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Asshole liberals already trying to blame Trump - "The Oroville Dam Crisis Exposes the Flaws in Trump's Infrastructure Plan"

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"A near-disaster in California probably wouldn’t be averted by 
the kind of privatized investment that the president has in 
mind."

Tens of thousands of residents fled Oroville, California, on 
Sunday after water levels surged over a spillway at the Oroville 
Dam. Traffic jams reigned on highways leading north from 
Oroville, where officials ordered people to evacuate at 4:45 p.m.

Oroville families, who made their way to the Silver Dollar 
Fairgrounds in Chico and other staging areas, face uncertainty 
in the coming days. By late Sunday night, water from Lake 
Oroville was no longer rushing over the top of the dam’s 
emergency spillway, thanks to efforts by California water 
authorities to increase the flow of water out of the reservoir. 
But the spillways sustained damage during Sunday’s flooding. 
Officials are attempting to measure that damage as they consider 
next steps.

“The dam is solid,” said Bill Croyle, acting director for the 
California state Department of Water Resources, during a press 
conference. “The control structure has been damaged.”

The problems started last Tuesday, when a hole opened up in the 
Oroville Dam’s primary spillway. The collapse in this main, 
concrete-lined spillway led authorities to take an unprecedented 
step by the end of the week, as heavy storms mounted. On 
Saturday, the state water agency opened up the dam’s emergency 
spillway for the first time ever. Its collapse would have sent a 
“30-foot wall of water” crashing out of the lake reservoir, 
according to the Los Angeles Times. The emergency spillway, also 
described as the auxiliary spillway, is more or less a hill that 
drains down into the Feather River.

Sunday’s floodwaters proved too much for the emergency spillway. 
The hill suffered erosion so severe that it threatened to 
undermine a concrete portion running over the top of the 
spillway. Had this part of the emergency spillway failed as 
waters rushed over it, it would have spelled disaster for 
communities downstream—a threat that prompted Sunday’s 
evacuation order.

The Department of Water Resources succeeded in tamping down the 
water levels and saving the emergency spillway by increasing the 
outflow of the main spillway—despite its giant gash—from 55,000 
cubic feet per second to 100,000 cubic feet per second on 
Sunday. Asking more of the main, compromised flood-control 
structure, however, was not a decision without risks, especially 
for the dam’s Hyatt Powerplant.

“It was a tough call to make,” Croyle said. “It was the right 
call to make to protect the public.”

Croyle said that the agency hopes to drain 1.2 million acre feet 
of water from the reservoir on Monday and draw down water levels 
by 50 feet. This will be a tall order, even if the dry weather 
holds.

The heavy storms in Northern California that precipitated the 
flooding herald the very beginning of what promises to be a wet 
season for California. When the snowpack begins to melt, the 
Oroville Dam’s spillways will need to be in good working order 
to protect communities downstream. Oroville may have escaped the 
worst, but the crisis is not yet over. And a near-disaster in 
Oroville could still augur other crises the U.S. will face if it 
does not make good on the deferred maintenance costs of its 
aging infrastructure.

For the more than 100,000 residents who were forced to evacuate 
their communities, this crisis was long in the making. In 2005, 
three environmental organizations—the Friends of the River, the 
South Yuba Citizens League, and the Sierra Club—warned federal 
officials that the earthen emergency spillway wasn’t capable of 
handling extreme flooding. But on the recommendation of state 
officials who balked at the cost of paving the emergency 
spillway, the feds tabled the matter, The Mercury News reports.

Nationwide, the federal government has invested relatively 
little on dams and levees. The 2009 stimulus bill provided $290 
million for flood-prevention projects and another $490 million 
for repairing infrastructure projects, including dams, on Native 
American reservations. The federal government spends at least as 
much on flood recovery as it does on flood prevention.

Just before President Donald Trump’s inauguration, President 
Barack Obama managed to attach his name to a major water 
infrastructure spending initiative. In December, Obama signed 
the Water Infrastructure Improvements for the Nation Act into 
law, authorizing hundreds of millions of dollars for water 
infrastructure projects around the country. The bill further 
enables the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to pursue certain 
prescribed projects, including the construction of levees in the 
Sacramento River floodplain (which entails the Feather River).

One provision under the bill that may pertain to the Oroville 
Dam is a section that calls on the administrator of the Federal 
Emergency Management Agency to establish a grant program for 
identifying and rehabilitating “high hazard potential dams.” Of 
the nation’s 87,359 dams (as of 2013), about 17 percent (14,726 
dams) are classified as high hazard potential—meaning that 
failure would result in loss of human life.

This index only reflects the consequences of dam failure, not 
the circumstances of dams; so it does not mean that 17 percent 
of dams are in failing condition. But if any of these dams does 
fail, the effects are bound to be catastrophic.

The Oroville Dam is working as expected. Even so, the failure of 
peripheral dam structures—one or both of the spillways—could 
have disastrous consequences for the economy and environment. 
State and federal officials passed on the opportunity to take 
preventative action to upgrade these structures, improvements 
that would have cost tens to hundreds of millions of dollars. 
Now that both spillways have sustained damage, the improvements 
are instead damage control. The costs to communities are still 
being tolled.

Upgrading the Oroville Dam spillways isn’t a project that fits 
neatly into Trump’s $1 trillion prescription for infrastructure 
spending. So far, Trump’s plan largely means privatizing 
infrastructure development through the use of tax credits. 
Armoring the Oroville Dam’s emergency spillway isn’t the kind of 
investment likely to lure profit-minded private developers.

But this work is absolutely necessary to protect communities 
near dams—to say nothing of the bridges, water pipes, and other 
aging systems that serve Americans. If infrastructure investment 
in the Trump era means widening highways and nothing more, 
communities will pay dearly once the bill comes due for the 
projects the government neglects.

http://www.citylab.com/politics/2017/02/oroville-dam-flooding-
california-infrastructure/516417/

--
More than a decade ago, federal and state officials and some of 
California’s largest water agencies rejected concerns that the 
massive earthen spillway at Oroville Dam — at risk of collapse 
Sunday night and prompting the evacuation of 185,000 people — 
could erode during heavy winter rains and cause a catastrophe.

Those agencies included the Metropolitan Water District of 
Southern California, which provides water to 19 million people 
in Los Angeles, San Diego and other areas, along with the State 
Water Contractors, an association of 27 agencies that buy water 
from the state of California through the State Water Project. 
The association includes the Metropolitan Water District, Kern 
County Water Agency, the Santa Clara Valley Water District and 
the Alameda County Water District.
 

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Asshole liberals already trying to blame Trump - "The Oroville Dam Crisis Exposes the Flaws in Trump's Infrastructure Plan" "But But Sanctuary Cities! Disaster Declaration! Federal Funds! FEMA! Trump!" <morons@sfchronicle.com> - 2017-02-14 07:29 +0100

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