BIG dam.

Watching some of the posts about alifornia and that Oroville dam. They have lowered the water level but some really heavy rain storms are just starting to move in. Severaly days of heavy rains. Hold your breath folks.

In California right now and everything is flooded like crazy

Those in charge of the dam seem to think the danger has passed, no big deal any more?

And yes, we know the dam is safe; it's the two spillway areas that have the issues. (Altho the dam has never had water this high on it, and high water puts much more pressure on it - one never knows how it reacts to seepage over time with additional pressures.....)

The issue is the main spillway is damaged, and the emergency overflow appears to be very unstable when it was lightly used. A few sacks of rocks and some fresh concrete smeared on top doesn't seem much of a bandaid if the original supposed 'bedrock' didn't hold up......

Pretty much leaves all the eggs in one basket; the damaged main chute better hold up.

Paul

Though it is a "difficulty" when it floods, the recharging of the ground water supply will take several years of good rain to put it back to the levels of the 1970s. The second issue is that the rain brings near perfectly clean, chemically inert, water to the farmland which drives down some of the excess selenium and other chemistry that has created the disaster of Kesterson preserve and the land in general. Jim

(quoted from post at 22:19:56 02/16/17) Those in charge of the dam seem to think the danger has passed, no big deal any more?

Paul

Click to expand...

I don't think anybody thinks that. The radio report this morning said they were working around the clock to clear the debris from the main outlet in order to fire up the plant so they can drain it further. They know more rain is coming and are working on it.

A near disaster like this is special and needs to be dealt with. That is a priority.

But in other parts of California, what I hear is that this excess rain is flowing on by and out to the ocean. There are many man made resivors and water diversions and so forth that feed agriculture later in the year when the dry season hits.

It is my understanding the powers that be in California are refusing to allow this excess rainfall to be used to refill those resivors, and just letting the water pass on by.

That seems foolish, from a distance. A lot of those ag regions paid for the water systems, that have sat idle during the several year drought and hurt farming terribly with no water allocations.

Perhaps a person far away that lives in a wet area of the upper Midwest misunderstands; but it would seem that now flowing water should be used to resupply places that need it, and drought restrictions on that should be lifted at this time? I understand it takes years to replace what was lost in the water table so the drought isn't over from a couple months of rain..... But water flowing on by is just lost anyhow, might as well grab some when it is there in excess?

Paul

I lived in CA for years, You are correct. Massive rain (happening now as I type this) is more than is needed without capacity. Jim