Comments on: Dam Nuisance

By: Bryan

Bryan — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 05:47:59 +0000

We have idiots trying to dam a couple of local rivers for “water conservation”. We get our water from wells, not the river, and as far as recreation goes, we have the bloody Gulf of Mexico for fishing and boating. The rivers are used for kayaks and canoes, and a dam would reduce the available area. They also interfere with the fish and the cleaning of the bays and bayous.

If they were talking about a hydroelectric dam, I would pause a couple of minutes before rejecting it. We are probably going to see droughts on the upstream portions, so the water supply wouldn’t be consistent enough to depend on it.

You have to be an expert to blow a dam, and setting the charges takes a while. The gypsum is going to dissolve anyway, so there’s no real point in doing it. The problem is more one of the dam moving, rather than braking.

By: Steve Bates

Steve Bates — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 05:21:41 +0000

Texas residents near Livingston, Coldspring, etc. know about dams. When my late father bought property he intended to retire to with my mother, he obtained topographic maps and determined what would happen to various possible properties when the Trinity River Dam opened its floodgates in emergencies. Dad chose correctly: that property never flooded due to a release from the dam. (Eventually, Hurricane Rita rendered it uninhabitable, but Mom and Dad had long since passed away by that time, and the damage was not due to floodwaters.)

The Trinity River Dam appears to be properly designed and constructed, though that is a recent condition: it suffered severe damage a few years ago, and was rebuilt the way it should have been built in the first place. But there is no way I’d live in the Trinity River flood plain. Too many have lost their homes when the dam was opened as a last resort.

You are right. There is no reason to blow up a dam that is pretty well guaranteed to fail because of its design or construction… unless there is symbolic value in its deliberate destruction. Insurgents’ motives are frequently irrational. Other people’s motives are… well, they’re frequently irrational, too.

By: Bryan

Bryan — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 18:08:14 +0000

The insurgents should save their explosives – it is going to fail and there is nothing that can be done to stop it except drain the water in a controlled release.

By: hipparchia

hipparchia — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 06:02:56 +0000

or you could just call attention to it in the news and wait for the insurgents to blow it up.