Oroville, CA emergency evacuation

The Oroville dam is an earthen dam, with only a minimal amount of concrete as a core. The regular spillway is concrete, but it is in such a horrible state of disrepair (a pothole 200'x100') that it can not run at full capacity for long periods of time. The damaged concrete spillway is causing massive erosion in the hillside that is threatening the stability of the main dam. The emergency (failsafe) spillway is similar to water running over the edge of a bath tub. There is no concrete in the failsafe spillway and it has never once been used or tested since the dam was built in '68. The erosion caused by the failsafe is now at levels that were thought to be impossible by the dam's engineers. Basically, this would be a non-issue if the regular concrete spillway had been properly maintained (did i mention the hole in the concrete is over 200'x100'!!!!). This is a direct result of gross negligence by California. Also, I find it amusing that Commissar Jerry Brown decided to recognize the legitimacy of Trump's victory just in time to ask for federal assistance in paying for this fiasco.

 

i dont think it was the wrong link?why do you say?

 

It was full of alternative facts...

 

oh,ok.i usually dont read this guy.I thought it was about the dam.ill remove it.but I hear the water receded and its going ok?

 

The dam itself is not overflowing, it is the emergency spillway where the water is overflowing. That's what it is designed to do. The problem though is that the emergency spillway is an earthen structure and the water is eroding it. The use of the emergency spillway was precipitated (no pun intended) by the extreme flow of water into the reservoir and the resulting erosion of the primary spillway by the outflow.

In the first attached picture, looking to the top right corner, the main part of the dam is to the right (out of the picture) and it is quite a bit higher than the spillway. The primary spillway is the concrete structure you see and the emergency spillway is to the left. You can see water flowing over the emergency spillway.

What could happen is the emergency spillway is breached and the resulting torrent of water would cause downstream flooding until the level of the reservoir dropped to below the level of the breach. Not to diminish the seriousness, but the dam itself is unlikely to fail, and any flooding resulting from a spillway breach would be nothing like flooding if the actual dam was breached.





- http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/oroville-why-no-collapse-metabunk.jpg