliver88]

CNBC just had some guests on to discuss infrastructure and the Northern California dam situation.
There is no way to summarize this dam failure other than INCOMPETENCE.
Countless large Government agencies involved for years that all knew there was a structural issue with this dam.
Bickering agencies can't agree on a plan so nothing was done.
Permits and regulations to FIX infrastructure is onerous and has several year timelines impeded on action from taking place.