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

When do you think Oroville will spill its load into the Central Valley?

BTW, You are aware that will kill that land forever, don't you?

Yhere's not another piece of land like that in the entire world.

I remember 2 years ago when they first opened the spillway it started falling apart soon after. Chunks started flying.

Could be, but there's more re-bar reinforcing the new slabs than there was in the old one.

The major rain starts on Thursday and goes all weekend!
Poor fools. Spillway will blow chunks.

Rebar does not stop cavitation.....

HEY BUDDY...I LIKE YER DHOOM-ATTITUDE!...

Yas. Major doom cometh.

When do you think Oroville will blow its load into the Central Valley?

THIS SPRING, SUMMER, FALL, OR EVEN EARLY TO MID WINTER...
WATCH THE WEATHER SYSTEMS AND THE LEVELS...AND THE TEMPS.

If you watch the lower spillway cam you will see that the spillway flanges out at the very end. However, you will notice that the water is smashing into the side flanges as it hits the 'concrete teeth' at the bottom.
The water is coming down at 8,300 cfs … and there is no way the concrete flanges will be able to withstand the pounding water at a force of 30,000 or 40,000 cfs
Those concrete flanges will soon wobble and bust into chunks and then the destruction will continue along the wall all the way up the spillway. The side walls will disintegrate starting from the bottom all the way up to top.

Those engineers were on meth.

I agree..you notice the brown mud kicking up in that pool at the bottom?

Cavitation Resonance

Forecasters said another system is due to arrive on Thursday April 4, again bringing light showers.

Late Friday, a Pacific front is forecast to approach Northern California. The National Weather Service said that system will bring widespread rain and snow to the higher elevations across the region.

CHP Oroville
‏ @CHP_Oroville
17m17 minutes ago

CHP Oroville Retweeted CA - DWR

Link to a *VERY* cool drone video of the spillway being opened [link to youtu.be (secure)]
[link to twitter.com (secure)]

There is a thing called hydrostatic uplift that can bring down dams. It happened in 1928 with the St Francis dam above Los Angeles. Hundreds of people drowned. It happens when the bedrock is not as solid as they thought when the dams are built into it. Fractures and ancient faults lie within the rocks. Water seeps in when the lakes fill up and the rocks can lift up, or lift up cement.

Sad, long, but fascinating:

[link to web.mst.edu (secure)]

Not saying this will happen here, but the bedrock under the Oroville spillway sure looked pretty ratty in the various old photographs I've seen. Not a geologist but just saying. It is one of the things Scott Cahill has harped on...the piping through the rock under the gates, as distinct from seepage through the actual earth dam.

Magnificent footage. Thank you.

Magnificent footage. Thank you.

That was a beautiful story!

What will it take to punch out the teeth of the spillway. What will it take for the spillway to start throwing slabs away like they're garbage? What about that green wet spot? What ill it take to have water shooting out of it like a water cannon?

Please, please, please .... give us your most miserable forecast!

That was a beautiful story!

What will it take to punch out the teeth of the spillway. What will it take for the spillway to start throwing slabs away like they're garbage? What about that green wet spot? What ill it take to have water shooting out of it like a water cannon?

Please, please, please .... give us your most miserable forecast!

Well... the DWR said they will increase outflow up to 60,000 cfs within a week. That means the spillway will be cranked up from 8,300 cfs to 50,000 cfs which is an increase of 600% of water!!!
There is no way in heck those tiny little concrete walls will be able to withsatnd 50,000 cfs of water. There will be no concrete side walls when they open the tap up and let down 50,000 cfs of water.
Bye bye spillway.
I say the walls start falling apart at 30,000 cfs of water.

well, the assumption is that the Engineers know what they are doing
and they have built this new spillway the way it is supposed to be.

so, we have to assume that everything is just peachy.

We talked a great deal about that....in the beginning.

The entire thing vibrates too much.

That's good for a start. Now really start pouring on the doom! Chop! Chop!

5 PM NUMBERS!

That is certainly some stunning drone footage, very well done, it's mesmerizing. At about 4:00 when the water comes off the foot of the spillway for the first time, you can see 3 animals swim away fast, I guess they must be otters.

Well I heard on the news the new spillway can handle 270K CFS, we only saw like 8K today.

I think that in the feeble attempt to escape the bernoulli effect on a large scale they waltzed straight into the wave theory. Just like a tuned header they tried to optimize flow. But that, like a header only works at a specific rate. Every flow zone outside of that results in shitty flow and turbulence. And ironically you end up with the bernoulli effect in macro, working in hundreds of places instead of one area.

Then with such transient vibrations you'll inevitably cross a resonant frequency of a crucial area and it crumbles all over again.

This spillway should have been divided into three or more runs to isolate the water on a slope of this scale. But then it wouldn't look as grand.

Drone footage is great!
Just look at all the cracks on the hill to the left and along the left side of middle spillway area.

well, maybe they missed that class?