Downstream from Folsom is Sacramento. If something happened to that dam, it would disrupt the gov’t of the state and inconvenience a whole lot of bureaucrats. It’s the second most important dam in the state, after Hetch Hechy, and it’s just prudent to make sure nothing happens to it.
(I was living downstream of Folsom in Rancho Cordova in, if I remember correctly, 1987 or so, when there as a similar scare, along with lots of levee problems and flooding, because of series of late season storms just like this.)
It used to be that dams were anathema, and should all be removed everywhere On the other hand, they are perhaps the one source of “renewable” “carbon-free” energy that actually is economically sane. So what is the current Green dogma concerning dams?
If it is cost-effective, non-interruptible power, it is no good.
Well I’ve said it more than once before here that US infrastructure needed more investment. FWIW I doubt that the amounts claimed in the article for the fluff like the sidewalks would be enough to fix the damage in this particular dam. I do suspect a lot about how the money in the stimulus was invested but I was in favor of the stimulus. Unlike a lot of people here.
After the brownouts in the East Coast a couple years back, the water plumbing issue in Michigan, and now this dam, I don’t think there is much doubt that there are a lot of investments in infrastructure which need to be made.
Or, the funds already available need to be used more efficiently, without a sh**load of union featherbedding and political favoritism.
Ha, ha. Yes, that is how it would work in Fantasyland. In the real world, the balance is set by the funds appropriated, the minimum effort the contractors can get away with, and the parasitical bleed-off.
Whatever moneys are appropriated, the graft and corruption will expand in proportion. Pursuing a state of fully-up-to-date infrastructure is like chasing a carrot on a stick, only the faster you run, the longer the stick gets. At some point, you just have to strike a balance, and let things be.
Downstream from Folsom is Sacramento. If something happened to that dam, it would disrupt the gov’t of the state and inconvenience a whole lot of bureaucrats. It’s the second most important dam in the state, after Hetch Hechy, and it’s just prudent to make sure nothing happens to it.
(I was living downstream of Folsom in Rancho Cordova in, if I remember correctly, 1987 or so, when there as a similar scare, along with lots of levee problems and flooding, because of series of late season storms just like this.)
It used to be that dams were anathema, and should all be removed everywhere On the other hand, they are perhaps the one source of “renewable” “carbon-free” energy that actually is economically sane. So what is the current Green dogma concerning dams?
If it is cost-effective, non-interruptible power, it is no good.
Well I’ve said it more than once before here that US infrastructure needed more investment. FWIW I doubt that the amounts claimed in the article for the fluff like the sidewalks would be enough to fix the damage in this particular dam. I do suspect a lot about how the money in the stimulus was invested but I was in favor of the stimulus. Unlike a lot of people here.
After the brownouts in the East Coast a couple years back, the water plumbing issue in Michigan, and now this dam, I don’t think there is much doubt that there are a lot of investments in infrastructure which need to be made.
Or, the funds already available need to be used more efficiently, without a sh**load of union featherbedding and political favoritism.
Ha, ha. Yes, that is how it would work in Fantasyland. In the real world, the balance is set by the funds appropriated, the minimum effort the contractors can get away with, and the parasitical bleed-off.
Whatever moneys are appropriated, the graft and corruption will expand in proportion. Pursuing a state of fully-up-to-date infrastructure is like chasing a carrot on a stick, only the faster you run, the longer the stick gets. At some point, you just have to strike a balance, and let things be.