Oroville Dam - California

[WormWiggler]

so how far does it need to drop to make the issue of loss of emergency spillway not be a concern?

 

[dust in the wind]

From my understanding of everything, it all depends on how quickly the rains/snow melt come into the lake and how the damaged spillway holds up.

If the inflows don't get too crazy and if they can continue to release up to 100,000 CFS out of the damaged spillway, they may be OK.

I don' t know if they would push the outflow out of the damaged spillway any more than the 100,000 they have already.

 

[dust in the wind]

They shut down the spillway. Here's a few pics. I think the water level was down to 841 or so the last I saw.

 

[dean nelson]

That's a hell of a pile of rocks it left at the bottom....no wonder they were getting so much water backing up at the power house! From the looks of it all they really need to do is rebuild the last 100 yards or so of the upper portion so that the water now goes into the new canyon they made. That lower portion is done for.

 

[dust in the wind]

video of the damage done.

Part 1




Part 2

 

[espringers]

the geologist in me finds that fascinating and beautiful!

 

[guywhofishes]

Looks like it was properly sited (basically it all laid on or near a bedrock feature down to the river). With the exception of the one area that failed earlier (couple years ago?) and was "patched"

That section's failure gravity/deflection took it off the proper path into unconsolidated material (to the right side of video one) and all hell broke loose.

EXPENSIVE EFF UP

 

[tikkalover]

I wonder if any gold washed out of that hole.

 

[LBrandt]

Call Fred or Tony they may want to come pan a little.

 

[johnr]

Is this GWB's fault, or Trump?

 

[espringers]

GWB... he takes fault for all republican downfalls until trump is out of office for at least 24 hours.