Bass Fishing Forum - Westernbass.com

Politicians and water districts should not be in charge of the safety of our dams and water infrastructure. The water resource managers know how to actually take care of that system, and should be allowed to do their job, without political interference. Withholding infrastructure maintenance and improvement funds is political interference.

Mark I agree with you. There's plenty of proof to back up this argument with Oroville situation too!! Trouble is, it's not going to change.

Somehow the powers to be think we need a train instead of maintained and updated infrastructure.

bassdaddy wrote:Somehow the powers to be think we need a train instead of maintained and updated infrastructure.

Or twin tunnels...

Stratos,
Really? With all of the flooding that has and has yet to occur in northern ca, your addition is a quick comment against the tunnels? Wow, if the infastuture in california (new and retrofitted damns and wait for it... yes Tunnels) were constructed. Most, if not all of the current flooding could have been avoided.

Wrknap wrote:Stratos,
Really? With all of the flooding that has and has yet to occur in northern ca, your addition is a quick comment against the tunnels? Wow, if the infastuture in california (new and retrofitted damns and wait for it... yes Tunnels) were constructed. Most, if not all of the current flooding could have been avoided.

While I can somewhat agree with you on the need to improve current water infrastructure (notably dam maintenance and improvements), you are not looking at the long-term effect the tunnels would have on the Delta. I urge you to read the many press releases and commentaries from Restore The Delta. They can be found on this forum (use the search function), on Facebook, and on their website. Once you see the whole picture, and not just the snapshot the politicians want you to see, you may (hopefully) have a greater understanding of the havoc the tunnels can wreak on the Delta ecosystem.

https://www.facebook.com/RestoretheDelta/

Jerry Brown would rather fight to put transgender men in the woman's bathroom, then fix our info structure. But liberal California will reelect him again and again.

I'm waiting to see what infrastructure and dams are going to be built in southern CA. for all the flooding and rain they received. We need conservation, management and development through out the whole state.

Hey Wrknap, how in the world would the delta tunnels stop or reduce flooding? They would divert water from the Sacramento river down to west Stockton where it ends up right now anyway! The objective for the tunnels is to bypass the delta so that would take the Delta Smelt issue away and basically send the best and cleanest water down to southern California.
The tunnels will not reduce, stop or slow down delta flooding in the south delta as the same amount water will end up in the holding areas to be sent south via the aquaduct!
What would help is building detention dams along the rivers with spillways and fish ladders for salmon migration and spawning. I trully think that we made a trade off a long time ago to either have an irrigation system or a healthy salmon population. Whether that decision was based on good science or just a hunch is a mute point now, but I dont think we can have the best of both worlds.

George

https://www.google.com/amp/www.mercuryn ... tmobile-us

The emergency spillway should have been cemented years ago.

Gary Dobyns wrote:Mark I agree with you. There's plenty of proof to back up this argument with Oroville situation too!! Trouble is, it's not going to change.

Gary, I think if we all demand public accountability, we can force a change.
The only thing a politician hates more than raising taxes is having something bad happen on their watch that can eventually be traced back to them.

My question centers around the main spillway. It appears that the original construction was not up to code, or was constructed "on the cheap". Someone skimp on the cement in the mix? Was the water used in the mix "drinking water quality"? Where did the aggregate come from?

Just askin.

The San Jose Mercury News said in this mornings paper , that the "worlds dam " experts have determined that the cause
of failure was due to " micro air bubbles " that tore apart the concrete . Claiming they create a power vortex against the concrete ripping it apart .
I am no "dam " expert , but ---where the hell was the rebar , tied together ?
I guarantee , they will want to rip out the entire main spillway and build it to better standards . Maybe they can come up with a way to keep those " micro " air bubbles ----they can place all the blow hard politicians like Moonbeam and with the useless hot air they spout to blow against those pesky "micro " bubbles and save our new spillway !!!!!

Follow up to Robb R ... that process is called 'cavitation' ... causes erosion. Happens to sometimes occur on boat transoms. Wreaks havoc on cement dams and as we have seen ... spillways. Learned about this back in my college days from an engineer named Barry Cook, from Marin County (knew the family). In his day was regarded as one of the worlds leading authorities on heavy Dam construction.

Mark, talking off my head, memory maybe a little dull, Warren Doreen was the driving force to build the Feather River project that created Oroville dam, the water transfer canals, all the lakes along it's path that include San Louis Rey, Pyramide, Castaic, Silverwood, Perris, etc, etc., to supply recreational facilities and water storage by the MWD. It's always been political with too many organizations that confuse decision making. MWD makes a bad decision and every Californian will pay for it!
Tom

WRB wrote:Mark, talking off my head, memory maybe a little dull, Warren Doreen was the driving force to build the Feather River project that created Oroville dam, the water transfer canals, all the lakes along it's path that include San Louis Rey, Pyramide, Castaic, Silverwood, Perris, etc, etc., to supply recreational facilities and water storage by the MWD. It's always been political with too many organizations that confuse decision making. MWD makes a bad decision and every Californian will pay for it!
Tom

Amen!!!! Now let's see who steps up and takes responsibility for the lousy decision making. I think it will be a long wait!

A snapshot comparison of Oroville and Folsom Dams. Maybe it's time for the Feds to step in and manage Oroville?

http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2017/0 ... structure/

Here's my conspiracy theory.
Back in the 60s the Mafia had control of most of the labor unions. One of their big cash cows, believe it or not, was the concrete business. They would have the unions guys argue to make sure that more than enough concrete was ordered for the job. They would sell the excess to the next project they 'owned'. ChaChing...Profit.
To compound the profit they would get the unions guys to change the 'mix' for the concrete. They would use less cement and more water and fillers; creating more profit for the mob.
Lots of bridges in New York and other major cities suffered needed repairs to the concrete in the bridges well before it should have been needed.
There you have it. It's the Mafia's fault. (And some Capo is telling his wife, "Damn, I can't believe this guys knows what we did to that dam.")

Wolfeman wrote:Here's my conspiracy theory.
Back in the 60s the Mafia had control of most of the labor unions. One of their big cash cows, believe it or not, was the concrete business. They would have the unions guys argue to make sure that more than enough concrete was ordered for the job. They would sell the excess to the next project they 'owned'. ChaChing...Profit.
To compound the profit they would get the unions guys to change the 'mix' for the concrete. They would use less cement and more water and fillers; creating more profit for the mob.
Lots of bridges in New York and other major cities suffered needed repairs to the concrete in the bridges well before it should have been needed.
There you have it. It's the Mafia's fault. (And some Capo is telling his wife, "Damn, I can't believe this guys knows what we did to that dam.")

You are wrong. I was a union carpenter back in the 60s, and the kind of conspiratorial nonsense you're talking just didn't happen.
Construction techniques, and engineering knowledge, were not as advanced as they are today.
But there were inspections and quality control at every step.
Back then, just like now, government politicians and bureaucrats controlled the money, and the contracts.
Most of the senior construction people working on the dam were WW2 vets, who would never cut corners where lives were at stake. I worked on a job with one of them after the dam was built, and he was a good, honest man.
Were there payoffs and backroom deals to get contracts? Yes, but it was the big contractors and the politicians, not the workers, who made those deals, and skimmed off whatever did get skimmed. Those were the people who cheated, if any cheating did occur. Just like today.
It's always easier to blame "the mob" or "the unions", than to accept that sometimes, in spite of people's best intentions and efforts, mistakes are made.
I am more apt to place blame at the feet of the people from the water resources board and the water districts at the 2005 meeting who, when presented with the possibility of just the kind of disaster we almost had, decided not to spend the money to prevent it by sheathing the emergency spillway with concrete. The Mercury just ran a story about it, with names and dates.
Their penny pinching cost us, the taxpayers, millions, and almost cost thousands of people their lives.
We need to focus on how to make the dam safe now, and then go after those whose decisions put it in danger in the first place.

Stratos278 wrote:A snapshot comparison of Oroville and Folsom Dams. Maybe it's time for the Feds to step in and manage Oroville?

http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2017/0 ... structure/

Personally, I want the water people who were able to manage the spillway damage and flooding this time around to be in charge of the repairs. They were able to avert a catastrophe by figuring a way to divert the water back through the damaged mail spillway and lowering the water levels enough to make it safe again.
Those are the folks, like Bill Croyle, who were there on the front lines, dealing with a real problem coolly and effectively, not some Federal or State bureaucrats. They made good decisions that kept the situation manageable, and I would trust them to do what is right when it comes to rebuilding the damaged spillways, so we don't face this situation again.

Butte County Supervisor Bill Connelly gets it, and he's been fight to get the dam corrected for years:

http://www.orovillemr.com/general-news/ ... 4-78766297

CA is about as nucking futs with the politicians as can be! Until that changes nothing good will happen. Just crap piles after crap piles is what we will see. Best example is what was posted here. Wanting a damn bullet train and tunnels before fixing the broken shiz we now see going on! Damn BASTARDS GET PAID TO DO SHIZ! I say to the gallows with these entitled A HOLES!