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Oroville dam spillway damaged

berth said:
It wasn't clear to me that this was caused by a lack of repair and maintenance, but rather bad data upon which decisions were made (i.e. the quality of the underlying rock).
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The ultimate problem was caused by the underlying rock, but the spillway could have been repaired, even on the poor underlying rock, and held up under the needs at the time of failure if the repair had been done in a timely manner instead of the can being kicked down the road.

We've seen this kind of shit time and time again, with decision makers betting that the catastrophic failure isn't going to happen under their watch, meanwhile the cost for repair just compounds and goes up significantly.
 
Brett, our road themselves...falling apart due to deferred maintenance. I think it's the same thing with the spillway...
 
Holeshot said:
Brett, our road themselves...falling apart due to deferred maintenance. I think it's the same thing with the spillway...
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I agree. Our roads suck, especially in the Bay Area? Remember how long 580 through the grade was extremely rough?

Same with water pipes, so many are many decades old and could spring a major leak at any time.

About the only infrastructure that is somewhat sound is the fiber optic cabling for TV. Priorities. :laughing

Politicians never do today what they can push onto somebody else down the road, which seems to be a human nature thing.
 
And things like what happened with that Italian cable tram.

And were the issues with the new bay bridge actually fixed?
 
Climber said:
We've seen this kind of shit time and time again, with decision makers betting that the catastrophic failure isn't going to happen under their watch
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Well, I can *kinda* see this argument holding water :)teeth) because of how long CA has had drought conditions.

I mean, if it ain't raining and snowing...

but, yeah, we all are guilty of putting off SOME of the more painful things in life, and we all know how loathe some operators are at spending "their money" - but, if I don't fix my leaky faucet, I'm not drowning Oroville and Yuba City.
 
Climber said:
That's what happens when officials kick the can down the road, costs to repair escalate.

There should be some people losing their pensions over this. IDK why public decision makers aren't held accountable when their actions or lack of cost the taxpayers $$$$$$ :x
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Would you like to buy a deeply discounted high speed rail system?
 
Lucky Jones said:
Well, I can *kinda* see this argument holding water :)teeth) because of how long CA has had drought conditions.

I mean, if it ain't raining and snowing...

but, yeah, we all are guilty of putting off SOME of the more painful things in life, and we all know how loathe some operators are at spending "their money" - but, if I don't fix my leaky faucet, I'm not drowning Oroville and Yuba City.
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Real easy, CA demands wacky wild Kool-Aid Style low Property Tax Rates and Also super duper, 1970's New York City style, Union Contract Corruption that promises anything built costs 3 times what a real company would pay for it.
 
I remember a union dude I worked with long time ago who thought everyone should have a union job making a minimum of $30-35 per hour.
I’d ask him how much he thought his grocery bill might be with everyone along the food chain making that kind of wage. Wasn’t something he wanted to discuss.
 
Blankpage said:
I remember a union dude I worked with long time ago who thought everyone should have a union job making a minimum of $30-35 per hour.
I’d ask him how much he thought his grocery bill might be with everyone along the food chain making that kind of wage. Wasn’t something he wanted to discuss.
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Meh, the hourly wage is high, but not really the problem. I pay a lot of contractors to do a lot of things and the Market Rate guys don't make that much less per hour.

It is paying for the Union fringe benefits and additional infrastructure that really detonates budgets.
 
Well that’s part of my point. To make that union rate $35/hr it’s gonna cost the employer $55/hr. Now all of a sudden your bananas are $10 each
 
Blankpage said:
Well that’s part of my point. To make that union rate $35/hr it’s gonna cost the employer $55/hr. Now all of a sudden your bananas are $10 each
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Honestly, the markey could bear a pretty serious wage lift and not ruin everything, it is the pyramid scheme that comes with it that would wreck the market. You can pay a living wage for the guy working, it is the 15 other guys who aren't working anymore but still getting paid that destroy us.

That shit only works in systems with perpetual population growth, which has ended in this country.
 
Eldritch said:
Real easy, CA demands wacky wild Kool-Aid Style low Property Tax Rates and Also super duper, 1970's New York City style, Union Contract Corruption that promises anything built costs 3 times what a real company would pay for it.
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And CA still has many tens of billions in budget surplus - so hard to spend it all.
 
ctwo said:
And CA still has many tens of billions in budget surplus - so hard to spend it all.
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Infrastructure isn't sexy enough, that money will probably get spent where it will give the most benefit to the decision makers.
 
Holeshot said:
Brett, our road themselves...falling apart due to deferred maintenance. I think it's the same thing with the spillway...
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If you watch the posted video, the spillway design was inappropriate for the geology in that area. The engineering was not as thorough in that day. Would they catch the problem and solve it with good inspection?
 
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Killroy1999 said:
If you watch the posted video, the spillway design was inappropriate for the geology in that area. The engineering was not as thorough in that day. Would they catch the problem and solve it with good inspection?
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Nobody wants to pay engineering rates. People in this thread think prevailing wage construction costs a lot, go find yourself a good civil engineering firm and tell me what their hourly rate is. At least $250/hr.
 
wazzuFreddo said:
Nobody wants to pay engineering rates. People in this thread think prevailing wage construction costs a lot, go find yourself a good civil engineering firm and tell me what their hourly rate is. At least $250/hr.
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Yes, lol, but I need them for like 30 hours before those $75 an hour Plumbers and Electricians are used for like 5,000 hours.
 
wazzuFreddo said:
Nobody wants to pay engineering rates. People in this thread think prevailing wage construction costs a lot, go find yourself a good civil engineering firm and tell me what their hourly rate is. At least $250/hr.
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That is still less than Lawyer rates. Paying that ought to prevent the Lawyers from being needed later. :laughing
 
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