
Risks soar, bills come due as 20th-century dams crumble - prostoalex
http://www.eenews.net/stories/1060050980
======
btilly
Not only are the bills coming due, but bureaucratic complacency has put people
in charge who will not be honest about the state of the dams. See
[https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/oroville-tallest-dam-
biggest-...](https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/oroville-tallest-dam-biggest-lie-
united-states-scott-cahill) for a good analysis.

The problem is fundamental to human organizations. People like hearing what
they want to hear. And any organization without disasters for long enough will
lose barriers to having sycophants who say that rise to positions of power.
The necessary result is a growing disconnect with reality.

As Feynman warned, _" For a successful technology, reality must take
precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled."_ People and
organizations tend to remember this after absorbing the lessons from a
disaster.

But a generation or two of no disaster returns sycophants to power.
Guaranteeing that the next preventable disaster will some day come.

That day may come very soon indeed.

~~~
taurath
> The problem is fundamental to human organizations

I can't help but think about all the other countries who actually invest in
their infrastructure and in public needs and have far better outcomes and
social cohesion than the US. There's something wrong with this countries
system of governance I feel.

~~~
kalleboo
It does seem like the US ends up with extra poor outcomes with their
government.

Here in Japan, the government is surely also corrupt, with "bridges to
nowhere" and construction contracts assigned on a buddy-buddy basis. But at
least here that corruption still nets us well-maintained roads and top-notch
train infrastructure... just arguably too much of it and at a high cost. In
the US they end up with the high costs but none of the good infrastructure...

~~~
saryant
Is Japan really the poster child for ethical corporate/government
relationships given the TEPCO debacle around Fukushima?

~~~
M_Grey
I think the Japanese get more out of what they spend/sacrifice for their
government than the US. That's not to imply anything approaching perfection
either.

~~~
gozur88
Much of that is just that they're depending, at least in part, on US taxpayers
for their security.

~~~
M_Grey
That is certainly a factor, although if Abe and his type get their way, that
may change.

~~~
gozur88
Yes, well, Japan has just about reached the limits of the "construction
state". When you've built rail lines that hardly anybody uses, and when you're
finished with cisterns under Tokyo that will handle thousand year floods, you
need to start building aircraft carriers or you'll run out of ways to create
jobs.

------
lordnacho
It's hard to put away money for the future. You can spend a bit less on
maintenance now in order to avert a current disaster. The bill will come, but
not now, and at an unspecific time. If unmaintained dams would definitely
burst on a specific date, this wouldn't be an issue. But they don't, it's
somewhat random when it happens, so every day you get away with it you pocket
the "win". Probably a large part of this "win" is actually just tolerance or
margin of error built in by cautious engineers.

A similar problem is going on with pensions. In many parts of the west, people
were promised very comfy pensions. This presumed either a growing population
or more productive economy, neither of which has happened in the proportion
needed to pay the pensions. In the meantime, you get the occasional unfunded
pension scandal. This will probably escalate, especially if the market comes
down from what looks like a high level. Now and again it will become clear
that people need to either keep working for longer or receive less generous
benefits.

We don't seem to have any governance to solve this kind of problem. The people
making the promises (elected officials) will be long gone by the time the dams
break. On the private side, being inside a corporation doesn't seem to solve
it either. The CEO who signed off the generous pensions will also be gone. And
everyone can claim they acted in good faith, given the projections at the time
the decisions were made.

~~~
omegaworks
The economy has been more productive. Funds for pension maintenance were
simply diverted to other purposes. Politicians signed agreements with unions
and didn't follow through with their promises. I have yet to read solid
evidence they couldn't have or that it would have been impossible if other
decisions hadn't been made. No politician seems to care about what happens
after their term is up, so they have no incentive to ensure the financial
infrastructure is in place and remains healthy.

------
marze
Very misleading regarding Oroville.

It wouldn't have been a "30 ft. wall of water", it would have been half the
reservoir volume as the failed emergency spillway "bedrock" quickly eroded.

And the emergency spillway failure mode wasn't because of age, it was a design
flaw from the day the dam was built.

~~~
jessaustin
TFA's picture of the failed spillway is hilarious. That concrete can't be more
than 4 inches thick! That would work for a driveway, barely. It seems really
out of place on a giant dam. As soon as there was a crack, the underlying
gravel and earth would start eroding, and a complete failure like that
pictured was _inevitable_.

~~~
gonzo
The spillway is 15" thick.

[http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/02/17/oroville-dam-what-
made...](http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/02/17/oroville-dam-what-made-the-
spillway-collapse/)

The article also explains that cavitation caused the concrete to fail.

~~~
rsync
"The spillway is 15" thick."

That is surprisingly thin. Plenty of concrete surface that you walk (not
drive) on every single day is 6 or even 8 inches thick.

I'm sure it's within spec and built to fulfill their design, etc., but ... I
would hardly call it "burly".

~~~
wiredfool
So how thick does it need to be?

~~~
dredmorbius
Cavitation at Glen Canyon Dam chewed through 3 feet of reinforced concrete and
dug a 32' pit along with multiple cavitation gouges in a few minutes.

[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=v98omCq1kRA](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=v98omCq1kRA)

[http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2003-03/water-vapor-
al...](http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2003-03/water-vapor-almost-busts-
dam)

------
blueprint
20th century dreams? Oh, dams.

------
everybodyknows
The author surely does like to heap praise on himself.

------
madengr
Meanwhile, how much money has the USA pumped into Iraq's Mosul Dam?

~~~
danmaz74
Repairs are being funded by the World Bank, which means that US contribution
is less than 30% of the $300 million allocated for this, under $100 million.

Compare this to the money the USA has pumped into the war against nonexistent
WMD in Iraq, and you'll see that the Mosul Dam repairs amount to almost
nothing in the US expenses "for Iraq". And nothing compared to the total US
yearly budget.

So, what was your point again?

~~~
madengr
Thank you. That it's $100M spent on other countries infrastructure while ours
rots.

~~~
_jal
Seem to remember someone at the time saying, "You break it, you bought it."

~~~
macintux
I still remember when this issue of The Atlantic came out with this piece from
Fallows.

[https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2002/11/the-
fif...](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2002/11/the-fifty-first-
state/302612/)

