Slashdot Mirror
Damming News From Washington State
Trax3001BBS writes "A 65-foot (20-meter) crack has been found in Wanapum Dam, one of the major dams along the Columbia River in southern Washington. Water levels are being lowered to both reduce water pressure and give the inspectors access to the area. 'Earlier this week, an engineer noticed a slight irregular "bowing" above the spillway gates near where cars can drive across the dam. When divers finally took a look under water they found a 2-inch-wide crack that stretched for 65 feet along the base of one of the dam's spillway piers.' The article goes on to say, 'Even if the dam doesn't fail, the significance of the damage is likely to require extensive repairs and that, too, could impact the entire Columbia River system. "All these dams coordinate to generate energy on a regional scope," Stedwick said. "If Wanapum is impacted, that has impacts on dams upstream as well as below." Upstream dams would be required to handle more water; there's only one lower dam (Priest Rapids). After that is the last free flowing section of the Columbia river. I've taken walks along that section, and I've seen it deviate (higher or lower) by amazing amount of water, so it can handle the changing flow rate. Making this situation more complex, a large group of people would like that particular dam removed, as well as the one above and below it (think of the fish!). On top of that, after the Priest Rapids dam (downstream from Wanapum Dam) is the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, once a site for Plutonium production. Either of these issues could generate a ton of attention. Personally, I'd like to give the engineer that noticed a slight irregular 'bowing' my congratulations."
I know this is going to kill my karma, but WTF?? That is the most poorly written article I've ever seen on here and I'd wager that most would find it completely off-topic for the site. Combined with the new commenting system, and I think my days here are over. It's been a fun ride, but adios Slashdot.
sharkyfour.com
cloned dinosaurs escape their cages and stampede the earth, sending millions of flesh light users into the depths of the earth, where still more dinosaurs eat them and hang some as tapestries.
nt
Don't just write about it, fix the dam thing! You need to be proud of a water works. Think of the first people who stared at it at its completion. I can see them now, a father and his daughter, and the father says, "That is a fine dam thing."
"Bow down to Washington!"
what, too soon?
how about "Roll on Columbia, Roll on"?
"Washington my home"?
Can't hey just open up the spillways of the down river dam so they can lower the water level?
Or is this just some BS about not wanting to waste power generating capacity?
I'm sure all that money will help you when the dam breaks due to your delaying. Then again, the people deciding these things probably won't even be affected.
What did the fish say when he swam into a wall?
If there is only one dam below Wanapum, this will be easy. But don't miss an opportunity to throw in a totally irrelevant mention of the Hanford nuclear weapons complex - you know, that place that itself gets irrelevantly dragged into any discussion of commercial nuclear power.
I believe the biggest problem with cracked dam walls is that moisture gets into the interior of the wall and softens the material which is keeping it strong. Then the crack opens a little bit more, more water gets in and you have a nice exponential curve happening.
There was a rumour about this happening to the hume reservoir in Australia about 20 years ago.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Wouldn't the Downstream dams be the ones required to handle the excess water flowing past Wapanum? Someone needs to lookup the definitions for up/downstream.
William Mulholland didn't take action when the St. Francis Dam performed similarly, and after his inspection, killed up to 600 people twelve hours after his inspection.
Kriston
Any pictures of the crack? Save the story for later.
That last free-flowing stretch of the Columbia River that the OP mentions is also the last stretch of Columbia River that maintains spawning habitat. It also accounts for a very large portion of the salmon that return through the Columbia River estuary every year. If removing this dam would open up more spawning habitat, this would not be a bad thing.
If there is a downstream issues with the water bandwidth, maybe the dam should strike a deal with Netflix as well?
Meanwhile, the RAF categorically denies that an Avro Lancaster was seen near the dam earlier that day.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
Water levels are being lowered to both reduce water pressure and give the inspectors access to the area.
"This just shows how the government wastes your money. They've even got dam inspectors. We don't need no dam inspectors."
yes pbeta sucks
I'm sure glad they caught it. China has a similar series of hydroelectric dams. A failure caused a domino effect and when the Banquai dam failed it killed 200,000 people. I know TFA says the failure of this one dam wouldn't kill that many people, but that assumes the sudden tidal-wave-like flood doesn't effect the downstream dams. A domino failure on the Columbia river would be a catastrophe.
This is the problem with Hydro power. This is why we should go 100% solar and not use electricity at night. We can't safely use Hydro, it's too dangerous, the pressure levels and engineering is too dangerous and a single mistake could kill an entire ecosystem.
Think of the children down river from this dam!
If you have any incandescent bulbs, _YOU'RE_ to blame as well.
-Francis Candlemaker
-Malakai
A Dragon Lives in my Garage
The Eastern US has gotten a lot of snow this winter. When it all melts we're going to get epic flooding.
Sure congratulate him for doing his job. But don't think for a minute that this issue wouldn't be seen on major dams because they are, all the time. Dam's are monitored for these issues. Routine and annual inspections are made. This is done precisely to prevent accidents like we've had in the past. Dams must be monitored because water is relentless at finding ways to breach the containment.
There are 5 dams down stream of wanapum, 1 above the free flowing hanford reach and 4 dams below that. River "operations" involve a complicated coordination of all the dams and reservoirs to provide adequate flow for fish and year-round power generation. It is an interesting engineering problem - hacking a river. There is also a computer angle here in that several data centers are located in Grant County (which owns the generation rights) to take advantage of the cheap reliable power. Presumably those data centers are watching this closely. Power rates for everyone in the county will rise if they have less power to sell or if they have to buy power from outside the county. The system is dependent upon storage for of moving water down stream the river is very interesting in that water flowing through one dam
> there's only one lower dam (Priest Rapids)
Um, unless I'm missing something, looking at the map that statement links to shows 4 dams below Priest Rapids: Mcnary, John Day, The Dalles and Bonneville.
Could the OP possibly be mistaken?
The data centers in Quincy are quite large. Microsoft has a major facility, which is undergoing expansion. So does Yahoo, Intuit, Dell, and Sabey. These are major components of the tax base for the town of Quincy and elsewhere in Grant County. The data centers are highly resilient to power loss, with on-site diesel generators, 24x7 staffing, and all the other protections you'd expect. But prolonged use of the generators, if it becomes necessary, could exceed the permitted run time and accompanying pollution the facilities are allowed. Most likely, power from the other dams the Grant County PUD operates (or elsewhere on the regional power grid) could be routed to the data centers.
There are some other huge electricity consumers in the county. It's the world headquarters of a company that makes photovoltaic components, and also several food processors (all those potatoes from eastern Washington gotta be processed and cooked!). Industrial users might be able to turn down their power usage if there is a regional shortage, but data centers tend to operate at fairly stable 24x7 consumption levels. Major companies like those listed above have redundant facilities, and can shunt processing to other centers if required.
Site selection for major electricity consumers, including data centers, is a fascinating topic. The State of Washington has had various tax incentives to help businesses to choose to build facilities there. Electricity costs are among the lowest in the nation (under 3 cents/kWh for industrial customers). Plus, it makes extensive use of renewable sources, particularly hydroelectric (i.e., dams) and wind energy. Oregon has a similar story to tell, with their own rivers, dams, tax breaks, etc., and is part of why Amazon elected to put a huge facility there.
The beta interface doesn't make sense on any device.
"Remember, there never were pineapple-almond cookies here."
Don't worry - the only thing downstream from this dam is Portland.
#DeleteChrome
Yes, it is. It's usage as verb is quite correct. Look it up in the dictionary.
Personally, I'd like to give the engineer that noticed a slight irregular 'bowing'...
I first read that as: "Personally, I'd like to give the engineer a slight irregular bowing."
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
Is this one of the installations where they discovered Muslims acting suspiciously? I think they should check the cause of the crack carefully
Bad enough when we can no longer "read" linked URLs. Now, failed URL link attempts mean "we'll never know".
Thank you, new slashdot, (1) for making me look elsewhere, (2) for helping me get more work done and (3) for all the fish.
Unless you count the 582 miles of cooling pipes.
I come here for the love
> huge electricity consumers in the county. It's the world headquarters of a company that makes photovoltaic
The company making solar panels buys huge amounts of electricity rather than using their own product? Why?
> (under 3 cents/kWh for industrial customers)
Oh, that's why. Using their own solar panels would cost them 35 / kWh, twelve times as much.
... much of the region is suffering from drought conditions. While eastern drainages to the Colombia have a fairly robust snow pack, many to west and south of the river are suffering. This would normally suggest the Army Corps of Engineers would want to hold back more water in the reservoirs, but this news impacts such actions. In the mixed new category, storms are currently lining up to dump on the region. Snow pack data is available, here: http://www.nwrfc.noaa.gov/snow/ 10-day weather forecast maps, here: http://www.nwrfc.noaa.gov/weather/10_day.cgi
"If Wanapum is affected, that has effects on dams upstream as well as below."
this exceeds the excessive inaccuracy ratings for slashdot. It helps if you actually read the links you include in your article. this page: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ec/Pacific_Northwest_River_System.png, linked in the article, shows there are 5 dams below the wanapum. apparently the change in color was too confusing for you? The Columbia is only free-flowing below the Bonneville dam which is just upriver from Portland/Vancouver.
This region is one of the most poltically conservative of the nation. While they send congressional delegations to Washington to lower taxes and 'get the government off their backs,' they make their fortunes from the cheap electricity, cheap water, and cheap roads in what was once stinking desert. Let's get the government off their back, and let the costs of electricity, water, and transportation return to what it was before the creeping socialism of such large public-works projects.
From the collected reading list of a licensed and registered Professional Engineer:
199307 Engineering Times - Will High Technology Bring Engineering Disaster? [unverified software applied by unqualified users]
199409 Scientific American - Software's Chronic Crisis, W. Wayt Gibbs [software is being written but not by programmers]
199409 IEEE Spectrum - Judgment's Subtle Presence [replacing the decisions made by people with pre-programmed ignorance]
199703 IEEE Spectrum - Reflections on Complexity, Robert W. Lucky [just because you can does not mean you should]
http://www.merriam-webster.com...
Pick your dictionary. Do any not list it as a verb?
Learn to love Alaska
Don't worry - the only thing downstream from this dam is Portland.
Crap. The resulting sludge will just be coffee with a bunch of knit hats floating on top.
Does the U.S. even have the engineering prowess, industry, money, and political will to perform a major dam repair/construction at this point?
The company making solar panels buys huge amounts of electricity rather than using their own product? Why?
Are you serious? They are a manufacturing company. They are not seriously hurting anyone, including the down-the-line solar plants, when they buy electricity from a hydroelectric facility.
Do you expect car manufacturing companies to insist that all deliveries they receive be made in one of their vehicles? Do you think Comcast even blinks when an employee uses WiFi that's serviced by a competitor? Does coca-cola harangue an employee drinking milk?
It's a manufacturing facility. And nobody really even tries to compete with existing hydro dams. Once they are there, the ecological damage is mostly done.
The company making solar panels buys huge amounts of electricity rather than using their own product? Why?
Because MAKING PV cells requires a substantial amount of electricity, and it's an industrial fabrication facility, not an energy production site.
Oh, that's why. Using their own solar panels would cost them 35 / kWh, twelve times as much.
Using their own panels wouldn't cost them a thing except lost profits from not having sold the ones they used. But building a solar farm to power a high-consumption fab requires space they don't have and doesn't make environmental or financial sense. Don't be an idiot. You WANT the fabrication process to use electricity as cheap as possible to keep the costs down, and you want to do it somewhere where there is abundant, cheap energy so that you can ship the finished products to areas where there isn't a sustainable power source.
There was this Italian guy named Galileo....he figured out that you could predict exactly how much weight a beam protruding from a building could support. Just tell him the type of wood, how long, how wide, how much weight.....and he could give you the answer. I guess that wasn't "tech", either.
Some nerds think nothing ever happened before they were born. Or before they got their most recent phone. Maybe Doug Adams was right: "how do you know it's technology? If it comes with a manual,
it's technology". My spin: "if it doesn't work yet, it's technology". "If it never works, even AFTER you study the manual and apply all the fixes, it's technology". "If it never worked, never WILL work, and COULD never work, but you paid cash for versions 1,2,3,5,7.9, and 13 anyway, and you never got
ANY of that money credited, or refunded.....it's technology."
And Biggs Junction! If that is gone where am I going to pee after driving over Satus?
-- I have a private email server in my basement.
infrastructure gobbles up a lot of money and its maintenance (or lack thereof) is a major issue in this country
You've nailed it. Infrastructure has become invisible, unlauded, boring. Infrastructure is the original stuff that matters.
Aside from entering some engineering field, there are ways that nerds can make a difference. Take this dam for example, clearly a certain level of routine surveillance had not been performed . If divers discover a 2 inch crack, could there have been a half inch or hairline crack some time ago? And could a more thorough use of remote imaging or even acoustic technology have spotted it? What if someone who reads Slashdot has an idea for some economical and effective way to inspect dams should contact Thomas Stredwick at PUD and offer expertise and propose such a method? At times history favors those who make those phone calls.
I define a 'nerd' as someone technologically aware who is capable, by the multidisciplinary nature of technology, of useful insight. The biggest problem with nerd-culture today in my opinion is that they tend to be observers who are not out there looking for problems to solve.
If you consider yourself to be tech-savvy in some field or are just interested in what problems are out there, check out the InnoCentive Challenges. These are a collection of problems to solve, big and little, that someone has documented and put up cash money to solve. Some of the challenges are interesting and very specific. For example, if you can propose a good way to Detect Protruding Nails in a Wooden Pallet that is going past on a conveyor belt, there might be $20,000 in it for you. Also lots of chemistry, medical materials science challenges.
Infrastructure should be a part of your child's exploration of the modern world. Underground by David Macaulay gives readers an introduction to utilities by presenting awesome ink drawings of incredible perspective and detail. As they start reading. Infrastructure: A Field Guide to the Industrial Landscape is the kind of book you want your children to grow up with and browse long before they understand all the words. Because great books about interesting things deliver the words to them.
I am an infrastructure maniac.
___
Obligatory bump to the Thorium Alliance and my own letters on energy,
To The Honorable James M. Inhofe, United States Senate
To whom it may concern, Halliburton Corporate
<blink>down the rabbit hole</blink>
The title says it all.
I live in Washington state and this news does not belong on Slashdot. Let's keep it tech guys!
*blinks* Stop fucking doing this. *blinks* *beats* *breathes* *shits*
No, seriously, it's really fucking annoying. *farts*
The Wanapum dam holds back 796,000 acre feet of water. The next dam on the river has a capacity that is a fraction of that (237,100 acre feet), but the one after that is bigger than both of those combined, but not much.
All told, if we had a domino action of Wanapum and the 4 downriver dams failing, we'd be talking about 5,780,100 acre feet of water flowing past Portland, which would be a devastating event indeed.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.