A sleeping giant

Dams are scary things. People who live downstream from them suffer a subconscious dread that never lets up. I suspect this is especially true in Oroville, where the huge dam looms over the city like a hostile sleeping giant that could awaken at any moment.

I was thinking about this as I left my home in Chico Monday morning on my way to work. Highways 99 and 70 were closed, so I had to drive west to Orland and I-5 to get to Sacramento, adding 45 minutes to my commute.

Then I thought of the 188,000 evacuees forced from their homes for an unknown period of time and felt ashamed of my piddling complaint. I used the extra time to think about the dam, about its history and uses and the lake behind it.

As one of the two largest reservoirs in California, Lake Oroville is a vital part of the state’s elaborate water-transfer system, as well as a major source of hydropower. But it was built at great cost, to the Feather River and its salmon runs, especially.

I also remembered the report three environmental groups filed in 2005, during the dam’s federal relicensing process. It pointed out that the emergency spillway—whose imminent collapse Sunday night prompted the evacuation order—was at risk of erosion and failure during heavy rains. It recommended that the spillway be covered in concrete. State and federal agencies insisted such a response was “too expensive.”

And I thought of the public response to the dam disaster, how so many people—church members, public safety employees, fairgrounds managers, media folk—stepped forward unselfishly to help the evacuees get to safety. The giant awoke, briefly, but thanks to them went right back to sleep.