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In May this year the Army Corps of Engineers announced:
the releases will be at record-high levels, which means water levels on the river will go up significantly in the Pierre and Fort Pierre area and in the area downstream from Fort Randall Dam to below Gavins Point Dam.
So there was no lack of warning. Flooding was eminent.
Hundreds maybe thousands of families have and are being evacuated.
And it has rained continuously ever since.
Now not one, but two nuclear plants are flooding:
Nebraska Flood-Update on Cooper and Fort Calhoun Nuclear Stations
AND UPSTREAM: Water Going Over Most Levees in Minot, ND
North Dakota Gov. Jack Dalrymple says the Souris River is flowing over most levees in Minot as it surges past a 130-year-old record level.
Snapshot of the Dam Problem and the risk to nuclear disaster in Nebraska
The short version, a video:
This is what the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Plant looks like:
Fort Calhoun is in Cold Shutdown.
The New York times published a rather scathing report on the Ft. Calhoun Dam today:
A Nuclear Plant's Flood Defenses Trigger a Yearlong Regulatory Confrontation
I will summarize the article for you.
Omaha Public Power District, an electric utility, engages in the generation, transmission, and distribution of electric power, and energy and other related activities. As of December 31, 2006, it owned and operated nine generating stations. OPPD operates Ft Calhoun and didn't take flood risks seriously enough for the NRC, which decided to act beginning in October, 2010. Phew! Just in the nick of time.
A still-unresolved issue in the dispute is the NRC's contention that OPPD received, but did not properly act on, a warning by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in 2003. It said high-water threats to the plant should be raised by 3 feet based on a new assessment following severe Missouri River floods in the mid-1990s. "The performance deficiency existed for many years," the NRC said in an Oct. 6, 2010, letter to the Omaha utility. ibid NYT
Fortunately,
The plant was shut down in April for refueling and will remain so until the flood threat is passed.
The plant's defenses include new steel gates and other hard barriers protecting an auxiliary building with vital reactor controls, and a water-filled berm 8 feet tall that encircles other parts of the plant. Both systems are designed to hold back floodwaters reaching 1,014 feet above sea level. Additional concrete barriers and permanent berms, more sandbags and another power line into the plant have been added. ibid NYT
And this is what the Cooper Nuclear Plant looks like:
June 19, 2011: Another Nebraska nuke plant declares “Notification of Unusual Event” — Made at 4:02 am CDT this morning
Sadly, a levee broke north of Brownsville.
That was yesterday, June 23, 2011 at 9:00 PM
A levee three miles north of Brownville in Missouri failed at about 9 p.m. Thursday, right in front a pair of people patrolling there.
"It happened so quick that they were concerned that they may not be able to escape," Mark Manchester, deputy emergency management director for Atchison County, Mo., said late Thursday. "The water was coming through fast and hard. … We're not sure what the size of the break is so far."
Officials have ordered the evacuation of all of the county west of Interstate 29, he said. That includes the towns of Phelps City, Langdon and Watson, as well as the Nishnabotna Conservation Area.
Prior to the above levee failure Nebraska Public Power District spokesman, Mark Becker said
Cooper employees are monitoring the river and re-checking sandbags and other protective barriers. He said he did not know if the recent rains will have an impact on river levels.
OK, THIS IS AN ASIDE: At this point my reaction is
WHAT? You are checking sand bags? Good freaking grief! We, the mighty USA are protecting millions of people, babies even, THOUSANDS OF ACRES of the bread basket of the world from a nuclear disaster with freaking SAND BAGS?
We spend $ BILLIONS annually on surveillance equipment so the government can spy on us. $Billions maybe $Trillions on private contractors doing God only knows what to "keep us safe". btw, if you haven't visited Virginia near DC lately, the amount of wealth created by private contractors is un be effin believable. And they are living like kings! Rich, rich, rich life styles, while we want to make granny pay more for her medical care. Give me a break!
And the Nuclear Plants are relying on SAND BAGS to keep flood waters from causing a nuclear disaster that could kill a portion of our land and the people living on it. Our political leaders and the NRC have let profit trump safety for too long. Read this to learn about how bad off our plants really are.
I think we are screwed. Someone has to say that. I think people should prepare for the worst because it's better to be safe than sorry. I wish people would stop pussy footing around the obvious possible loss of life IF any one of so many cogs in this disaster doesn't go according to the plans of the Corp of Engineers, the NRC, or the RAIN which still hasn't stopped. End of aside.
OK, where did I start with this report. Oh, yeah.
THE DAMS
Well, they are a damn mess right now. It doesn't take a hydraulic engineer to suspect that the huge increases in water releases could cause some scrubbing damage to the base of the damn dams. Or that the already excess capacity will be overwhelmed when the RECORD SNOWS melt.
First, the Peck and Garrison are earth dams. Just take a glance of how well this damn dam design worked for the Teton Dam built in 1976, which when it disintegrated, gave the residents less than one hour notice even though the problems were recorded a few days before. Trust that the truth is coming forward is harmed by this horrible Teton history.
Second, they are forever old. The Peck and Garrison dams were both built before 1950!
The Fort Peck Dam is built with a flawed design that has suffered a well-known fate for this type of dam — liquefaction — in which saturated soil loses its stability. Hydraulic-fill dams are prone to almost instant collapse from stress or earthquakes. California required all hydraulic-fill dams be torn out or rebuilt — and no other large dams have been built this way since.
Third, we passed their design maximums a couple of months ago.
For a great read about all the dams, I highly recommend this article:
Can the Fort Peck dam hold. A very good read on a very real threat.
Here are the report links, with a brief blip about each. Click on the blip to read the whole article. I'll try to calmly present this information.
SAND BAGS? to fend off a nuclear disaster? You have got to be Shi@@ing us!!
THE FORT PECK DAM
May 24, 2011
At the same time, releases from the upstream reservoir Fort Peck will be reduced from the current rate of 20,000 cfs to 10,000 cfs to help stem the rise of Garrison reservoir.
June 8, 2011 reported
The Army Corps of Engineers is increasing the peak water releases at Fort Peck Dam in Montana. The Corps will increase flows from 50,000 cubic feet per second to 55,000 cubic feet per second this Friday.
June 10, 2011 Fort Peck opens spillway, again.
Video
The increased flows have caused violent water in the plunge pool
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has opened the spillway at the Fort Peck Dam to allow water to flow through at 47,000 cubic feet per second (CFS), for a record 60,000 CFS flow rate through the powerhouse and spillway on the upper portion of the Missouri River, moving a record amount of rain down the river system.
GARRISON DAM
June 1, Garrison Dam Increases Release (video)
May 20, 2011
Corps Plans to Increase Garrison Dam Releases
Additional release increases to 58,000 cfs are scheduled to take place Thursday, May 26 and again on Saturday, May 28 when increases are set to go to 60,000 cfs. Additional increases may be necessary in early June if conditions continue to deteriorate.
The Corps recommends that people prepare for an additional two-foot increase in Missouri River levels.
May 24, 2011
Garrison Dam releases were increased to 60,000 cubic feet per second (cfs) and will be stepped up until they reach 75,000 cfs.
June 3, 2011
As Bismarck Hits Flood Stage Garrison Dam Releases Continue To Increase, 400,000 Sandbags Still Needed
BISMARCK, ND – This morning releases from the Garrison Dam were increased from 110,000 cubic feet per second to 115,000 cfs. US Army Corps of Engineers spokesman Todd Lindquist states that the dam is still on course to be at 120,000 cfs by Sunday, and 130,000 cfs by Tuesday. The ultimate goal is 150,000 cfs laster this month.
FORT RANDALL DAM
June 23, 2011
The Corps began releasing water at 10 o'clock Thursday morning. Water is flowing through the 26-foot diameter pipes while equipment is being removed from the emergency spillway. Once that is done, extra releases from the dam will go back through the spillway.
The Corps says the recent repair work at the dam was routine and is not related to the high flows.
GAVINS DAM
June 23, 2011
"We're in areas of releases that we've never seen,” Governor Jay Nixon said. “Moving to 160 puts us at a baseline on the river that is keeping everyone on edge."
Operators of Gavins Point Dam said the release is still far from the maximum capability there, which si 584,000 cubic feet per second.
BUT THE LEVEES ARE FAILING, TOO! From the same article:
Blackhawk helicopters are dropping hundreds of sandbags along a levee in Atchison County. The river topped two levees in the area last weekend. Earlier this week, the Associated Press said there could be problems getting enough sand to fill the bags.
Sandbags again!
Levees have been failing everywhere it seems.
Some even just blown up by the Corps of Engineers.
I wonder if they hired any of the Halliburton contractors?
But here's the issue that creates the most concern. Ok, I worked for an environmental engineering company and learned a few things about water flow, etc. so this alarm rings loudly for me.
I think Governor Nixon says it best:
Every levee that fails upstream will take some of the pressure off here. Right now, it’s not so much the depth of the water as it is the speed that creates an impression.
“Current that usually, at low level, moves about two and a half miles an hour, at that level will move as much as 13 miles an hour and could scour,” Nixon said. “So we’re going to have to be vigilant and ready all the way down the Missouri River.
There is NO stopping scouring once it begins. Again, read the Teton
Sandbagging is also a slang term that means:
1. to attack unexpectedly, stop (someone) dead, incapacitate or thwart. A sand-filled bag was formerly used as an improvised cosh or blackjack. The word was taken up into business jargon in the 1980s. (Handbag has been coined as a feminine counterpart.) and/or:
2. to obstruct or outmanoeuvre, especially by feigning weakness. The word is a gambling term now extended to other contexts.
If we avert a greater disaster than the pain and suffering of being flooded and evacuated is causing, it will be a miracle.
We are gambling with sand bags!
PS. Thanks to kurious below for this:
Preparations against Missouri River flooding at two Nebraska nuclear power plants.
...NRC Chair Gregory Jaczko will visit the Cooper Nuclear Station south of Omaha Sunday and the Fort Calhoun plant north of Omaha Monday, said agency spokesman Victor Dricks.
During both visits, Jaczko will also be talking with NRC resident inspectors-- the agency staff who work on-site every day -- and plant officials, Dricks said...
Meanwhile, More Rain is predicted This Weekend for Flood-Ravaged Plains.