The enormous US dam problem no one is talking about - C.S. Monitor

[radio4progressives]

The enormous US dam problem no one is talking about

By Gaylord Shaw
Tue Jan 3, 3:00 AM ET

DUNCAN, OKLA. - The landscape of America, at last count, is dotted with 79,272 large dams. Most of them safely deliver bountiful benefits - trillions of gallons of water for drinking, irrigation, and industrial use, plus flood control, recreation, hydroelectric power, and navigation.

(snip)

At least 3,500 of America's big dams are unsafe, according to inspection reports filed away in obscure nooks and crannies of government offices across the country. Thousands more dams also are unsafe, the American Society of Civil Engineers concluded this year, but no one knows for certain how many because few states have the funds for even cursory safety inspections.

(snip)


• In the placid Schoharie River Valley of upstate New York, a volunteer group calling itself Dam Concerned Citizens was formed last month to press for emergency repairs to 182-foot-tall Gilboa Dam, built 80 years ago to supply drinking water to New York City. The dam has been leaking for years. Now citizens have established their own website which distributes emergency notification plans and publicizes preselected evacuation routes for use should the dam fail (www.gilboadaminfo.com ).


(snip)

Bruce Tschantz, professor emeritus at the University of Tennessee who 25 years ago helped establish the first Office of Dam Safety in the then-nascent FEMA, reached back into classical mythology to fetch a phrase - "the sword of Damocles" - to express his concern about the dangers posed by deficient dams perched above developed areas. (Damocles was a courtier at the court of Dionysius I in the 4th century BC. He was so gushing in his praise of the power and happiness of Dionysius that the tyrant, to illustrate the precariousness of rank and power, gave a banquet and had a sword suspended above the head of Damocles by a single hair.)

(snip)


Jimmy Carter was the last president to display serious and sustained interest in the issue. He had been in office less than a year when, in the early morning darkness of a Sunday in November 1977, a never-inspected dam in the mountains of his home state of Georgia collapsed and sent a wall of water crashing down upon the campus of Toccoa Falls Bible College - a campus he had visited several times.

EDITED BY ADMIN: COPYRIGHT

cont...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/yshaw ;_ylt=AlM1Ah9IiF9HonCS7zUFCplH2ocA;_ylu=X3oDMTA3MjBwMWtkBHNlYwM3MTg-


• Gaylord Shaw won a Pulitzer Prize for a series investigating the state of the nation's dams for the Los Angeles Times in 1978.

[XemaSab]

1. There was a big series in the Sacramento Bee

about floods and dam safety, and it was TROUBLING to say the least.

Many MAJOR dams are very old and poorly maintained. There have been "incidents" at many MAJOR dams where the dam came very close to total failure.

An additional purpose to the series was how dams aren't very good for flood control, and there are times when it's a choice between a BIG release and failure of the dam.

http://www.sacbee.com/static/archive/news/projects/gathering_storm/

http://www.sacbee.com/static/archive/news/projects/gathering_storm/breakdown.html

"Nature is applying enormous stress, too. Most dams were designed for more moderate climatic conditions common before 1950. But weather patterns have taken a turn for the worse. Six of the century's seven largest floods in southern Arizona, for example, have occurred since 1960. And nothing threatens a dam like extreme flood runoff.

"Dams provide protection against little floods. But when there is a really big flood, the high priority of everything is to protect the dam, not the people downstream," said Vic Baker, head of the department of hydrology and water resources at the University of Arizona in Tucson.

"Why is that the case?" Baker said. "Just imagine Hoover Dam on the Colorado River and the depth of water and power against the dam. If that were to fail, there is no flood on the Colorado River since the last Ice Age that would resemble it. It would be a disaster beyond what nature is capable of."

And 14 years ago, it almost happened. The place: Glen Canyon Dam, upstream from Hoover. The trigger: heavy runoff from an El Niño winter."

[hatrack]

2. That's a GREAT SacBee series

And this is one of the great undiscussed issues. Kind of like mine safety, I suppose - we'll wait until a whole bunch of people get killed, and then we'll call for hearings. :eyes:

[XemaSab]

3. Not to mention

levee safety in NOLA. :eyes:

[depakid]

11. Precisely

There will be a disaster, followed by some hearings for show & tell, then the appropriations will go away quietly and the corporate media will ignore it.

Then it'll happen again.

[Selatius]

4. No, we won't spend money repairing dams any time soon.

We cut taxes for the rich instead. When we do spend money, it's not on infrastructure, health care, public education, or any other social good. No, we spend money on waging war and making rich people and businesses even richer. We build guns and bombs instead. This nation's government has greed soaking all through it.

[kineneb]

5. excellent book on western water & dams

I recommend "Cadillac Desert" by Mark(?) Reisner. A great read and lots of info on the history of water politics and dams in the west. I think it ought to be mandatory reading for all CA high schools...much more interesting than some of the required texts.

[Clara T]

6. Anyone who lives west of the 100th meridian

should be required to read that book.

Chinatown

[kineneb]

10. yup. interesting family note, re: dams

My grandfather was one of the many who got jobs during the Depression building those dams. He worked on the diversion tunnel for Shasta Dam (CA) until he was injured. The gov. paid completely for his medical care rehabilitation and occupational retraining. Of course that was under FDR. With GW, he would probably have been left an unemployed cripple for the rest of his life.

[rodeodance]

7. people will be killed before action is taken (look at mine safty-or lack

thereof).


....Jimmy Carter was the last president to display serious and sustained interest in the issue. He had been in office less than a year when, in the early morning darkness of a Sunday in November 1977, a never-inspected dam in the mountains of his home state of Georgia collapsed and sent a wall of water crashing down upon the campus of Toccoa Falls Bible College - a campus he had visited several times.

[radio4progressives]

9. Yes I thought was an interesting factoid... i sure don't remember this..

all I remember constantly echoed in those days, was Iran hostage crises Day number (fill in blank) - "double digit" inflation, high employment rate... OPEC Embargo, hmmm.. lots and lots of pyramid schemes...

among other problems... Carter getting blamed for everything in the "liberal media".

[rfkrfk]

8. the Feds should stay out of this important matter n/t