The Kakhovka Dam Disaster Revealed an Archaeological ‘Goldmine’ | Hacker News Reader

The Kakhovka Dam Disaster Revealed an Archaeological ‘Goldmine’

atlasobscura.com

103 pointsBrajeshwar98 comments

Every time I drive through the Columbia gorge I think of what it once was and am sad that I can’t see the rapids that the Cascade Mountain range is named for.

If we “discovered” it today it would surely be some kind of national park or otherwise preserved. Instead it’s got multiple rail lines and highways running alongside a fairly smooth river.

Hard to imagine the deviation that would happen if a few of the Columbia dams failed, and the seasonal flooding would be another issue.

During the ice ages there were huge ice dams along the Columbia River, and when they broke it was crazy. There are lots of neat formations in central WA resulting from the floods [1].

I second the recommendation for Geology Nick but some of his videos are introductory and some are meant for his geology students. Take a look at [2] for some introductory ones.

[1] https://www.parks.wa.gov/225/Ice-Age-floods-in-Washington

[2] https://www.nickzentner.com/2-minute-geology

I recommend Nick Zentner's YT lectures, if you want to understand the deep history of the Columbia basin:

https://m.youtube.com/@GeologyNick

Be careful what you wish for :)

I haven't visited that gorge but know the feeling well. One of my favorite spots in the world is Grand Staircase National Monument which, among other things, is an amazing fossil resource.

The last administration tried hard to destroy much of the monument largely for coal mining. It boggles my mind that we destroy beautiful landscapes and 200 million year old fossil records for nothing more than the ability to burn a little more coal for a handful of years.

>Now there’s a call not to rebuild it.

Pretty fucked up seeing as it supplies the area with residential water as well as irrigation. Without it much of the surrounding will be barren. You can see the difference on satellite pictures of Crimea from when Ukraine closed the channel after Russian takeover.

Article mentions it as well.

>However, that decision is likely to be made. Tuboltsev tries to be realistic, noting that thousands of homes, businesses, and farms depended on the reservoir for their water supply, and there simply may not be other options.

edit: Thanks for the correction! Apparently barren isnt synonymous with infertile. I meant the later.

It’s worse than that - the farms in the area are situated on the most fertile kind of soil in the world. These are important wheat growers on a global scale.

Probably fertile because of historical flooding from the river?

I dont think the flooding reached that far. Point of filling up the damn before blowing it was to create a wide as possible flood to make crossing the area impossible. So its unlikely that the flooding without the damn would have reached much further?

Residential use isn't a lot, as the area is very sparsely populated, so it's about using less water-intensive crops there. Farmers will have to adapt to not having a dam for the next few years anyway, so reasoning goes -- maybe we will not rebuild the dam once everybody figured out what to do without it.

Barren is quite a stretch. Here is what a natural reserve in the area looks like: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Askania-Nova. People lived in the South before the dam was build and will live there regardless of it being rebuild.

>Residential use isn't a lot, as the area is very sparsely populated,

Crimea and Cherson are both not small.

Sorry about the use of the word barren, this isnt my first language. I meant agriculture will be over. The satellite pictures of Crimea i saw a while back looked quite drastic, this wont be any different. And as the other poster pointed out correctly, this is fertile wheat area.

What kind of alternative crop did you have in mind? I havent heard of any feasible suggestions.

The point of the dam was not providing the water for Kherson city (it's on the river and doesn't have this problem), it was energy generation and irrigation of water-intensive crops, because soviet union needed cash and electricity for the industry. So all the space that could have been used to grow wheat was used to grow wheat. Since the time it was build, everything has changed quite a few times (fertiliziers, more yields, new sorts of wheat, deindustrialization of the 1990ies), so decisions made right after WW2 may not make economical sense anymore.

I suspect it will be delayed, debated and maybe we will have a smaller dam or a cascade of multiple smaller dams, but really doubt the original dam will be rebuilt to provide water security and still keep some historical sites accessible.

>What kind of alternative crop did you have in mind? I havent heard of any feasible suggestions.

I don't remember what was the suggestion and take it with a grain of salt, but I heard some ecologists debating things. Something has to happen to the land while the dam is not there regardless of the future decision, so I hope time will tell. It's quite possible to not be feasible to do either and the area will be given historical and ecological reserve status in the end.

The time frame is a good point. Would be great if some less water intensive innovation would be the result. Bit skeptical though, once the grain export becomes a non issue again Ukraine will need all the exports they can get.

> The satellite pictures of Crimea i saw a while back looked quite drastic, this wont be any different. And as the other poster pointed out correctly, this is fertile wheat area.

To be specific, Crimea is not (Kherson is). Crimea is mostly dry steppes. They used to grow quite a bit of rice there, but that was because of the dam and the water it provided.

Thats interesting, do you know how Kherson agriculture looked before the damn?

If you lived anywhere in Ukraine, you're probably familiar with Kherson watermelons, strawberries, potatoes... You name it. And lots has been written about its wheat.

That’s due to the dam though, isn’t it? It’s not naturally able to support such things

Arent watermelons and strawberries really water intensive as well?

From what I read, the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant can’t be restarted unless the dam is rebuilt.

It can not, they are having to drill wells just to satisfy the cooling needs in shutdown state:

https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/pressreleases/update-184-iae...

The cooling pond is slowly draining and the wells are utterly insufficient for the cooling of an operating reactor.

Also because all of the plant experts are being held hostage and the facility is being used for weapons storage complete with mines.

It’s a nuclear disaster waiting to happen. Russia is going to get cut off at Tokmak and say fuck you to the world and blow the thing up out of spite…

Weel, is not a disaster if was a planned demolition but the Russians.

Disasters are when you dont plan for the stuff to happer.. It was an ecoterrorist act.

I heard it's still out. last I heard the Ukrainian army was shooting ballistic at it. I dunno

Here are reasons I can think of for either side of the conflict to blow the dam up.

We need to note that contextually, the dam was blown up at the start of Ukraine's Counter-Offensive against the Russian positions in the south of the country.

Purely mechanically looking at "who benefits" I have the following understanding.

Reasons it could have benefited Ukraine:

1. The flooding destroyed the Russian first lines of defence along the Dnipro as well as their artillery ranging Kherson

2. The flooding created an emergency situation on the ground requiring evacuations and therefore double-tasking Russian forces which were supposed to defend the primary surge toward Tokmak

3. The destruction of the dam makes Russian occupation of the Zaporizhia Nuclear Power Plant more difficult

4. The destruction of the dam makes Russian occupation of the Crimean Peninsula (which gets its water from the dam) more difficult

Reasons it could have benefited Russia:

1. If Ukraine's counter-offensive had included an attack across the Dnipro, this action would have delayed that front, allowing Russian forces to focus on the three other main fronts. (Based on what we know now it appears this was not part of Ukraine's action plan, but that's not to rule it out entirely)

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

Fatuous, weasel headline. Kakhova Dam 'disaster': as if it wasn't the consequence of Russia's invasion.

An intentional disaster is still a disaster. There is very little doubt that Russia blew it up, but it is still catastrophic.

What is this garbage? Everyone knows that Russia was responsible because they were the only ones around. The consequences were obviously a disaster. Why are you lying?

Please don't post in the flamewar style to HN. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for.

If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it. Note this one:

"Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive."

The argument goes that calling it a "disaster" is shortening the phrase "natural disaster". This isn't entirely true; there are man-made disasters like global warming or pollution. However, when talking about an intentionally caused man-made disaster, we don't usually call that a disaster, we call it an atrocity or a war crime, and we name and shame who caused it.

Half of spin is headline craft.

Cool your jets, there is no lying here. squidbeak knows Russia did it and is criticizing the headline for the passive voice "Dam disaster" which doesn't make the intentional nature of the disaster caused by Russia clear.

The intentional nature of the disaster is not an established and proven fact. It suits Ukrainian narrative of painting everything that Russia does as yet another heinous genocidal act, but at least in some cases (including this one) negligence is also a plausible explanation (i.e. it could happen because of not paying enough attention to maintenance and stocking ammunition where it should not be) [1]. This of course does not remove responsibility from Russia: even if in a very unlikely scenario it was sabotaged by Ukraine as Russia claims, it would not happen if Russia has not invaded Ukraine. Still it is important to have an objective view on the events to make sure that real crimes get enough attention from the public and that proper investigation of the events is done. That said, given that we do not have yet a better understanding of what has happened, the headline is accurate enough and complaints about it look like pro-Ukrainian propaganda rather than an attempt to share the truth.

[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20230608002006/https://www.nytim...

> is criticizing the headline for the passive voice "Dam disaster"

Because I love picking nits, that headline does not contain even a single instance of the passive voice.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37708114

Man they try real hard to avoid naming the culprit of the "Disaster".

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