🚀 go-pugleaf

Ralph Finch wrote:
> 
> In article <31C036BD.955@ucdavis.edu> "Bruce R. Thomas" <brthomas@ucdavis.edu> writes:
> 
>    A dam and reservoir built on an earthquake fault is not a benefit to
>    public safety.
> 
> It can be: if the statistically expected cost of flooding without the
> dam is greater than that with the dam. Such is the current case,
> esp. with the 'dry' dam.

Ralph, the dam is multi-purpose, not dry.

>    [I]f an Auburn Dam were to be built and then breakdown 
>    the damage to Sacramento would be immense.
> 
> Also true, if it broke when full.  Highly unlikely, but not nil.
> Quite a bit more likely that a storm event will exceed Folsom's puny 1
> million acre-foot capacity, or that a levee will suddenly give way.

Hmmm, sounds like its time to upgrade the existing dam and levees
like the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers suggests.

>    Providing a luxury excess of flood protection to Sacramento would
>    prevent many other areas of the country from getting the flood control
>    that they need.  The alternate plans for American River flood
>    protection provide reasonable flood protection at a reasonable cost.
> 
> Not a "luxury", obviously, to those in harm's way, but I can
> understand the attitude if you're sitting comfortably several hundred
> or thousand miles away.  $1 billion is a spit in the ocean of the
> federal budget, and for a highly worthy cause.  You want to save $1
> billion, and even more? Eliminate the War on Poverty: $1.5 trillion
> and we're far worse off then ever.

The dam is not about flood protection folks.  It is about increased
recreation, water storage, hydroelectric generation and development.

If flood protection was the simple goal, much less costly measures
could be taken.  

The comparison of the dam to the war on poverty is simply false.
The money mentioned for the war on poverty is cost over time.
It may be true that the government could do better things to
alleviate poverty, but building the Auburn dam is not one of
them.

Thanks again Ralph for keeping this thread alive.  It might
have been more difficult to defeat the dam proposal without
all of this publicity.


-- 
Keith G. Wagner             ----------------------------

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