Washington Dam Has 65-Foot Crack, Emergency Procedures Underway

Oh it's a Dam...I thought you said Dame...need to go for another eye test here.

This is only going to get worse as the spring progresses and the snow melts, too. They better start releasing water to back off pressure if they can because there could be a whole lot more added to it shortly.

reply to post by westcoast


Yes I see that now but from the aerial view I thought it may be a flood control dam buy the shape.

I can repair it I have the experience to do it just need to get the right equipment and personnel for the job

More heavy snow and rain is in the forecast, on top of the already melting snowfall. Also, speaking of Hanford, there's; "Concerns raised about nuclear waste tanks at Hanford"

"It is time for the Department (of Energy) to stop hiding the ball and pretending that the situation at Hanford is being effectively managed," Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., wrote Friday in a letter to Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz.

Source

MATTAWA — Boaters were evacuated over the weekend near Wanapum Dam because of a 65-foot crack in the Wanapum Dam spillway.The district is also lowering water levels by about 20 feet and expects to reach this goal by Monday.

All boat launches at the Wanapum and Priest Rapids reservoirs are closed.

District spokesman Thomas Stredwick said to his knowledge this large of a crack has never been found on a Grant PUD dam. The district is notifying property owners on the Columbia River as part of its emergency action plan.

He said engineers noticed something unusual on the water level while doing routine inspections at the dam earlier in the week. After sending divers into the water, they learned that the crack, which spans the entire length of the dam, had formed about 70 feet under water.

Stredwick said the dam could potentially fail, but that PUD engineers do not foresee that happening.

www.columbiabasinherald.com...

So evidently, this situation is serious enough for them to evacuate the boaters. If they get through this and manage to repair that thing, someone needs to buy that maintenance worker who discovered the bowing road a serious beer- and maybe even a steak dinner.

I thought the title said Washington "Dem" like Democrat. A Washington Democrat with a 65-foot crack.
Yeah, like a butt crack.
When you put in the extra money for those extra few feet you'll know where it goes.

And to stay on topic, of course - Wow. Yeah. That does not look good..somebody should fix that.

Oh wait, Uxorious beat me to it
reply to post by UxoriousMagnus

Where did all the money go?.....well....into a different "crack" entirely. One found on the backsides of the global elite.

Ha! Isn't that just cute.

ketsuko
Wasn't the stimulus supposed to take care of this?

Where did all that money go again?

It was. That money was supposed to fix a lot of things. 6 years later however almost none of it was done. The states took the money, used it to make up budget shortfalls, and pocketed the rest, using it to fund other spending/tax cut programs (depending on the state).

Damn mortals, Mother Nature is always gonna take back what's hers.

reply to post by doompornjunkie


came in to check, see if anything happened with the dam yet...keeping an eye on this thread

I'm watching this one. I have friends that live down stream from there.

It's earth crust displacement. This is what's happening all over the place.

Train derailments are happening quite often and this is from the tracks buckling up.

Sinkholes, land cracks and land slips. Everyday!

Last week in Yellowstone, they found a large area of several land deformation's occurring where the ground is lifting and moving in a southeastern direction, and also helium gas is spewing out of the grounds there, something that the experts say happens to many volcanoes prior to eruption.

Google the Michigan land crack. A large land crack across a guy's property in the UP. The crack heads in a southwest direction right towards Clintonville, WI where the booms happened a short time after the crack appeared. Four nights in a row they experienced loud house-rattling booms late at night, then shortly after that episode, booms were heard in Montello, WI, a town in a southwestern direction from Clintonville. Also, at the same time a school in Watertown, WI (souhwestern direction from Clintonville) had to close for a couple of days while they had to figure out why the walls and floor of the kitchen cafeteria had cracked, which they said was from the land buckling underneath.

Many of these sonic booms are seismic-activity related and the booms you are hearing are most likely explosions of gas from the fracturing earth crust.

Also, this past week, one of the largest landslides ever just occurred in Alaska when 60 billion tons of land displaced. Google it, I'm on my way out the door so I can't provided the link right now. Pretty interesting stuff. The landslide amazed the experts.

Just check out how many of these boom reports are occurring along the New Madrid fault line up through KY and TN. Kentucky seems to have a lot of booms and small quakes. Evansville, IN also had an episode of four straight nights of sonic booms that rattled people's homes.

Pay attention to all the reports of land cracks, buckles, sinkholes, mudslides, landslides, small tremor-quakes, and of course, the sonic house-rattling booms and you'll surely get the picture!

edit: I don't mean the actual displacement theory, but rather crustal tectonic movement or earth changes on the surface caused by plate movement. This is also displacement, but not in the sense that the pole's will literally shift below our feet. These movements are causing the cracks, slips, continental drifts, small quakes, etc.

No need to worry guys here's an update.

Wanapum Dam stabilizing following drawdown Posted on March 4, 2014 by Tom Stredwick Wanapum Dam stabilizing following drawdown BEVERLY, Wash. – Engineering surveys taken on Tues., March 3 at Wanapum Dam show that the cracked area found on one the dam’s spillways is stabilizing. As of yesterday, the crack had closed by nearly an inch, and the damaged section of the spillway monolith moved back upstream by approximately 1 inch. These measurements confirm that the section is becoming more stable as a result of lowering the water level behind the dam. Additional alignment measurements will be taken today. Water levels behind Wanapum Dam are at their lowest today around 543 – 545 feet above sea level. Water levels for the dam at this time of the year are normally around 570 – 571.5 feet. Although reservoir levels are at historic lows and the exposed shoreline is of interest to the public, we remind those that visit the shoreline during this time not to damage or disturb the shoreline area. Recreational vehicle activity along the shoreline is prohibited. We are partnering with law enforcement agencies to enforce state and federal laws, which prohibit removing, altering, digging into or excavating any archeological object or site along the exposed shoreline. Wanapum Dam continues to generate electricity. All boat launches on the Priest Rapids and Wanapum reservoirs are currently unavailable because of the low river elevation. The Wanapum Heritage Center and the day-use park at Wanapum Dam are also closed at this time. The drawdown of the Columbia River is a stabilizing measure taken after divers inspecting the condition of the spillway portion of Wanapum Dam discovered a 2-inch wide horizontal crack across one of the dam’s 65-foot spillways on Feb. 26. A spillway is the portion of the dam that allows water to “spill” past the dam as opposed to running through the turbines. The spillway consists of multiple, independent structural sections that support the spillway gates. Each of Wanapum Dam’s 12 spillway gates are capable of passing roughly 80,000 cubic feet of water per second based on current river conditions. In a worst case scenario, if one of the spillway sections failed, the remainder of the spillways and the main dam structure would remain intact. Under current conditions, the amount of water that would flow through this section of the dam would be within the range of normal river conditions. Grant PUD continues to work in conjunction with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission as well as upstream dam operators and stakeholders to monitor and evaluate this incident. Public safety and the safe operation of the dam is the utility’s top priority.

We need a new Public Works Program to rebuild and update infrastructure throughout the county. It would do more for the economy and working folk then these endless pseudo wars and the security state ever will. Put the money were it will do some good.

reply to post by ChesterJohn


That's good news.

It seems to me that this dam could have been very close to failing, given that lowering the water level 20 feet has allowed the crack to close.
From your quote:

As of yesterday, the crack had closed by nearly an inch, and the damaged section of the spillway monolith moved back upstream by approximately 1 inch. These measurements confirm that the section is becoming more stable as a result of lowering the water level behind the dam.

The latest news is that high winds stopped exploration of the crack by barge, so the contractor is now building a platform for access. Fish ladders and slides are also being installed to help the spring run salmon up and over.
one source

Algae was found growing in a portion of the crack, while another section was clean--so it may have been expanding for a while.
Seattle Times

ketsuko
Wasn't the stimulus supposed to take care of this?

Where did all that money go again?

here's the breakdown...approximations, of course
en.wikipedia.org...