patrick.net

The best article I have found so far is from the Sacramento Bee newspaper. It is a bit convoluted, and the timeline is not so clear, but it has good information.

http://www.sacbee.com/news/local/article132154774.html

Early Friday, DWR officials had expressed confidence that they could avoid the emergency spillway option. Despite the crater in the main concrete spillway, engineers ramped up water releases to 65,000 cubic feet per second. With rains letting up, and inflows into the lake slowing, they believed they could keep the water level behind the dam to below 901 feet.

But Friday, at about 8 p.m., they had to throttle back the releases to 55,000 cfs to prevent erosion along the side of the main spillway from compromising the transmission tower that links to the dam’s power plant.

Normally, the power plant is the main vehicle for pushing water out of the lake. But DWR has temporarily shut the plant because all the concrete and other debris streaming into the river from the broken spillway has raised water levels to the point that the turbines can’t run. DWR needs the transmission tower to remain operational to be able to reopen the power plant

https://twitter.com/CA_DWR/status/829506878308651008/photo/1

This is the original damage in the main spillway, apparently discovered on Tuesday, 6 days ago. The main spillway was subsequently shut down down for inspection or repair, which later caused the lake to rise to the point where the secondary spillway started spilling over.

This is a graphic from Sacramento Bee that illustrates the situation well

Video of the secondary spillway in operation, probably from Sunday, via the Sacramento Bee. The embedding code does not seem to work, but the link does.

.mcclatchy-embed{position:relative;padding:40px 0 56.25%;height:0;overflow:hidden;max-width:100%}.mcclatchy-embed iframe{position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%}

http://www.sacbee.com/news/state/california/water-and-drought/article132251924.html/video-embed

This is the map that Patrick himself posted.

Here is a link to the water flow and elevation data for Lake Oroville, as provided by the state of California.

http://cdec.water.ca.gov/cgi-progs/queryDaily?ORO

Seems relevant and informative, although data may not be real time correct.

Ironman says

A little late to the party dude:

https://patrick.net/1302906/2017-02-13-california-oroville-dam-expected-to-fail-mandatory-evacuations

You older post had some decent material in it, but you made the mistake off starting of with a headline that was patently wrong, screaming "California Oroville Dam expected to fail. Mandatory Evacuations!!!"

Ironman says

That WAS the headline YESTERDAY at sacbee.

That may be true, but were are trying to to do BETTER than the mainstream media, are we not? SacBee has posted updates, I think that headline is gone or buried. What have you done about it?

I see that you are now writing "failure of dam spillway". That is a huge difference from "failure of dam". An enormous difference. Well I'm glad you are improving.

Right now, I think what we should be all looking for is a timeline of all the events that lead up to Sunday's evacuation order. I think it is pretty clear that mistakes have been made, and in due time the exact nature of events will become clear. So far, the news media have focused on the sensational aspects of the story, but at some point they will switch into an analytic and investigative mode. Hopefully sooner rather than later. They should have started on that right away.

There's damage to the dam!? EVACUATE IMMEDIATELY!!!

NuttBoxer says

There's damage to the dam!? EVACUATE IMMEDIATELY!!!

Are you trying to be funny? There have been no reports of damage to the DAM (only the SEPARATE spillway structure). Here is the current headline from SacBee:

Updates: Torrent of water didn’t further degrade main Oroville Dam spillway. Evacuations remain in place.
9:33 AM

Ironman says

YOU come on now, 18 hours later,

Rubbish. Most of the info in this thread I posted yesterday in another thread. I moved it here today to have proper information in one place. I'm sorry I was not aware of your old thread, but your thread was also equipped with an errant and alarmist headline, also known as FAKE NEWS.

This seems to highlight once more that nature is simply unpredictable and the 99.99% main driver of any climate change. And while they have been beating the drought to death to promote more globull warming hysteria they should have instead focused on enhancing their dam and rain-capturing infrastructure. Now they are whining about too much rain. I hope the people will keep their homes but it is mind-boggling that not more than 6 months ago nobody was considering a rainy season. Seems like government failure.

justme says

There's damage to the dam!? EVACUATE IMMEDIATELY!!!

Are you trying to be funny?

The damage was a lie!? Sacrifice the lying SacBee and dam workers to Allah!!!

mell says

And while they have been beating the drought to death to promote more globull warming hysteria they should have instead focused on enhancing their dam and rain-capturing infrastructure.

I feel compelled to say that Governor Brown has been campaigning tirelessly to improve California's water storage for years. Proposition 1 (2014), a 7.12B bond measure that passed in 2014, may be relevant. Whether those plans included projects that would have off-loaded Lake Oroville I do not know at this time.

https://ballotpedia.org/California_2014_ballot_propositions

Top causes of Dam failure are construction practices, and the soil mechanics, (AKA porousity and the ability to start capilary, and seepage effects:

"It is worth noting that severe damage occurs only if the aggressive media can
penetrate the concrete by capillary suction, diffusion or mixed modes of transport
at a suffi ciently high rate. Thus, the most important precautionary measures to
prevent damage and ageing due to chemical attack are the protection of the structure
against water by suitable structural elements and production of concrete and
mortar with high resistance against the entrance of aggressive media, i.e. a very
low capillary porosity. Consequently, high-strength concretes, in most instances,
show a signifi cantly higher resistance against chemical attack than conventional
concretes"

https://www.witpress.com/Secure/elibrary/papers/9781845641429/9781845641429001FU1.pdf

This seems to highlight once more that nature is simply unpredictable and the 99.99% main driver of any climate change

-----------

How did you arrive at this number?

Human activity and pollution alters the climate, but only at .01%?

That sounds ridiculous, unless of course, you're speaking from a position of pure ignorance

Entitlemented says

Top causes of Dam failure are construction practices, and the soil mechanics, (AKA porousity and the ability to start capilary, and seepage effects:

While it is informative in general to learn about causes of dam failure, it bears repeating that Lake Orovile was in danger if a spillway failure, NOT a dam failure. Not the same thing.

Ironman says

Really??? Sacbee is FAKE NEWS?? Then why are YOU posting links to it???

Don't be daft. I did not post a link to the errant headline story that you used. I posted links to better material. One has to refer to the material available, and then try to analyze and improve it. I do not repeat errant and sensational headlines. I analyze the material found. I point out the flaws and try to correct and improve the narrative. Meanwhile, Ironman (corrected) is busy defending his actions and practices, taking up lots of useless space. That's the difference. Enough said.

errc says

How did you arrive at this number?

Human activity and pollution alters the climate, but only at .01%?

That sounds ridiculous, unless of course, you're speaking from a position of pure ignorance

Simply via mathematics. Without going into details, the premise is basically that you would have to increase the amount of human-made climate-changing pollution by a really yuge factor to evoke any measurable change, but you only need a tiny change in sun-flare activity, one big volcano eruption or el-nino type phenomenon to cause a widely measurable climate change. I'm not against fighting pollution, but CO2 should be the last thing tackled as it's not a toxic pollutant. Furthermore improving infrastructure and technology that have a direct impact on temperature or water-storage should be preferred to carbon-taxes and other political hackery. Of course you can call that ignorance, but let the jury be out in a decade or two from now. If we are indeed heading towards a maunder-minimum, many will dearly wish the days of global warming back as even right now cold weather kills more people than hot weather roughly by a factor of 20.

I'd love to see that math. Care to show your work?

Dam spillways fail due to funds diverted from infrastruture maintenance to illegal immigrant refugee government support.

Your fuckin country is turning into a 3rd world shithole whiLe illegals and refugees sick up maintenance funding.

You can't help others until you help yourself

justme says

I feel compelled to say that Governor Brown has been campaigning tirelessly to improve California's water storage for years. Proposition 1 (2014), a 7.12B bond measure that passed in 2014, may be relevant. Whether those plans included projects that would have off-loaded Lake Oroville I do not know at this time.

https://ballotpedia.org/California_2014_ballot_propositions

Yeah you're right he has been also campaigning for a rainy day fund etc., yet suddenly there was a 'math' error and a billion dollar shortfall. I support Brown in enhancing the infrastructure around weather and water but like mentioned before they could take the carbon bs and government support for illegals, tax breaks for tesla etc. and instead immediately act on the infrastructure with that money. The amount of taxes by working people being paid is staggering, yet the infrastructure is 3rd-world like.

No man made structure is capable of holding that many liberal tears.

Dale Kasler of SacBee has for the most part informative tweets about the situation at Lake Oroville.

https://twitter.com/dakasler

For example, the issue of getting the power plant restarted so that we can get both more clean and FREE power, and more water released is highlighted.

QUOTE: Crews removing debris from #OrovilleDam bottom. Trying to clear channel so power plant can restart and release more water.

Alright, I'll post here instead then:

Justme is full of crap, this is not fake news. I practically grew up on that lake. (spent over 20 summers there) We sold our house boat just last year. Here's the deal from the lips of my buddy who is a civil engineer up that way: They aren't telling the public what they are really worried about. Or were last night anyway:

If that auxiliary spillway failed yes, it's off to the side and would cause a large wall of water to flow downstream but that's not the main problem. The main problem is this is an earth fill dam which isn't designed to be drained quickly. If you get a relatively sudden drop of the lake ~20ft what you end up with is a top heavy muddy hill side which will likely collapse TOWARD the lake and if that happens it's very likely the lake starts to flow out over the dam and the whole ~700ft goes.

That's why the evacuation included such a large region last night. They aren't saying that because they don't want to freak people out too much.

just_passing_through says

The main problem is this is an earth fill dam which isn't designed to be drained quickly.

There may indeed be something to what you are saying here. More and confirmed information on this topic is welcome. Links to expert statements? There is indeed a difference between a sudden 20-30ft drop in the lake, as compared to a multi-day (say) 20-30ft drop in the lake, which is what DWR is trying to engineer before the next storm hits on weds or thu.

I do not see how that makes me "full of crap", though. I'm reporting and analyzing what I can find. Your post may also be helpful, but we could need more sourced information.

You won't find that printed anywhere. Comes from the mouth of one of the engineers I know up there. FOC: because you're calling a potentially dire situation fake news. I suppose it was - they didn't state how critical it actually was as opposed to your claim its benign.

I think we're out of the woods though. So long as that main spillway can drain enough water without falling apart and toppling the powerlines to the power generator flow control at the bottom of the dam.

Three environmental groups — the Friends of the River, the Sierra Club and the South Yuba Citizens League — filed a motion with the federal government on Oct. 17, 2005, as part of Oroville Dam’s relicensing process, urging federal officials to require that the dam’s emergency spillway be armored with concrete, rather than remain as an earthen hillside.

The groups filed the motion with FERC, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. They said that the dam, built and owned by the state of California, and finished in 1968, did not meet modern safety standards because in the event of extreme rain and flooding, fast-rising water would overwhelm the main concrete spillway, then flow down the emergency spillway, and that could cause heavy erosion that would create flooding for communities downstream, but also could cause a failure, known as “loss of crest control.”

http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/02/12/oroville-dam-feds-and-state-officials-ignored-warnings-12-years-ago/

Again found via the Dale Kasler twiiter feed, SacBee is now starting to present the big picture

http://www.sacbee.com/news/state/california/water-and-drought/article132405739.html

Q: What’s the risk?

A: Officials say the earthen face of the dam, which is separated by a hillside from both the main and the emergency spillways, has not been compromised. But experts interviewed say that if the emergency spillway collapses, it wouldn’t be much different than a total dam failure. The hillside could quickly erode and empty the lake.

The massive release of water could blow out levees along the Feather River and inundate Sacramento Valley communities that are homes to tens of thousands of people, including Oroville, Marysville and Yuba City. The city of Sacramento also could be affected, though experts said a levee breech along the Feather likely would relieve pressure in the system enough that Sacramento’s flood infrastructure could absorb the influx.

COMMENT: I think a secondary spillway failure and subsequent erosion in excess of the 30ft height of the secondary spillway structure is nevertheless a quite different scenario than DAM failure of the nearby dam. The height of the main dam is 770ft!!. The magnitude is just completely different.

Reference:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oroville_Dam

Hillside has granite bedrock. That isn't going anywhere.

indigenous says

urging federal officials to require that the dam’s emergency spillway be armored with concrete, rather than remain as an earthen hillside.

Excellent information and link, thank you. But former local Oroville resident JPT is not quite in agreement about the direct erosion dangers of the SECONDARY spillway?

just_passing_through says

Hillside has granite bedrock. That isn't going anywhere.

But still lots of damage can be done by eroding the trees and soil on top of the bedrock, and the debris can narrow or dam the river below, which is one reason operators previously shut down the flow through the power plant of the main dam, according to reports I read. I think the general understanding of the nuances is still developing in the mainstream media . We shall see.

PS: What does FOC stand for? I could not find out.

FOC=full of crap but I take it back. Not really interested in picking a fight.

The entire hillside below the auxiliary will not go away.

JPT... I wonder if that's my old friend Jason Taylor. His dad has the key to the city from development back in the 80s...

Entitlemented says

Top causes of Dam failure are construction practices, and the soil mechanics, (AKA porousity and the ability to start capilary, and seepage effects:

OK, so they forgot to use a concrete sealer.

Slow controlled drop is what they need to do... That is fine. Just like in a car speeding is safe. It's the sudden stop that kills you.

sidenote: I love how the local news guy in SD last night kept calling the situation, "fluid".

Here's an example of a blatantly misleading report, by CNBC. It says it is 3 hours old right now, but it contains all kinds of misconceptions and falsehoods, starting with the statement (on top pf the video of the main spillway)

QUOTE: "Gaping hole in America's biggest dam keeps getting bigger."

The very least CBNC could do is to update their faulty video headline. Talk about misinformation. There is no hole in the dam, and the crater in the main spillway is not getting bigger. The quality control (editors!) in mainstream media continues to suck.

http://www.cnbc.com/2017/02/13/california-official-denies-oroville-dam-was-a-problem-waiting-to-happen.html