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By the 2070s, climate change will reduce snowpack and increase extreme rainfall in the Sierra Nevada and California’s reservoirs will likely be overwhelmed. That’s according to a new study by UCLA climate scientists, who predict that run-off during so-called atmospheric rivers will increase by nearly 50 percent, leading to widespread flooding across the state. We’ll 
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Scientists have now quantified the global decline of big freshwater animals: From 1970 to 2012, global populations of freshwater megafauna declined by 88 percent - twice the loss of vertebrate populations on land or in the ocean. Large fish species are particularly affected.
PIRatE Lab's insight:
The single most modified, fragmented, and outright destroyed ecosystems on planet earth and flowing rivers and waterways.
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Day and night, rescue workers wade and crawl through the iron ore sludge, which is up to 24 feet deep in places.
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Legislation passed by state lawmakers Monday will increase inspections on dams statewide.
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The vermilion darter has expanded its range in Turkey Creek four years after an old dam was taken down.
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This is my brief introduction to issues in the American southwest. Our Boy Scout Troop is preparing for a trip down the Green River through Canyonland
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For the first time in almost two decades, California's biggest Reservoir in Shasta County released water from gates near the top of the dam Wednesday.
PIRatE Lab's insight:
More record breaking hydrology in this oh-so wet year.
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With the heaviest surge from a week of storms over, state water officials said Tuesday they are again considering shutting water off to Oroville Dam’s eroded main spillway.
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Intense rainfall is putting new strains on the network of dams, rivers, levees and other waterways that are essential to preventing massive flooding.
PIRatE Lab's insight:
Yep...setting aside the whole environmental impact of shunting water away from the natural channels and streams where our ecosystems have evolved over millennia thing...creating a massively complex and central to the functioning of our society web of infrastructure and then failing to constantly maintain it or "black swan" the "what if" scenarios is generally a bad idea. See also the national perspective: http://time.com/4671105/oroville-dam-crisis-infrastructure/
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The Lake Oroville saga continues, yesterday we wondered if the collapse of the spillway might have been due to missing or substandard REBAR, and many experts weighed it on that topic. It now appears that there was REBAR there, and the failure was likely of a nature of lack of maintenance and age combined. It…
PIRatE Lab's insight:
Good info, data, and media embedded in the discussion of this post.
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Any dam engineer would be terrified of this nightmare scenario — the possible collapse of a retaining wall in California’s second largest reservoir. That’s the prospect officials faced when they ordered more than 100,000 people evacuated downstream of the nation’s tallest dam Sunday. I
PIRatE Lab's insight:
Undercutting at the base of an engineered wall/dam/levee = New Orleans all over again.
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After a historic rainfall flooded homes across South Carolina, the lake where Frank Lee planned to spend his retirement — paddling his kayak and fishing for bream — has vanished.
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On December 14th 1963 in the hills about Los Angeles, the Baldwin Hills Reservoir suddenly cracked and eventually failed flooding the neighborhood below. Sev...
PIRatE Lab's insight:
This is in Los Angeles Couny, California. The first live nationally televised disaster in U.S. history.
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A controversial dam will swell the Tigris River until its waters submerge the ancient city of Hasankeyf, forcing longtime residents to flee and swallowing up cultural treasures.
PIRatE Lab's insight:
I spent my last sabbatical trying to stop a dam in Turkey. It worked (for now), but many other dams have gone forward. The rampant destruction of biodiversity and culture for the sake of geopolitical positioning is sick. This is what is wrought when science and democracy is removed from governance.
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From
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Archeologists believe that Hasankeyf, Turkey's history began 11,000 years ago. Today, a dam reservoir will soon place the town deep underwater.
PIRatE Lab's insight:
Poor planning and correct governance add up to destruction of natural and cultural history.
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A Department of the Interior inspector general's report says that poor internal security practices pose threat.
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The cost of the Oroville Dam spillway failure last February has risen to $870 million in an estimate released Friday by the Department of Water Resources.
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Department of Water Resources races to complete repairs to Oroville Dam spillway by Nov. 1.
PIRatE Lab's insight:
What's half a billion amongst friends?
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Oroville dam spillway failure was caused by design defects that left it too weak to control rushing storm water this year.
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When a sinkhole opened in the dam's main spillway, operators were left without their main tool to combat rising inflows.
PIRatE Lab's insight:
Great data-rich primer on the goings on at Oroville, published a few days ago. While there is nothing new in this piece relative to other stories I have posted over the past few days, this one does a great job elegantly and effectively presenting the quantitative part of the story of the rising waters. A great integration of simply multimedia and graphing pieces that deepen the story and the understanding.
PIRatE Lab's curator insight,
February 22, 2017 2:11 PM
A great illustration of what you can do in a blog post!
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Officials said the bedrock beneath the Oroville spillway would withstand massive release of water. They were wrong.
PIRatE Lab's insight:
We are seeing more great pieces about the risks and engineering problems with both Oroville Dam and the other dams and water management projects across California and the U.S. A few of these include: Clear engineering/design troubles with Oroville: A piece on folks "fighting" flooding: http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-ln-feather-river-20170220-story.html Flooding elsewhere in California: Oroville's most recent timeline:
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Climate change did not produce California’s winter flooding that abruptly ended a devastating drought. That weather swing is just how California works.
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Environmental groups warned 12 years ago that the nation's tallest dam in California was an imminent disaster.
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A Northern California dam is under repair after it cracked Sunday and prompted nearby residents to panic as officials issued a flash-flood warning.
PIRatE Lab's insight:
California's hydrological infrastructure and poor drought planning/management is showing its age and lack of foresight. On top of the drought and flash flood warnings over the past few days, we are seeing dams crack (as in this story), major pipelines bust (freeing ~1 days worth of water for the City of Los Angeles flowing through UCLA's North Campus over the course of a few hours), and the state freeing local water districts to fine residents up to $500 per event for wasteful outdoor water use.
This is the sound of the piper getting ready to be paid.
See:
http://onpoint.wbur.org/2014/08/04/california-west-water-drought
http://www.latimes.com/local/great-reads/la-me-c1-drought-terra-bella-20140704-story.html#page=1
http://www.latimes.com/local/la-me-ucla-cleanup-20140804-story.html
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