Emergency procedures initiated at Washington dam due to structural damage

A 65 foot long crack has been discovered in the Wanapum Dam in Washington State, resulting in the implementation of a crisis scenario plan. Although the dam's hydroeletric plant remains operational, water levels in the reservoir are being lowered by 20 feet and residents downstream of the dam have been notified of the danger. Engineers have started stabilizing the structure and are still studying the problem to determine the extent of the damage.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/washington-dam-65-foot-crack/story?id=22731403

All of you people screaming for lower taxes and smaller government? This is the consequence. You get what you pay for, and when chronic underfunding of government agencies means "deferred maintenance" goes on for 20, 30, 40 years, this is what happens. Gee, when you're too cheap to pay for basic maintenance, things start falling apart. Who'd a thunk it?

This is not an isolated incident. Remember the I-35 bridge collapse in Minneapolis in 2007? Your tax cuts killed 13 people. Bridges, dams, airports, roads, water and sewage system, ports, and levees across the country are disasters waiting to happen. The American Society of Civil Engineers' 2013 infrastructure report card gives the US a D+ across all categories.
http://www.infrastructurereportcard.org/

The US became a great country and the leader of the free world because we spent 40 years building the best infrastructure the world has seen since the days of Rome. And now we've spent 40 years neglecting it and watching it slowly fall apart.

 

Plenty of money due to taxes, problem is that a lot of it is wasted and adding more into the system will just increase the waste and fraud.

 

Wasted? Wasted on what? Medicare? Social Security? Defense? For 2013 the deficit was $901 billion. The grand total of all Federal non-defense appropriated outlays (that's discretionary spending) was $565 billion. So even if you shut down the federal courts, sent the FBI and CIA home, left every federal prison with the doors unlocked, shuttered the VA, told farmers to dry up and die, left people starving in the streets, and stopped all other discretionary spending, we'd still have a $336 billion deficit. (source)

So sorry, but the people telling you that we have a spending problem not a revenue problem are out and out lying to you. The notion is completely delusional.

 

Lord ! That dam must have been built during the Great Depression as a WPA project !

C'mon people ! Don't let your country go down the drain!

 

1963 - Google is your friend

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wanapum_Dam

 

It is an underwater crack at the base of one of the spillways. As for whether or not that really matters seems to be answered in the dam is not being completely drained and the plant is still generating power.

 

Those WPA projects were generally built with a design life of 50 years. In case you're as deficient in math as in common sense, the 1930's was 80 years ago. And considering that the likes of you have been doing their best to destroy the country through malign neglect for the last 40 years, I'd say it's pretty remarkable that most of those projects are still going strong.

You see, engineers do this weird thing called nuance... Since they haven't seen movement in the structure since they discovered the damage they don't think it's in imminent danger of collapse. They don't think it's going to collapse in the next few hours. The fact that they're doing emergency stabilization, lowering the water level to reduce the stress on the structure, and warning people downstream means they are worried that it is in danger of collapse.

 

Those WPA projects were generally built with a design life of 50 years. In case you're as deficient in math as in common sense, the 1930's was 80 years ago. And considering that the likes of you have been doing their best to destroy the country through malign neglect for the last 40 years, I'd say it's pretty remarkable that most of those projects are still going strong.

Gee, Kessy : I'm glad I didn't DISAGREE the dam was in trouble !

By the way, I did know the 1930's was 80 years ago: I had my 80th birthday about 2 weeks ago--which makes me an old geezer, who has (somehow) forgotten his participation in "malign neglect".

 

No they are lowering the water level to reduce stress on the spillway as it is being repaired. If they thought the dam could collapse in a "few hours", they would be doing a lot more than just lowering the water level 20 feet IMO. One of my aunts lives downside of a different dam. In addition to the ear piercing horn that goes off whenever they are releasing water, they do it at regular points in the day. If they are doing it at an unpredictable interval, they release the information ahead of time to warn people who might be boating or swimming.

 

People who want to rewrite history for the benefit of their bank accounts and try to scribble horns and a tail on FDR's portrait to excuse their selfish politics make me cranky.

When it comes to malign neglect, does it ring any bells for you if I rephrase it as, "I wanna pay less taxes - who cares about the consequences?"

 

I suppose I should feel pierced to the core by your responses, but I've had a quick look at you (as someone remarked : Google is your friend), and, unimpressed, have decided there's no need to assume the pre-natal position.

Before I leave you :

1. I never lived in, paid taxes in, voted in, or even visited Washington State.
2. The phrase is "benign neglect" not "malign neglect"-something one who writes so turgidly of Satan should know.
3. Our family was loyal to the Democrats - like many Irish-American clans.
4. I mourned the death of FDR - only US president I'd ever heard of.
5. Have a nice day.

 

It wouldn't make much difference how much money was available for repairing dams and levees. The problem is environmentalists who prevent the Army Corps of Engineers from shoring up, strengthening and properly maintaining these critical pieces of infrastructure. Environmentalists always claim such projects endanger wildlife habitats -- a few protected species of bugs, mice, minnows, etc.

The levees and dikes around New Orleans (hurricane Katrina) were just one example of environmentalists creating disasters to save a minnow on the endangered species list. And now the Wanapum dam.

 

???? This dam is owned by the County utility district. They pay for repairs with al the money they collect through Utility bills.

 

When Bush was pres every crack in every bridge was his fault so I guess we can blame this dam crack on obama.

 

Just tell us how much of our money you need for your dammed dam.(See what I did there?......I felt like Rex Harrison for a minute.)

Then we'll all try to get it to you.

Is that better?

 

I'll meet you half way. Tell me how many people you don't mind killing with your negligence and I'll tell you how low that will make your taxes. So tell me, just how much is a human life worth to you? $1000? $100? $10?

 

I was going to ignore this snotty little comment as the usual rantings of a poseur , but then I happened upon some interesting information : the spillway damage might have come about as a result of spillway modifications-done to increase the viability of fingerling salmon populations.

http://www.worldcat.org/search?q=su:Wanapum+Dam+(Wash.)&qt=hot_subject

(Google is INDEED your friend !)

Furthermore, when the discoverable history of Wanapum Dam is researched, one sees regular inspection, and monitoring by professionals-at taxpayer/ratepayer expense. The 65' crack was discovered by one of those professionals, who noticed the roadway in vicinity of spillway had become slightly bowed, and who followed up on it.

Kessy, if you had a scintilla of credibility before----you just blew it.

 

BS.
they get plenty of money to fix infrastructure. they'd rather spread it around the globe to other nations problems and pay for illegal residents here at home.

They choose to redirect those funds. We do not need to pay more, they simply need to use the money for what it is supposed to cover.

Because we throw away billions of dollars worrrying about other nations instead.


Just a few examples of where this Dam money could have come from.

http://www.voanews.com/content/us-pledges-40-million-in-military-aid-to-philippines/1811876.html

http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/...other-380-million-to-help-war-torn-syria?lite

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/04/w...ounces-millions-in-us-aid-for-egypt.html?_r=0


Just a few examples. tis is the mindset and spending habits we've had for decades. Of course you might run short on funds to take care of yourself. The answer is not more taxation, but less involvement in the rest of the world. We give enough money. i dont want my taxes raised to cover their want to give money to Egypt...Syria and everyone else. if we fix our infrastructure, and then have extra money? Sure help out who you can.
We arent at that point. We are giving money away...that we NEED at home. It's not a lack of revenue...it's bad spending with a minset of always being able to reach a little deeper into peoples pockets to fill the voids they create.

 

ROFLMAO Foreign aid? Seriously? You think our budget problems are being caused by foreign aid????? That's like complaining about a dripping faucet on the Titanic. International Assistance Programs were a whole 0.6% of the budget in 2012. (source) That's a rounding error.

 

Try cutting the freebies and benes to welfare rats and illegals before cutting defense.

Pleanty left over for infrastructure repair.

Could also give out SNAP cards for people who fill in pot holes.

 

I agree. We should evacuate the downstream areas and blow the whole dam up so no life is ever lost because of the negligence of people to swim into the water, up to a dam, and look at its base every day for cracks.....it would be far cheaper than the search for the reasonably prudent person who swims around the base of dams everyday.

 

What does whether or not you ever lived in Washington State have to do with anything? The alarming state of our infrastructure is a national problem and requires a national response.

As should be blazingly obvious from the context, I was not talking about benign neglect. You do know what that phrase means, I hope? It doesn't mean ignoring bridges until they collapse and kill someone. I used "malign neglect" as a deliberate contrast to "benign neglect."

As for writing turgidly of Satan: WTF? No, seriously, WTF? Where did that come from? I'm not even a christian and I certainly don't talk about christian gods in casual conversation.

Well, I followed your link and found... Hydroacoustic evaluation of prototye in-turbine diversion screens for subyearling chinook salmon at Wanapum Dam during summer 1994. Yeah, that makes your point real well. An experiment with a screen 20 years ago must obviously be responsible for a crack today.

The crack was discovered by accident when it got bad enough to start to bow the roadway on the top of the dam, not by a regular inspection. A 65 foot crack does not appear overnight. It's probably been developing over months or years. We don't have nearly enough dam inspectors to keep up with the workload. We're just lucky that the competence and professionalism of the people working at the dam was able to make up for inadequate inspection. And Washington State is one of the better states when it comes to dam safety. Alabama doesn't have a dam safety program at all.

What was that you were saying about a scintilla of credibility?

 

One small problem with that: those of us with a conscience and any human decency object to people starving to death in the richest country in the world.

I notice that you didn't suggest stopping the freebies for those lazy retired moochers living off the public teat of Social Security. That couldn't possibly have anything to do with a perception that Social security benefits whites while welfare goes mainly to blacks and "illegals" being brown, could it? Not that such perceptions are even remotely close to being accurate.

 

An impressive strawman you have built!

I'm for commodities, that's real basic, healthy foodstuffs for the poor---that is the real deal poor---usually families who's parent is a druggie or gangbanger or other peice of work. Laziness is the defining trait of the "takers".

Don't see many kids here in the US ghettos with their ribs showing and the their bellies discended from starvation.

I say if you have to give out SNAP cards, let the lazy poor work for them. Even a pro-commie like yourself should remember what Lenin told you all:

"No work, no eat."

 

I love this little bit: " I notice that you didn't suggest stopping the freebies for those lazy retired moochers living off the public teat of Social Security. That couldn't possibly have anything to do with a perception that Social security benefits whites while welfare goes mainly to blacks and "illegals" being brown, could it? Not that such perceptions are even remotely close to being accurate."

If such perceptions are not remotely close to being accurate , why would you bring them up ?

By the way, I started contributing to Social Security when I was 14--and continued for 48 years before becoming a moocher at the public trough. Have you even started contributing your share ---or have you been too busy inspecting dams across the country, and mingling with that " Deviant Art Community" ??

"Kessy work ??"

" Oh no ! Kessy is an ARTIST !!