Suspicious activity prompts investigation at Echo Dam

Suspicious activity prompts investigation at Echo Dam

www.ksl.com

A number of men in the group paid a resort worker $35 to launch at least two boats. Several others remained on shore while the men piloted their boats to the dam where they spent hours shining lights along the width of the structure. They were gone by daylight.
The witnesses said the men appeared to be from outside of the United States. Wirth said no matter who they were or what they looked like, their activities were suspicious.

(visit the link for the full news article)


Related News Links:
www.ksl.com

I have family living right above this dam, so the article caught my attention. The resort officials left a letter on the camping vehicles in the area... it gave more information than the actual news article.

Dear Campers,

YOUR HELP IS NEEDED.

The other night 2 boats came in at 1:30 AM. Launched and paid Scott $40 to put the boats in the water. They left part of the group on shore. One boat went clear to the dam because Scott and Jay watch them and the other boat went to the south end. THEY WERE ALL FROM A FOREIGN COUNRY.

In the morning when they told me I immediately called the authorities. They rushed 2 boat rangers, 5 Summit Co. deputies, a person from the FBI to see if they could get fingerprints from the money, and a new submarine like device from Homeland Security, to scope the face of the dam and to scope down the channel tat goes under the highway bridge.

The purpose of this letter is to keep our Seasonal Campers informed.... (bunch of numbers...)

It's the 10th anniversary of 9/11. They will try something. We can all help prevent by being alert.

ECHO RESORT.

So there it is... tell me what you think?

www.ksl.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

I commend your efforts here,.
But It doesnt seem to me a dam worth the trouble.
Kinda small,,what would be the reasoning, is their lots of population downsteam?

Originally posted by Lil Drummerboy
I commend your efforts here,.
But It doesnt seem to me a dam worth the trouble.
Kinda small,,what would be the reasoning, is their lots of population downsteam?

If someone were planning on blowing up a dam, I can't imagine it would be the one they scoped for "research". They would get their information from a smaller damn and target a larger one -- probably elsewhere in the country.

That's if someone were planning on blowing up a damn, that is.

reply to post by Lil Drummerboy


Yes - including one of the largest Air force Bases in the US

reply to post by CeeRZ


sounds rediculous that someone is paid 35.00 dollars...who in America does not look like they are from another country anyway..

Originally posted by Lil Drummerboy
I commend your efforts here,.
But It doesnt seem to me a dam worth the trouble.
Kinda small,,what would be the reasoning, is their lots of population downsteam?

Lots of high water this year, a dam failure could cause a domino effect all the way to the gulf.

There was much concern over Fort Peck Dam about 3 weeks ago, they thought it could go.

That terrorists could be considering this is of no shock.

It doesn't make sense. These things are usually planned months in advance at least. Also they could have scoped out the dam in a much more inconspicuous way. This kind of dam is also a pretty difficult target considering the level of damage it would cause. I smell a possible decoy.

I agree it's an odd dam to be worried about - but, it definitely would cause issues in an already flooded state... and like I said - there are quite a few large populations downstream... and a large USAF base.

I also agree "research" would take place on smaller dams.
Plus, who knows... maybe targeting multiple dams around the country...small and large to go at the same time. Always possible. I think it would be an attack that would be hard to combat. Imagine multiple cities around the country all being flooded at once. There are thousands on thousands of dams in the country.... it would be incredibly hard to keep an eye on them all.

Originally posted by CeeRZ
reply to post by Lil Drummerboy

 

Yes - including one of the largest Air force Bases in the US

Hmmm,
that adds to the interest.
I think is will look into this one,.. thanks

...just because they "appeared to be" foreigners doesnt mean they're not working for homegrown jerks who would like to scare the crap out of folks and kill some in the process... i wonder what kind of foreigners they appeared to be and why that wasnt mentioned in the article (or did i miss that part?)...

...whoever they are, they werent very bright if they're planning something nefarious... they couldve just gone out in the daytime, fished along the damn, blended in... if they were planting a bomb, they were incredibly stupid cuz they interacted with witnesses and didnt they bring their own boat... so, hopefully, this is nothing...

Originally posted by CeeRZ
I have family living right above this dam

...above is good... below = dumb cuz stuff happens...

Have you any idea the thickness of the dam walls?

It had to be MANUACTURED IN PLACE, not transported in!

I have to ask, how do they know they were from another country? Did they say they were?
And I would like to know if they had fishing gear? Fishing by the dam at night is a favorite of some.
I am also wondering if perhaps they may have been looking for something lost earlier in the day? The lakes always wash down to the dam, so lost items in the area would naturally move that way.
I think this maybe just something relatively normal. Jumping to conclusions is not the best way to go.
If the man did indeed feel like it was weird then why wait till morning to call someone? A cell phone call while waiting could have caught them in the act, so to speak.

Originally posted by JennaDarling

Have you any idea the thickness of the dam walls?

It had to be MANUACTURED IN PLACE, not transported in!

It's not like in the movies where they blow a huge hole in it. There are tremendous forces acting on the dam, it takes very little damage in the grand scope of the dam to cause a failure.

In my opinion you could take out a dam that size with a few hundred pounds of explosives, enough to be carried in 2 small boats.

Less if you were an engineer and knew where to place the charges for maximum effect.

Unfortunately I don't know the region the foreigners came from. It didn't state that in the article. My guess is speaking a different language or a very obvious foreign accent. Looks alone are impossible in the US, I agree. Everyone looks foreign.
I also agree that someone should have been called immediately, and not after.
No fishing gear is mentioned - and my guess is there wasn't any, otherwise it wouldn't have been deemed odd.
Also, if you lose something in a lake - using a flashlight isn't going to help you find it at the very deepest part where the water is let out.


The strange parts to me, are this:

* It's a small dam - what is important about it? (aside from Hill Air Force Base down stream)
* The group showed up at 1:30 AM ... why not wait until daytime? The lake isn't very busy usually.
* Two boats deployed- one to each end of the lake.... What is so important to send boats to both ends?
* Some of the men stayed on land... to keep an eye on the locals there?
* Homeland Security and the FBI were on-scene.... easy enough to send local authority divers in to check the dam if there isn't much of a threat?


I think the most interesting part is that Homeland Security came in. Maybe specifically because HAFB is downstream?

I did a search on other dams with suspicious activity, and there are actually quite few over the years, but nothing recent that I found.

Originally posted by AGWskeptic

Originally posted by JennaDarling

Have you any idea the thickness of the dam walls?

It had to be MANUACTURED IN PLACE, not transported in!

It's not like in the movies where they blow a huge hole in it. There are tremendous forces acting on the dam, it takes very little damage in the grand scope of the dam to cause a failure.

In my opinion you could take out a dam that size with a few hundred pounds of explosives, enough to be carried in 2 small boats.

Less if you were an engineer and knew where to place the charges for maximum effect.

Maybe maybe not, How doyou know there is not 2 layers to prevent if one layer failed the other layer took the stress?

In short, without construction info ( easily found in HISTORIC VIDEOS ) you may as well be pissing into the wind.

If you want to know how to blow up a dam, go search the HISTORY channel or National Geogphric MEGA STRUCTURES and watch how it was build, and the construction.

Originally posted by CeeRZ
reply to post by Lil Drummerboy

 

Yes - including one of the largest Air force Bases in the US

If the dam has the normal curved wall, it could be used as a large reflector for a radio listening post (which would not be against the wall of the dam, but at the focus of its curve).

Originally posted by JennaDarling

Originally posted by AGWskeptic

Originally posted by JennaDarling

Have you any idea the thickness of the dam walls?

It had to be MANUACTURED IN PLACE, not transported in!

It's not like in the movies where they blow a huge hole in it. There are tremendous forces acting on the dam, it takes very little damage in the grand scope of the dam to cause a failure.

In my opinion you could take out a dam that size with a few hundred pounds of explosives, enough to be carried in 2 small boats.

Less if you were an engineer and knew where to place the charges for maximum effect.

Maybe maybe not, How doyou know there is not 2 layers to prevent if one layer failed the other layer took the stress?

In short, without construction info ( easily found in HISTORIC VIDEOS ) you may as well be pissing into the wind.

If you want to know how to blow up a dam, go search the HISTORY channel or National Geogphric MEGA STRUCTURES and watch how it was build, and the construction.

Do a little reading about dambusting in Europe in WW2, then come back.

Dams are easy for trained EOD techs.

Originally posted by AGWskeptic

Originally posted by JennaDarling

Originally posted by AGWskeptic

Originally posted by JennaDarling

Have you any idea the thickness of the dam walls?

It had to be MANUACTURED IN PLACE, not transported in!

It's not like in the movies where they blow a huge hole in it. There are tremendous forces acting on the dam, it takes very little damage in the grand scope of the dam to cause a failure.

In my opinion you could take out a dam that size with a few hundred pounds of explosives, enough to be carried in 2 small boats.

Less if you were an engineer and knew where to place the charges for maximum effect.

Maybe maybe not, How doyou know there is not 2 layers to prevent if one layer failed the other layer took the stress?

In short, without construction info ( easily found in HISTORIC VIDEOS ) you may as well be pissing into the wind.

If you want to know how to blow up a dam, go search the HISTORY channel or National Geogphric MEGA STRUCTURES and watch how it was build, and the construction.

Do a little reading about dambusting in Europe in WW2, then come back.

Dams are easy for trained EOD techs.

is that dam as old as WW2? I dont know. just asking.

What date was it constructed? Perhaps if it was after WW2 they would have designed that in?

Did a little more research on the dam as I just remembered they emptied it early early in the year to do some earthquake renovations on it. Amazingly because we had 10 foot snow packs on July 4th still, and the dam filled very quickly. It was reported we had enough snow pack to fill and empty the lake 9 times.

I didn't find anything saying the dam would affect HAFB if it did fail... so that can likely be ruled out.

Here are some stats on the dam

The reservoir provides water for irrigation for about 109,000 acres of land east of the Great Salt Lake along the heavily populated Wasatch Front and has a total storage capacity of approximately 74,000 acre-feet.

Echo Dam is a zoned, rolled earth-and-rockfill embankment dam with a structural height of 158 feet, a crest width of 25 feet, a crest length of 1,887 feet at elevation 5570 feet above mean sea level, and an estimated embankment volume of 1,540,000 cubic yards. The upstream embankment face has a protective layer of conglomerate fill.
The spillway is located on the left abutment and has a design capacity of 15,000 cubic feet per second (cfs) at full reservoir capacity (water surface elevation 5560 feet). The spillway consists of a concrete-lined inlet channel having a crest elevation of 5543 feet, a gated structure with four 18-feet wide by 17-feet-high counterbalanced radial gates, a chute, a stilling basin, and an outlet channel terminating in the Weber River.

Environmental Effects of Echo Dam

Echo Dam and Reservoir could affect socioeconomics in four major ways: water use, recreation, hydroelectric power generation, and highway access.

1. The reservoir holds a maximum of 73,900 acre-feet of project water for use by irrigators, municipalities, and other users in Davis, Morgan, Summit, Wasatch, and Weber Counties. At the time of construction, Coalville City, and the town of Echo located south of Echo Reservoir, served the predominantly agricultural economy of the surrounding valley.
2. Echo Reservoir serves as a major source of recreation for residents of Davis, Morgan, Summit, Wasatch, and Weber Counties. Recreation, currently the most prominent economic activity in the valley, is largely centered on the reservoir. Based upon information provided by the Utah Division of Parks and Recreation, the capitalized net present value of recreation associated with Echo Reservoir is calculated at approximately $86.6 million.
3. Hydroelectric power produced at the Echo Powerplant is owned by Bountiful City and marketed by Bountiful City Light and Power. Energy produced at the plant is primarily used by Bountiful City.
4. Access around Echo Reservoir to Coalville City, Utah, and points beyond is provided by Interstate 80 (west side of reservoir), and Echo Dam Road (east side of reservoir).

In the event of dam failure, approximately $4 billion in property and project benefits could remain exposed to increasing risk over time.