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Bureaucratic bungling on Oroville Dam bodes ill for future California projects

By Dan Walters
July 26, 2017 12:01 AM

Slowly – but surely – we are learning that the near-catastrophic failure of Oroville Dam’s main spillway wasn’t truly caused by weather, even though the state claims that in seeking federal aid for repairs.

Rather, it resulted from poor engineering and construction when the nation’s highest dam was rising more than a half-century ago as the centerpiece of the State Water Project, and poor maintenance since its completion.

The latest evidence is a huge report by a team of engineering experts, headed by Robert Bea and Tony Johnson of the University of California’s Center for Catastrophic Risk Management.

It concluded that the dam’s fundamental flaws were compounded by decades of neglect by the state Department of Water Resources (DWR) and the Division of Safety of Dams (DSOD).

“The gated spillway was managed to failure by DWR and DSOD,” the damning – no pun intended – report declared.

One of the most abysmal failures cited was “the recently exposed existence of DSOD inspection reports dating back to 1989. For reasons yet to be fully determined, identified deficiencies were either ignored, treated as low priority, not acted upon or a combination thereof.”

The 124-page report added that “complacency, lack of industry standard level maintenance, and possibly pressure from internal DWR management and external State Water Contractors’ representatives to hold down maintenance costs were key contributors.”

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Hi Abb, Thanks for posting the article. Good to see some of the press picking up on the the true gravity of what the big report uncovered on the spillway - and - the implications.

There is another report within the main report (as a contributed reference report by former DWR talent) that reveals another dimension to the workings of DWR & certain external contracting outfits (GEI & HDR). I'll have to peruse the main report to get this reference report link (and summary sections posted).

What could be a further headache for DWR is that there seems to be a favoritism of big $ contracts being sent to these contracting outfits. The same outfits that indicate a pattern of top DWR/DSOD officials retiring to go to work for, with a boost in salary + contract benefits.