Engineers and environmentalists saw issues coming. Now a "nightmare scenario" is in play.
"It worked fine until it had to be used, in which case it didn't work so well."
Regarding the Oroville disaster, California water districts refused to pay the cost it would take to pave the spillway; now flooded, it is quickly eroding, which is what engineers and environmentalists have been warning would happen for decades.
With the water pooling beneath the weir holding the dam back, a "nightmare scenario" is in play: 23 million people and the entire San Joaquin Valley could lose water if the thing breaks.
As climate change progresses, expect many more Oroville Dam disasters.
"The situation at Oroville Dam comes as much of California is suffering from climate whiplash," following a rapid switch from drought to record-breaking precipitation.
That kind of extreme weather is closely linked with climate change. Moreover, dams like Oroville are generally calibrated to withstand only historic levels of precipatation. With climate change expected to yield new record highs, that assumption looks deadly.
Oroville Dam and America's water infrastructure, by the numbers
4,000: Parties with major water rights in California, where a thorny gridlock presides over the state's water supply.
$20 billion: Value of commerce passing through chokepoint Lock and Dam 52 on the Ohio River, which takes 15-20 hours to pass due to underinvestment.
180,000: Evacuees on tenterhooks waiting to see if their homes will be destroyed by dam failure in Oroville.
120: Dogs registered at the Chico Red Cross.
50: Feet the lake behind the dam rose in a matter of days before the spillover.
8 million: Salmon that live in Lake Oroville, comprising 30% of the state's $4 billion salmon stock.
1/3: Americans who may lose access to affordable water if price increases continue for five years.
D: Grade from American Society of Civil Engineers given to America's water infrastructure.
Feb 14, 2017Nature discovers the errors in your design pretty quickly. And that's basically what happened.
↩︎ NPR
Oroville presents ambiguous evidence for dam advocates and opponents.
California dam politics are darn contentious. For example, environmentalists have been fighting for decades to dismantle the Hetch-Hetchy Reservoir, created when a valley adjacent to Yosemite–and allegedly as beautiful–was flooded and dammed to provide water for San Francisco.
The basic argument is that most of the nation's dams are extraneous and outdated, artifacts of a bygone age that almost inevitably destroy river ecosystems. Plenty of people will see Oroville as evidence that dams are ticking time bombs, capable of frightening catastrophe upon failure.
But others will take the opposite tack, arguing that Northern California needs more dams, not fewer, to deal with the conversion of its water sources from snowpack to rainfall in a warming climate.
The Editors' Longreads Picks
- An excellent essay on poverty and writing by Starr Davis. Updated May 31, 2022
- Novelist Héctor Tobar tries to understand the 1992 Los Angeles riots through the experiences of a single high school.
- Steven Johnson with a long assessment of the current state of A.I. and language. (The illusion has gotten very good.)
Welcome to The Morning News Tournament of Books, 2017 edition.
- Our championship match is decided in the Tournament of Books, with news of a Rooster surprise debuting this summer. Updated Mar 31, 2017
- In Thursday's action, Reyhan Harmanci sets up a colossal final.
- The Zombie round opens with Buzzfeed's Isaac Fitzgerald reading The Nix and The Underground Railroad.
Все ваши Белый дом принадлежит нам.
- "Will Putin expose the failings of American democracy or will he inadvertently expose the strength of American democracy?" Updated Mar 3, 2017
- Wilbur Ross just wanted to make some money in ethically gray areas (that should've prevented him from taking office).
- Jeff Sessions's spokeswoman can't help but continue to lie.
The oceans are under assault, and not just from the White House and friends.
- Trump's assault on the environment begins with American headwaters. Updated Mar 1, 2017
- Don't just blame the oil companies for destroying the oceans—blame sushi restaurants.
- Nothing escapes the deepest trenches of the ocean floor. Not light, not nutrients, not pollutants.