Dams at Risk: 65-Foot Crack in Washington State Dam
A large crack has been found in the Wanapum Dam on the Columbia River which supports the utility power supply to a major cluster of data centers in central Washington state.
65-Foot Crack Found in Washington State Dam (Feb 25)
The 2-inch-wide crack was found Thursday after divers were sent into the Columbia River because engineers detected a misalignment in a spillway on Wanapum Dam near the central Washington town of Vantage, said Tom Stredwick, a spokesman for the Grant County Public Utility District.
The Wanapum Dam generates more than 1,000 megawatts of electricity for the Grant County PUD, the utility that provides electricity to major data centers operated by Microsoft, Yahoo, Dell, Sabey Data Centers and Vantage Data Centers.
On February 25, dam officials noticed an irregular bowing of the dam near a section of a spillgate pier along the mile-long structure. Divers examined the area Thursday and discovered a two-inch wide crack running horizontally, located about 75 feet below the water’s surface. It runs the entire width of the 65-foot-wide pier.
The risk of a failure of the dam is high enough that the county has initiated an emergency plan. To relieve pressure on the dam, the water level is being lowered by 20 feet.
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Owen Falls Dam in Uganda Falling Apart (Feb 28)The Owen Falls dam in Jinja could cave in, if the cracks and damage to the dam are not repaired, an official of Eskom, the hydro power generation company, has said.
Huge cracks continue to develop in the walls and supporting pillars of the dam. Water continuously sips through the gaping holes, expanding the cracks and making the dam weaker by the day.
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Lake Manatee Dam at Risk of Collapse (Feb 14)
The Lake Manatee Dam in Bradeton, Florida is in a "severely distressed state" because of erosion, engineering consultants have found, forcing county officials to take corrective actions.
Heavy rains over four or five days could compromise the Lake Manatee Dam, Manatee County government warned in a news release February 14.
As a precaution, workers have begun to lower the water level of the lake.
Engineers and officials are concerned that the dam's clay core may have been compromised.
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Water Gushes over Crumbling Dam in Zimbabwe (Feb 9)
A dam on the Tokwe river in the Masvingo area of Zimbabwe is close to bursting as water from heavy rains finding its way through gaps in the uncompleted dam wall.
Construction of the Tokwe Mukorsi dam began in 1998 but stalled in 2008. The dam was due to be completed at the end of last year but the deadline has passed with construction still not finished. Pictures from the area show water gushing through breaks in the wall and a huge build up of water in the reservoir behind it. Villagers have been evacuated as quickly as possible, with around 4,000 people believed to be at risk should the dam burst.
According to the Daily News, the Zimbabwe Air Force is helping people evacuate. The Minister for Masvingo province is quoted as saying that the government is on high alert and "A helicopter from the AFZ has been airlifting some families who were marooned by the floods but we are not yet sure how many people are still marooned."
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"All dams will break either during the pole shift or in the months leading up to the hour of the shift. Look at the structure of the dam! It assumes that rock holding both sides of the dam will remain in place and not move. Of course these sides will move. This is a subduction zone! There is mountain building and even where the mountains are not being pushed upward, they are moving from side to side. Some parts are more fluid than others, which are more resistant during any earthquake thrust, so there IS inevitably movement to the side. They will pull apart, slide forward or backwards, but in any case the water will find its way around the dam."
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Comment by Starr DiGiacomo on October 31, 2014 at 1:42am
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http://www.talkvietnam.com/2014/10/dam-collapse-prompts-evacuation-...
Dam collapse prompts evacuation in northern Vietnam
Posted on OCTOBER 30, 2014
A section of Dam Ha Dong Reservoir’s main dam was also damaged on Thursday.At least 115 households were evacuated after a dam collapsed early Thursday in the northern province of Quang Ninh; no casualties have been reported.
The secondary dam of the Dam Ha Dong irrigation dam broke at 5:30, flooding Dam Ha Town, the provincial paper quoted Hoang Giang, a Dam Ha District spokesman, as saying.
Giang said that incessant rains that began on Wednesday night overloaded the reservoir.
“Water began spilling over the dam wall at around 4 in the morning and collapsing one of the three secondary dams,” he said, adding that water level in the dam has increased to 60 meters deep at around 10:30 am on Thursday.
Dang Huy Hau, Quang Ninh’s vice mayor, arrived at the site on the same day and oversaw the evacuation of 115 households in Dam Ha Town and Quang Tan Commune.
Relevant forces, including military units, were mobilized to repair the collapsed dam and provide emergency assistance as the flood waters began receding around noon on Thursday.
The material damages have yet to be calculated.
Located on the Dam Ha River, the Dam Ha Dong serves as a reservoir for the irrigation of nearly 3,500 hectares (8,648 acres) of agriculture land.
It also provides water to a community of roughly 29,000 people.
The VND500-billion (US$23.5 million) dam, which broke ground in 2006 and finished in late 2011, also prevents floods to the river’s lowlands.
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Comment by Howard on September 14, 2014 at 2:55am
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Dam Failure in Brazil Kills 3 (Sept 10)
At least three mine workers are dead after a tailings dam collapsed in Brazil.
According to a report by EM Digital (written in Portuguese), rescue personnel were called to the accident early on Wednesday in Itabirite, the central region of Minas Gerais
The military were called to the accident around 7:50 a.m. and worked for four hours to rescue buried miners. The Municipal Secretary of Environment, Antonio Marcos Generoso, confirmed that three are dead in the slide. Another was transported to João XXIII Hospital in Belo Horizonte.
Officials did maintenance at this dam early in the morning when the accident happened. A large amount of waste was released on top of vehicles and workers. A truck driver, a bulldozer with operator and a Fiat Uno with the driver were all buried. Firefighters worked by hand to try to find them.
Workers on the site are being accounted for and the dam is being monitored.
Sources
http://www.mining.com/tailings-dam-failure-in-brazil-kills-workers-...
http://www.em.com.br/app/noticia/gerais/2014/09/10/interna_gerais,5...
http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=auto&tl=en&a...
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Comment by Corey Young on September 4, 2014 at 11:44pm
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Mount Polley mine spill 78% larger than 1st estimates
Imperial Metals now estimates the spill included 25 million cubic metres of water and waste
CBC NewsPosted: Sep 04, 2014 12:57 PM PTLast Updated: Sep 04, 2014 1:02 PM PT
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/mount-polley-mine-sp...
Imperial Metals now says nearly 25 million cubic metres of contaminated water and mine waste spilled into surrounding waterways, about 78 per cent more than the first estimates. That total includes:
- 10 million cubic metres of water.
- 13.8 million cubic metres of tailings slurry.
- 0.6 million cubic metres of construction waste from the dam.
But the company's vice-president of corporate affairs, Steve Robertson, said repeated testing has proven the water in the area is safe to drink, and he's been drinking it while living in nearby Likely. (ANOTHER BOLD FACED LIE)
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150 Villages Inundated as Dam Collapses in Bangladesh (Aug 29)
At least 150 villages of 16 unions under Sariakandi and Dhunat upazilas have been inundated as a 400-metre stretch of flood control dam collapsed early Friday.
According to Water Development Board (WDB) officials, 100 villages of 11 unions under Sariakandi and 30 villages of five unions under Dhunut upazilas are now under water.
The officials are apprehending that at least 2,000,000 people will be marooned because of the embankment collapse.
Bogra's Sonatola, Sariakandi, Sherpur, Gabtali, partial of sadar upazila and Sirajganj's Kazipur, Raiganj and Tarash upazilas may be inundated as the water in Jamuna is flowing above 97-centimetre of its danger level, WDB officials said.
Many roads in Chandanbaisha union have already inundated.
District Relief and Rehabilitation Officer Md Moniruzzaman said Tk1 lakh and 55 metric tone rice were allocated for the affected areas on Friday.
Source
http://www.dhakatribune.com/bangladesh/2014/aug/29/30-villages-inun...
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Aerial video of the destruction caused by today's dam breach in BC.
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Courtesy of Corey Young:
Massive Mine Tailings Dam Failure in Southern BC (Aug 5)
Mount Polley mine tailings dam breach spills millions of cubic meter of wastewater into creeks and lakes, contaminating central B.C. river systems on Monday.
B.C.'s minister of energy and mines says he is devoting every appropriate resource to deal with the consequences of Monday's massive failure of a mine tailings dam in B.C.'s Central Interior.
Wastewater and tailings sediment from Imperial Metals's Mount Polley copper and gold mine near Likely, B.C., has contaminated several lakes, creeks and rivers in the Cariboo region, causing officials to evacuate local campgrounds and enact a number of water-use and drinking water bans.
Residents affected by the wastewater spill are worried about the impact on their health and the environment.
"The tailings pond is so full of chemicals. The water is green, fish floating.... It's sad," Lawna Bourassa said.
Bourassa's husband took photos and video of the debris in Quesnel Lake, the deepest lake in the province, which is located in the heart of the Cariboo Mountains.
"It's just really upsetting and we were just about to have the salmon run," she said.
The Likely, B.C., resident has been drinking bottled water since Monday, when officials announced a complete water ban for about 300 local residents.
The waterways affected by the ban, which earlier included Quesnel Lake, Polley Lake, Hazeltine Creek and Cariboo Creek, now also include the entire Quesnel and Cariboo river systems right up to the salmon-bearing Fraser River.
Authorities are asking people in the region to stop using water from both rivers.
Peggy Zorn lives on the Quesnel River and has a lodge in Likely, B.C., where she and her husband, Gary, own a tourism company.
"The devastation up the lake is unbelievable," Zorn said.
Zorn said her husband has seen some of it firsthand.
"Hazeltine Creek, you could jump across it, and now from what Gary was saying, it's about 150 feet wide. All that debris, the scar on the mountain now is incredible.
Zorn is concerned about the permanent damage to Quesnel Lake, describing the waterway as a pristine lake before the contamination.
"People are drawing their drinking water direct from the lake. That's how pure that water was," she said.
"We live in a rare interior rainforest and nature does reclaim things here quickly, but I don't see that happening [here]."
Zorn said she would like to see more stringent regulations on tailings ponds.
"This dam — the knowledge the experience, the engineers they have — this should never ever have happened to start with."
The B.C. government is investigating how the mine's tailings pond breached, spilling 10 billion litres of water and 4.5 million cubic metres of metals-laden fine sand into waterways.
Imperial Metals president Brian Kynoch and Cariboo Regional District chair Al Richmond held a press conference on Tuesday afternoon, although it was plagued by technical problems.
Sources
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/mount-polley-mine-ta...
http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/tailings-ponds-for-mining-and-oil...
http://www.vancouversun.com/health/Spilled+waste+water+Mount+Polley...
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Cracked Dam Prompts Flash Flood Warning Near San Francisco (Aug 3)
A flash flood warning was issued for parts of Tuolumne County due to a massive crack in the Twain Harte Dam.
Water was reportedly seen leaking through cracks at the dam by an operator late Sunday morning. The crack is estimated to be 150-feet deep by 150-feet long.
The flash flood warning was issued for areas along Sullivan Creek, southwest of the town of Twain Harte. The warning was later canceled after officials determined there was not an eminent threat of failure of the dam
Steve Wasson and his family were enjoying the start of their vacation on a large rock next to the dam when they felt a violent shake.
“A fissure started moving from the back of the rock forward and we all started scrambling and screaming to get off the rock,” Wasson said.
Engineers from Sacramento have been called to the dam. The lake was full at about 143 acre-feet when the crack was first reported.
The water level in the lake is now being reduced by 10 feet to lower the lake below the leak, according to Tuolumne County officials. This means that about 2,000 gallons of water per minute is being let out from the lake.
“We have put a reverse 911, letting citizens know below this mark down the river to be aware of the increased water flow,” said Tuolumne County Sheriff Jim Mele.
Twain Harte Lake will be closed for the rest of the summer and beyond, according to Lake Manager Dennis Wyckoff.
Sources
http://sacramento.cbslocal.com/2014/08/03/dam-leak-prompts-flash-fl...
http://www.twainharte.com/2014/08/03/twain-harte-lake-to-close-for-...
http://www.twainharte.com/2014/08/03/rock-cracks-twain-harte-lake-c...
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Raw Video: Heavy Rains Cause Iowa Dam Break
Uploaded on Jul 24, 2010
In eastern Iowa, the Lake Delhi dam failed as rising floodwater from the Maquoketa River ate a 30-foot-wide hole in the earthen dam, causing water to drop 45 feet to the river below and threatening the small town of Hopkinton. (July 24)
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http://www.northbengaltimesbd.com/?p=22638
200 Meters Stretch of China Cross Dam Collapse in Sirajganj
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http://news.ninemsn.com.au/world/2014/07/12/07/19/dam-collapse-enda...
Dam collapse endangers Bolivia river
7:06am July 12, 2014A dam in a Bolivian mining town that helped keep dangerous pollutants out of a major regional waterway has burst, sparking an environmental emergency, officials say."The lower part of the dam broke - there was some sort of explosion - which caused the water to rush into the Pilcomayo," said Jose Luis Rios, a local prosecutor, speaking to Bolivian radio about the accident, which he said took place on Thursday.
The private Santiago Apostol mine extracts lead, silver and zinc.
Rios said authorities are investigating what caused the dam at the mine to fail.
Officials said residue from the facility risks despoiling the Pilcomayo River, which runs through Bolivia to Argentina and Paraguay.
The Pilcomayo also flows into the Paraguay River, one of South America's most important waterways.
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