[gridlock]

We cannot turn this dam back over to the Iraqis in it’s current condition. Better to just dynamite the damn thing and get it over with.

If we walk away, the Iraqis will fail to maintain the grouting process and the dam will fail, probably within five years. The Iraqis will steal the money, and we will get the blame.

If this dam is a politial symbol, all the more reason we should tear it down. Saddam liked to have the ability to flood things. He flooded a huge portion of Southern Iraq during the Iran/Iraq war in order to provide a buffer. He diverted water from another province in order to cause a forced migration of troublesome people. He was like a kid playing with mudpies in a stream. This dam looks like one more mudpie madcap construction project, and we would all be better off if it was gone.

The US Army Corps of Engineers, God love ‘em, never met a dam they didn’t like. This one may prove the exception to the rule.

[Malsua]

Drain it. Dynamite it, be done with it.

[SampleMan]

1. Make the condition of the dam and the dangers well known to Iraqis and clearly state that the problem is one of original design and that it cannot be fixed.

2. Drain the reservoir. If it serves a flood relief purpose, it need not hold much water at all, and only during certain times. Which would pose little danger.

3. Go on to next problem.

[DUMBGRUNT]

McGraw-Hill Construction | ENR - Iraqi Dam Has Experts On Edge Until Inspection Eases Fears 05/05/2003

http://enr.construction.com/news/Front2003/archives/030505.asp

German-Italian joint venture called GIMOD, designed an aggressive grouting program to deal with this. Concrete lined grout galleries, each some 1,600 m in length, extend from each wing to the center, in the dam’s core. Mounted lines on the gallery walls deliver bentonite, cement, water and air to make grout for portable drilling machines. Four crews are working in one gallery. There are 12 machines in all. Another wall-mounted line extracts water. Grout injection wells are evenly spaced approximately 10-20 m apart. The grout curtain extends to a depth of 90 m. The dam consumes some 50 mt of grout a day, under normal maintenance. Voids throw the program into emergency status and have consumed up to a quarter million tons of grout a day.