California Dam Crisis Could Have Been Averted | Hacker News Reader

California Dam Crisis Could Have Been Averted

scientificamerican.com

26 pointsnahomag75 comments

Climate change has little to do with this issue. CA has a history of infrastructure mismanagement (see HSR, Bay Bridge, etc). The CA Dept of Water Resources has a history of incompetence. Oroville Reservoir a history of problems.

This was a straightforward civil engineering failure. The flow of water that needed to be handled was known. It had been much higher in the past. The flow in the main spillway could be controlled by gates. There was an emergency overflow spillway.

They had plenty of time and resources to solve this problem but they didn't. We don't yet know exactly why but the design, construction, maintenance and/or operation was flawed. This is the responsibility of the operator of the dam which is ultimately the state.

I think tying everything to climate change can be counterproductive. Yes it can attract attention to an issue but it probably also distracts from less salient but perhaps more important issues in this case like keeping brush clear from the spillway or inspecting concrete structures.

We badly need better infrastructure management. And this will allow us to better respond to climate change.

/rant

Your rant is just a rant. Mentioning HSR is some kind of dogwhistle. In what way is HSR mismanaged and how is that related to this dam?

The events at Oroville have been exceptional and it's strains belief that you, Random Internet Guy, saw it all coming. The amount of water that has fallen in the Feather watershed this year is without precedent in recorded history. The spillway worked fine until a gaping hole appeared in it. Nobody foresaw that a massive sinkhole would destroy the main spillway.

Actually plenty of people foresaw a problem with this dam and multiple other dams in CA. I have a friend who worked on dams in CA 20 years ago who told me that they weren't getting the maintenance and upgrades they needed and it was only a matter of time before there was a failure. And he never even worked in this particular dam.

the design flaw is not what happened to main spillway but that the emergency spillway flows over a dirt hillside that will quickly collapse once used in the situations where it will need to be. And not just Random Internet Guy but many others including Sierra Club noted this more than a decade ago.

The interesting thing here is the disconnect between local and national politics. Butte and Plumas counties went to court because the dam's operations did not properly account for climate change. But the two counties are represented in Congress by Doug LaMalfa, a stereotypical climate change denier. LaMalfa has vociferously complained about all climate change policies at the state and federal level and constantly publishes press releases questioning the facts of climate science. He has a lifetime 0% score from the League of Conservation Voters. He is, in short, the kind of dangerous know-nothing who is bringing about the end of civilization as we know it.

One does begin to wonder if his constituents perceive the disconnect. One major problem is that Butte and Plumas counties taken together do not constitute a majority of the district (Butte is about a quarter million people and Plumas is ten times smaller). Relatively well-educated and affluent Chico is completely buried under a huge, rural, and very poor 1st district, most of whom are not threatened by these particular waterways.

> the kind of dangerous know-nothing who is bringing about the end of civilization as we know it

I'm totally on board with you with regards to climate change, but do you really need to simplify and insult opponents like this?

Which part of the phrase isn't accurate?

> bringing about the end of civilization as we know it

That's at best hyperbolic. It's inflammatory and unhelpful in a rational discussion.

And to be clear, it's also inaccurate. Climate change will not cause the end of civilization as we know it, unless as we know it means "exactly as it exists right now", in which case twenty or thirty years from now would be the end of civilization as we know it even with absolutely no climate change, just due to how technology and culture progresses.

If we just lean into climate change face-first, as Republicans demand, there will be widespread famine and displacement. Nobody alive today has seen famine on a large scale. Relatively food-rich countries are going to be mowing down hungry hordes at their borders with machine guns. When I say "end of civilization as we know it" I'm not kidding.

"The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now. At this late date nothing can prevent a substantial increase in the world death rate." - Paul Ehrlich, 1968

"perhaps the most serious flaw in The Bomb was that it was much too optimistic about the future" - Paul Ehrlich, 2009

"I do not think my language was too apocalyptic in The Population Bomb. My language would be even more apocalyptic today." - Paul Ehrlich, 2015

The message remains constant, in spite of contrary evidence, but the mechanism of apocalypse changes over time.

When you're faced with contrary evidence, do you change your mind or double down?

Yes, climate change can cause significant problems. Yes, human civilization affects climate. However, adaptation with our ever-increasing scientific and technological capability appears most likely to maximize well-being.

"Climate change is a natural cycle that occurs" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvkFXsQcV0s

"Environmentalists want a California without people" https://twitter.com/douglamalfa/status/791147060632424449

"“I believe in human-caused climate change inside this room with the air conditioner, or inside a packing plant where they’re keeping your vegetables cool, or when you pray for rain" http://www.newsreview.com/chico/lamalfa-awarded-booby-prize/...

<Insertname Infrastructure Crisis> Could Have Been Averted

Get really really used to that headline in the US, because the way we're headed, everything from bridges to dams are going to be subject to that headline. We've neglected basic infrastructure in this country for so long, that people have grown up without realizing there's a problem in the first place.

I'm 24, and have grown up here. First time I really heard about it was Trump at his rallies.

Then you haven't been paying attention. This is a perennial topic for both Republicans and Democrats.

Perhaps that's the case. I never paid much attention to politics before this guy came in and made it entertaining.

"Infrastructure" necessarily includes schools, which at this point are in many cases scary useless.

I feel like "useless" is too kind... plenty of them are actively harmful and dangerous.

Although there's a few bright spots, the stories I hear about the "No Child Left Behind" generation are terrifying.

Standardized testing has destroyed everything and the current education secretary is going to burn what's left of the system to the ground in the name of profit.

The dream of an electorate too stupid and uneducated to grasp even a basic consensus reality is going to be arriving in a hurry.

Schools are more similar to prisons than infrastructure.

Heh, I just started my kid in a private school.

For all of the hate that Trump gets (I personally think most of it is earned), he has touched on some really important issues that have been ignored for a long time. Infrastructure is one of those.

Then problem is not that he's 100% wrong, the problem is that when he's right it seems to be of the "Broken Clock" variety. When there is little rhyme or reason to the views he takes, he's bound to end up in a few positive places (such as today, condemning anti-Semitism).

The problem with Trump is that they're only positive in these highly isolated, episodic ways.

That sounds like a lazy way to dismiss a guy who maybe deserves more credit than he gets.

It's painful to extend credit to a man with no moral compass, no demonstrated capacity for learning, no comprehension of the damage he does, no understanding of history, no concept of loyalty to anything outside of himself.

What does Trump deserve credit for?

Are you going to try and find "the problem" with anything he deserves credit for?

Let me get this straight... you want the person to whom you're replying, to guess at what achievements someone else might claim for Trump, and then guess at any problems there might be with them?

No, I was accusing OP of setting a trap wherein no matter what someone puts, they will attempt to discredit it.

Can you at least see how that kind of thing isn't conducive to a useful discussion, but is really just a way to stop someone from saying things you don't want to hear?

It seems to me "the problem" is being criticized for asking a question. How can I expect to understand someone with differing views if I am unable to ask questions?

I was just pointing out that your "question" was likely just a trap. If I say "Trump gets X right" you'll reply "The problem with this is..." and proceed to show why Trump doesn't actually get X right. It doesn't really matter what X is, you'll find some way to discredit it. It's not just you, either, republicans did the same thing to Obama finding problems with everything he did.

I'm aware what you were doing, but you still seem unaware of what I was doing: asking a question. You're disparaging me for my curiosity.

You seem to know everything already, but I'm not that sure of myself, so I ask questions to try to learn more.

What do you believe he deserves credit for, that he doesn't get? Please be extensive, and specific.

Trump is the only person I've ever seen make three contradictions in a single sentence.

The only thing consistent about the man is his inconsistency (and his love of Russia, apparently). He's the political version of how you can prove anything if you assume a logical contradiction.

Of course he's touched on important issues. He has touched on all sides of virtually all issues. He wants to spend $1 trillion on infrastructure, increase military spending, leave Social Security and Medicare intact, cut taxes, and balance the budget. This sort of obvious insanity does not deserve praise.

I agree that a lot of what he says and does makes no sense. I was just showing disdain for the "broken clock" insult which is so easy to throw around.

I don't get it. Sure it's an easy thing to throw around, but any brief criticism is. Shouldn't your assessment be based on whether it's based on something of substance, not whether it's easy?

It's basically saying "I often disagree with this person, so when I agree with them I refuse to admit that they have some virtue and deserve credit for it - they are still broken and bound to be correct sometimes out of pure chance." You don't see how that's kind of pathetic?

No, because that's not how I interpret it at all. I already explained how I interpret it: since he takes virtually every position possible, even contradictory ones, without any apparent thought or reasoning, any positions which are good are that way purely by coincidence, and therefore aren't worth anything.

The proverbial broken clock isn't useless because you disagree with broken clocks and refuse to acknowledge when they're correct. They're useless because they have no actual connection to the information they purport to convey, so even when that information is correct, it's still useless.

If I make a random number generator that prints out values between 15,000 and 25,000, I will sometimes correctly predict the closing value of the Dow Jones Industrial Average for the day. That fact is not worth a damn, though.

The original poster you replied to already went to the bother of backing that buzzword/phrase up.

> the problem

Instead of enumerating all of "the problems" sometimes it can be healthy in a discussion to acknowledge that someone got something right with no strings attached. By always villainizing people you disagree with, you contribute to the partisan polarization issue we currently have

I'm really tired of people trotting out this old, "Be positive, you're part of the problem!" crap. Be realistic about the society you live in, which is a fairly malignant plutocracy, and stop selling the notion that the only thing separating us is the separation between us.

The problems we have are longstanding and systemic, not some recent attitude shift or problem getting along.

I'm happy to acknowledge the good things Trump does, in the unlikely event that such a thing ever occurs.

I can't acknowledge that he got this right, when he has no real concept of what it would look like, no plan to get it done, no idea of how to pay for it, and there's pretty much no chance it'll actually happen.

Pretty much every President and Presidential candidate has talked about infrastructure for decades. Talking about the broad concept isn't new or useful, actually having a useful substantive policy proposal is what is needed (and not just in one office, since it takes a number of different institutions to get the kind of things done US infrastructure needs.)

The problem isn't an absence of talking about infrastructure, it's bad plans, good plans that don't get passed in Congress or that get underfunded, and members of Congress not being interested in infrastructure outside their own district except to the extent that that it provides an excuse for pork-barrel spending in their district.

Yes Trumps loves some infrastructure. He loves it so much that the first act of his Dept of Transportation was cancelling a long-planned $700m project to electrify Caltrain. Sad!

http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2017/02/17/feds-dela...

It's been talked about a lot for a long time. But nothing ever gets pass congress.

Obama tried to pass a lot of infrastructure spending as part of the 2008 Stimulation package, but a lot didn't make it into the final budget.

Everyone wants it fixed, but no one wants to pay for it.

Many states fund their roads and bridges via a gas tax. But no one wants to raise the price of gas. So nothing gets fixed through that channel either.

It's a real problem in the US and our divisive and nut job "party first" politics.

Some states divert a % of the gas tax to other budget lines instead of transportation infrastructure.

Then people want to either raise the tax or resist against it without realizing that 100% of the gas tax should be 100% for what it is originally intended to be.

You can find numerous examples by googling Gas Tax Diversions such as this one:

https://www.irtba.org/GasTax

All states spend much more on roads than they take in on gas taxes, so the issue of whether gas taxes are "diverted" is moot. Every state also "diverts" a huge amount of general revenues to road building and maintenance. To stay with your example of Illinois, which recently passed a "lockbox" ballot measure for road funds, tolls and fuel taxes take in 1.6 billion a year but the state spends over 4 billion a year just on road maintenance alone, not even counting ancillary expenses like DMV, State Police, etc.

Obama tried to make it happen for a long time:

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/03/obama-c...

Tip for the future: be more specific in comments.

It seems you are talking about this crisis, other commenters are talking about infrastructure crises in general.

Obama tried to convince congressional Republicans to do an infrastructure bill for all eight years of his presidency. Republicans refused to even try to find common ground. Obama talked about it a lot, too, during both of his campaigns.

Thats definitely true. However, there were things he could have done to try and fix it. For example, he passed Obamacare through without any regard for Republican thoughts. He could have done the same for infrastructure, in fact, i'd argue the infrastructure spending would have been more in line legally and he would have had less fighting.

They did a $100 billion infrastructure package right at the start of the term, before ACA:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Recovery_and_Reinvest...

This is simply not accurate. The ACA is a deep, deep compromise compared to what liberals wanted, and was in fact largely modeled on the Republican plan crafted by Mitt Romney in Massachusetts. If Obama had crafted Obamacare without any regard for Republican thoughts, we would have government provided universal healthcare. The fact that obstructionist Republicans decided to oppose the bill in the end does not reflect the fact that it was passed after much consultation with the right and is, indeed, a compromise.

During the first two years of his presidency his party controlled both houses of Congress. He didn't need Republicans to get it done.

> During the first two years of his presidency his party controlled both houses of Congress.

Not with the votes to break a Senate filibuster, but it's worth noting that something of an infrastructure bill was passed at that time (as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, which also included non-infrastructure stimulus), with no Republican votes in the House and exactly the number (3) of Republican votes minimally necessary to break a filibuster in the Senate.

I live in a liberal bubble and hear about infrastructure woes often enough, for example from John Oliver here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wpzvaqypav8

Where is the "here" you speak of? I've lived in the Rust Belt and Appalachia for most of my life (I'm 28), and I've watched infrastructure rust and fall apart this whole time.

Infrastructure and transportation has been a significant issue in US elections since at least 2008 (see below). Historically, democrats have sought significant public investment for infrastructure; republican proposals have preferred incentivizing private investment. So while everyone agrees that it needs to happen, partisanship prevents anything from happening.

Official Democratic & Republican Party Platforms: http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/platforms.php

Occurrances of the word "infrastructure" in party platforms:

2016 D: 23, R: 3

2012 D: 26, R: 11

2008 D: 28, R: 6

2004 D: 4, R: 12

2000 D: 5, R: 5

"Infrastructure" as...

Prominent Issue (i.e., specific paper or plan released):

Clinton 2016 -- https://www.hillaryclinton.com/issues/fixing-americas-infras...

Sanders 2016 -- https://berniesanders.com/issues/creating-jobs-rebuilding-am...

Trump 2016 -- (dead link) https://www.donaldjtrump.com/policies/an-americas-infrastruc...

Obama 2008 -- (dead link) http://www.barackobama.com/pdf/issues/FactSheetTransportatio...

Minor Issue (i.e., some mention):

Romney 2012 -- https://grist.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/believeinamerica-p...

McCain 2008 -- (dead link) http://www.johnmccain.com/Informing/Issues/CBCD3A48-4B0E-486...

Kerry 2004 -- http://www.4president.org/brochures/2004/johnkerry2004brochu...

Article comparing Obama/McCain 2008: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/9/6/589460/-

I don't get that. Every time a bridge collapses somewhere, we talk about it. During the financial crisis, we talked about infrastructure spending as a way to get more printed money in circulation.

It may be a surprise to those who don't follow the news, but what can you do about that?

We talk about bridge collapses because they happen infrequently enough to be news.

Wikipedia has the claim that there are more than 600,000 (!) bridges in the US:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_bridges_in_the_United_...

Imagine if even 0.1% of them were failing catastrophically each year (as opposed to being removed from service in a planned way).

I was a civil engineer in the late 90s. They've been talking about infrastructure spending running short in the US since then. Nobody listens. Upkeep is expensive and nobody wants to pay for it..

occasionally a big project gets funded but for the most part it's just highways that get funding.

...And that's partly because highway funding is a leash the federal government keeps on the states. I suppose people need a few huge disasters to appreciate the need for it?

I don't know what you mean by neglect.

If you keep overspending on new roads and bridges and sewer lines, you're going to see your maintenance bill come due.

As an example, I see sidewalks being built in the middle of nowhere, or that people so scarcely use them, that you wonder why spend money at all. I see parking lots half empty of cars, or worse.

All that means is longer roads, wider roads, longer sewer lines, and so forth. Somebody has to pay for all of that.

If a town has the room for expansion then they will plan to expand. It's cheaper to do this through farm fields than when the housing is already there. And most of this will be done with the input of the land developers.

i.e. They plan to build a 120 unit housing development so the city has to plan and fund a sewer and roads for 120 households. Sewer and roads are fixed costs if you plan for 120 units why not 500 it's only marginally more expensive. Now that plumbed land is more valuable. The next group of developers can do up to 380 units without waiting for sewer and roads to be built. A prospective buyer isn't looking to buy a house 4-5 years down the line. They have the money now and want it right away. Time of delivery effects the purchase price which is how cheap exurbs become pricier suburbs.

Really people need to quit over exaggerating the bridge issue and realize most of that is driven by groups whose main source of income is heavy construction. First the bridge problems are down to nine percent of all bridge from a high of over twenty percent in 1992. Second not all bridges or roads are under the domain of the federal government and nor can it dictate that the order they are worked on.

you want some real neglect, go look at all the heavy rail built for city rail. Washington DC is a poster child for deferred maintenance and so are the cities of Portland and Seattle who always seem to want money for new stuff.

Not everything you read in the news is as dire as it is presented and special interest groups are well versed on how to pull the right heart strings.

Is this to say everything is perfect, no, but it certainly is not as dire as presented and needs to be rationally examined and prioritized.

You know that not all infrastructure is bridges and roads, right?

I dug around a bit for materials related to the lawsuit. Found some:

http://www.waterboards.ca.gov/waterrights/water_issues/progr...

The county complaint is written by the lawyer quoted by SciAm. It does talk about climate change impacting the operations of the dam, but that is about as detailed as it gets. It reads to me like the county was after funds from the California DWR more than it was looking forward to the spillway failing in an especially wet season.

Every single problem in the world could have been averted. However, there is only so much time, money, and resources, so we have to chose what to prioritize. There are even entire fields of professionals that deal with this, such as engineers and politicians.

Exactly. Every time there's some high visibility issue with infrastructure, there are lots of magazine covers and stories about underinvestment.

Maybe we do underinvest on balance. And I have no doubt that there are indeed specific examples that, at least in retrospect, should have received more investment. But "infrastructure investment" is probably effectively a bottomless pit. We could probably spend 2x what we spend and events like this would still happen and we'd still have people saying we don't invest enough.

It's not all that different from software. Maybe there would be fewer bugs and security vulnerabilities if the industry spent twice as much effort on code reviews and testing.

But these professionals are advocating for infrastructure improvement, only to get mired in politics. The funny thing is I can't think of a lot of better, more tangible things to spend tax payer money on than infrastructure repair and replacement, but because climate change has become a politically charged talking point instead of something we all can agree on, nothing gets done about it, even when faced with data and expertise in those subjects.

CAPTAIN HINDSIGHT. The Hero of the modern age. With his trusty companions, Should-a, Could-a, Would-a.

But seriously, postmortem everything seems obvious.

From what I can tell it appears to be difficult to get funding to address flooding concerns during a 7 year drought.

I'm a bit to the south of the dam, in Yuba City, and was evacuated last week. The levees aren't in great shape in this area, overall. Expect more excitement in the next few months.

This is just all around bad planing maybe not accounting for the more rain they are getting, but also not building for all the snow in the mountains. I'm sorry but this is not a climate change issue as much as a bad plaining issue. The changing weather in California is just bring it to light. yes I know the article says that. I'm just saying that trying to control the weather and the effect we have on it is no excuse for this kind of neglect. And it so often is. "Well if we can just control how much rain falls out of the sky we wont have to worry about this." Man has come far but we are not there yet. Hay California you are men not gods start planing for the future your always babbling on about how important it is.

Article: "Those images reveal a big mistake: failure to update infrastructure to defend against climate change."

'Instead of a cooling in the tropics, there will be a uniform warming of the ocean, which will push the Pacific jet stream farther north. As a result, "Canada does get quite a lot more rain," Ting notes, whereas "the whole state of California, for example, will be much drier."' - https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/southwest-america...

Climate Change Increases the Odds of Epic California Droughts - https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/climate-change-in...

'The short answer, experts say, is that the drought built up over several years (with help from hotter temperatures fueled in part by global warming) and it will take many more storms and almost assuredly more than a single winter—even one with a strong El Niño—to erase it.' - https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/el-nino-is-here-b...

'"Regardless of how much of this year's heat was man-made or natural in origin, 2014 serves as an important reminder that heat can seriously exacerbate drought events," wrote Williams in an email. "If temperatures continue rising, we should expect record-breaking drought years to become increasingly common."' - https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/california-s-drou...

I confined myself to quotes from Scientific American articles. Please by all means post articles about how California was likely to face more droughts but it would also be hit by massive, massive rains that erase droughts in one year that we need to prepare for. (Which you'll note one of the articles above specifically calls out as something that will not happen.) I would request that you find me someone predicting that specifically for California, though, not just an article that generally says something about "more extreme events"; we can't really accuse people of failing to plan for those unless we can be specific about what's going to be extreme. "More droughts for California with no particular offsetting rain" is a valid local interpretation of "more extreme events worldwide".

It's a bit disingenuous to accuse people of ignoring the effects of climate change when "the effects of climate change" that people have been talking about for the past few years imply precisely that upgrading the spillway would have been a waste of money for a reservoir doomed to depletion and drought.

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