San Diego Releases 600 Million Gallons From Lake Hodges Dam Due to Safety Concerns
Meanwhile, San Diego County faces public health threat because of sewage flow from Mexico.
In the golden days of California’s prosperity and responsible governance, our state built infrastructure that could last and power sources that could fuel innovation and growth.
Good times, my friend, good times.
I reported on the threatened breach of the Oroville Dam in California during a set of rains in 2017. I noted valuable lessons should have been learned as a consequence of the evacuation of the region near that dam.
Governor Jerry Brown was listening only to scientists who believed in man-made global warming, assumed that the drought would last forever, and wanted to divert resources to vanity projects and supporting illegal aliens.
If Californians don’t want to relive this scenario, possibly with an actual catastrophic failure, then they should review their choices in 2018 and remake the political infrastructure.
No lessons have, in fact, been learned . . . as the residents of San Diego are discovering in 2024.
Over 600 million gallons of water has been released from a San Diego lake following atmospheric rivers that unleashed record rainfall on California in recent weeks.
Lake Hodges, in San Diego, must be kept only 30 percent full at all times, due to safety concerns surrounding its dam. The dam is over a century old, and officials fear it may not be able to hold such a high amount of water. And when record rainstorms sweep across the state, officials release water to brace for a sudden influx of water.
…”Due to recent rainfall, the City of San Diego, the owner of Lake Hodges Dam and Reservoir, has been using Santa Fe Irrigation District facilities to release water from Lake Hodges,” the Santa Fe Irrigation District told CBS 8 in a statement. ”
The release began on January 24 and will continue for the foreseeable future… The Department of Safety of Dams requires the City to maintain a maximum capacity of 30 percent due to the dam’s condition.
There is a lot of finger-pointing going on between various government officials. However, no move is being made to address the issues raised by the fact the dam is now 100 years old.
City officials argue the dam needs to be replaced because it’s old. “Hodges Reservoir has been in our portfolio of reservoirs and dams for over 100 years it was actually constructed in 1918. So, it’s over 100 years old,” said Kleis.
But if you speak with other district officials, who have water rights to Lake Hodges, they’ll tell you the city of San Diego did not maintain the dam properly for decades. “Had there been increased maintenance of the dam it would have extended the life of the dam,” said Seth Gates, an administrative director with the Santa Fe Irrigation District.
Moreover, Gates said the state order to keep the water level low on Lake Hodges forces his district to purchase more expensive, imported water resulting higher water bills for customers. “There are customers that are seeing roughly a 35 percent increase in their bills,” Gates said during an interview in August.
Even if it started today, it would take a decade to build a new dam.
Meanwhile, on San Diego’s border with Mexico, there are other infrastructure challenges that are not being properly addressed.
A transboundary sewage stream that regularly flows from Tijuana, Mexico, into San Diego County may be creating a multifrontal public health crisis — as a noxious mix of chemicals and pathogens makes their way into households not just via water, but also through air and soil.
The cross-border contamination — a result of inadequate infrastructure and urbanization — poses a persistent public health threat with significant socioeconomic and legal implications, according to a white paper shared with The Hill prior to its public release Tuesday.
Of particular concern is the possibility of the reemergence of diseases that had previously been eradicated in California, microbes carrying antibiotic-resistant genes and industrial chemicals that have long been banned in the U.S., according to the authors.
The upside for me is that I will be closer to the infectious disease outbreak story than I was for covid. This is also the downside.
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Comments
In the golden days, building/replacing/repairing infrastructure also meant a lot of jobs, particularly union-based construction jobs. That kept the unions sweet and the workers happy.
Apparently the unions don’t see a need to deliver new jobs to their members, and the politicians have the union leaders in the bag and so don’t need to deliver new projects.
All of that water going to waste….. way to go PDRK! All of the plans to save this for a projected population of 60 million thrown away because the “global warming” experts said this was never going to happen.. so why build additional reservoirs?
In the hysteria over electric cars and solar farms it seems someone forgot that water is pretty important
Oh they know. It is all part of the plan. They also know that much of CA is a semi-arid desert and that it cycles between several years of drought and a couple of years of floods and mud slides. In the 40’s and 50’s they planned to make reservoirs to support the increasing population. Now they intend to destroy to whole dam thing. As far as I can tell the are doing it because they hate themselves maybe more than they hate us.
Damn drought!
WAIT ! Has an environmental impact study been completed? We must stop this action until we are sure that every species has been considered- not just Homo Sapiens!
No problem that a climate expert can’t solve. Just turn off the rain until the water levels drop, and then just resume at a much slower pace – right, you Greenie idiots???
Someone needs to run ads against Newsome with this, especially when the water restrictions come in full and people are baking in the summertime
And paying exorbitant water bills
The cross-border contamination — a result of inadequate infrastructure and urbanization
The more urbanization, the more infrastructure. That’s the definition of it. Stuff in a maximum population while you’re at it to force urban sprawl to go vertical. Sooner or later the infrastructure turns inadequate, but by then the Lords of Governance will insist on spending more and more on the misbehavior of the population (millions on ‘the homeless’ and the ‘non-profits’ that support that lifestyle) and less and less on mere maintenance of infrastructure (it doesn’t vote). A matter of time, and the normal behavior of Democrat party governance.
Video at 39 seconds.
Workers apply mesh to the dam pillars – in preparation for a cementitious epoxy compound patch. The fibrous mesh supposedly increases durability-strengthening to the patch area.
THEY’RE SPACKLING THE G_DDAMN DAM.
Patching old concrete is problematic.
Patching the water-side concrete of a working dam is insane.
I bet local code enforcement officers in any town in the US would never allow a homeowner to patch a in-ground swimming pool in the same fashion.
they are probably using that
hemp concrete
that is soooooooooooooo environmentally friendly
but not worth a tensile sh
Everything is ok when the government does it.
trillions of dollars flow into state/city coffers to address flooding BEFORE IT HAPPENS
but I’ll be damned
if it ever gets used for that
watered powered cars would help
oh steam engines
oh we are headed back to the future indeed
Buffalo Bill Dam in northwest Wyoming was built in 1904. At the time it was the tallest dam in the world. It’s been maintained and improved. There are no safety concerns. Looks to me like age isn’t the issue.
Crystal Springs Reservoir dam built 1888 and at the time was the largest concrete structure in the world. An amazing piece of engineering.
It withstood 2 massive earthquakes. Got some sort of retrofit a few years ago.
Hoover Dam was built in 5 years