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

OOOPS... those last two posts are obviously AM.

QUESTION:

There is a before/after picture of some waterway out west that shows how the water level dropped significantly. EDIT: it's a lake or something.

Is this near CA?

Wondering what it looks like NOW , if anyone can find out. I'll look for the original picture

Last Edited by AquaBrat on 03/21/2017 08:29 AM

Dawn is coming soon. What will we see?

a bunch of water

6AM:

Elevation: 849.25
Outflows: 45,611
Inflows: 27,123
River Rel.: 46,616

Outflows still steadily declining...

Once the MS gnaws back to the flatter portion, there will be less plume as there won't be much of a drop off. It will erode back to the gate structure pretty quick as the sub base is just loose tailings. Lack of rebar won't help matters.

7AM:

Elevation: 849.22
Outflows: 45,616
Inflows: 34,187
River Rel.: 46,273

The ca dwr twitter page says 40k cfs release from MS and 6540 cfs from Hyatt power planet. This tells the river channel is still open because the power plant is operating. The reduced CFS of the spillway suggest that maybe 50k was pushing too much debris into the diversion pool. With 40k they can still drain the lake and prevented the pool from rising and blocking the power plant outlet .

When they dredged that river, they removed a lot of earth, which should let the land further up come crashing down.

No, they don't have those cool sirens like the East Coast does for emergency's. The lady I work with Father helped build the dam & she believes completely that it will hold. The workers haven't really been seen around town at all. I have no idea where they stay. I live in downtown, which you'd think you'd see a lot of new people, but they are coming and going the back way, off of 70 & 162.
For me there are so many things that could go wrong with the spillway, but I am mostly concerned with the mountain. I keep wondering about saturation. I mean how long will it be before the entire mountain is just saturated and begin slides? They aren't in a position to "fix" anything, they are operating strictly on "risk mitigation". Normally the mountain "saturation" would have never happened, except now the 48 cfms are simply hitting the mountain, not the spillway. They have no choice but to open and close all spring run off. No matter what it's going to be a rough 6 months, but I think any earth movement, will end the debate. We had for the first time that I can remember that 2.0 EQ in Chico a week or so ago, and then in Durham. So earth movement or a sudden burst of one of the upper dams are my main concerns, as well as saturation of upper mountain pulling on spillway. I probably have this saturation thing blown out of proportion, but I can't help but think of a napkin spread out on a cone with the bottom of it in water and feeling eventually it will work its way up and soak the entire thing, after all there is a lot of "dirt" in between those huge bedrock holding the dam up. I'm ready as I ever will be to "go". Their evacuation plan for us seems pretty stupid to me also. Half of us are suppose to go North towards Chico, and half towards Gridley/Yuba City South.
There is no way I would go South, that's "lower" than here. And btw, that cement driver ( that poor man that lost his life ), what people may not know about Hwy 70 is that there are stretches from Marysville to Oroville on 70 that have run-off ditches. These run-off ditches are REALLY close to the highway, its a 2 lane highway there and the run off ditches run along side the highway and are at least 3-4 feet deep. My good friend was turning into her driveway off of 70, missed her driveway hit the ditch and wound up upside down in her car. The ditches are 3-4 deep and about 3 ft wide. They always scare me driving, cause one false move, like stopping to swerve for an animal, could land you in one of those ditches. It's a stupid design, and I'm guessing something to that effect happened to that poor driver. So again, going South on 70, during an evacuation, for me, FORGET IT.

I wish everyone would boycott the 2020 Olympics. That's why Japan is forcing people to move back and be radiated. Fuck the Olympics and a HUUUUGE Fuck Tempco.

The path of least resistance, buddy boy. The path of least resistance!

Thanks for the further details.

Interesting...no contact with locals allowed, I suppose?

I am not sure what you're concern with "saturation" is about, can you explain what you mean by that? I mean, this is a dam, so isn't it usually saturated?

8AM:

Elevation: 849.07
Outflows: 45,550
Inflows: 31,089
River Rel.: 46,355

I drove 70 every day to and from work for 12 years. I had several close calls, went into the ditch twice to avoid being hit head on, witnessed many accidents and watched a couple of people die. I WILL NOT drive on 70 any more between Oroville/Marysville. Period.

I am south of Oroville at the eastern edge of 'evacuation zone 10'. The most direct evacuation route for us would be east toward Bangor. Because that road floods when it rains, they want us to head north (toward the dam) when evacuating. How stupid is that?

new storms coming?

It is raining pretty hard right now.

[link to radar.weather.gov (secure)]

expected to be a big storm? Is it going to threaten the dam?

It depends on what kind of runoff and snowmelt it generates in the mountains. it is supposed to rain off and on for the next several days. The storms coming in don't look that wet as far as I know, but there is lots of snow that could melt and contribute to the inflow into the lake.

9AM:

Elevation: 848.90
Outflows: 45,529
Inflows: 20,556
River Rel.: 46,415

Outflows have been decreasing slightly
And inflows have increased slightly in last 24 hours as rain total increased

We have seen it before. When the lake level was dropped after the ES topple. The outflows decreases water level decreases on the gates. Prevents erosion on the lake side of the main spillway.

How much rain has fallen in recent hours? The water level in the lake is dropping and -- the pond is back. WHAT? I've watched the dam camera and don't think the amount of rain that has fallen can account for the ponds reappearance. Where is the water coming from?

10AM:

Elevation: 848.89
Outflows: 45,458
Inflows: 28,573
River Rel.: 46,524

11AM:

Elevation: 848.86
Outflows: 45,559
Inflows: 40,836
River Rel.: 45,863

New INFLOW HIGH since the emergency of February.

here we go...


:omnomnom:

That's a great animation. Very fitting

Just for comparison purposes, I C&P'd this info on Niagara Falls:

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"There are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of waterfalls around the world that are higher than Niagara Falls. It is not the height, but the width and volume of water that makes Niagara so spectacular. American and Bridal Veil Falls are about 1060 ft. (323 m) across, and the Horseshoe Falls is about 2600 ft. (793 m) across in width (approx. 3660 ft. / 1116 m total width). The amount of water going over the falls is controlled by dams, and much of it is diverted for hydro-electric power. From Apr-Oct, 100,000 cubic ft. per second (2832 m3/sec) go over Niagara Falls during the day, and 50,000 cfs (1416 m3/sec) at night. From Nov-Mar, 50,000 cfs go over the falls at all times. If there was no water diverted for power, the average flow over Niagara Falls would be about 212,000 cfs (6003 m3/sec). There is a noticeable difference in the flow between the day and night. One wonders how much more awesome Niagara Falls would be if it could be seen at full force, which is no longer possible because of the water diversion."


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So, during the night, about the same volume of water races down that MS (which is about 150' wide) as what goes over all the three falls of Niagara Falls, which is 3660' wide.

the scene of the Train Wreck at the MS will not hold-up much longer.