Jerry Brown’s California Legacy is a Dam Failure, by Tim Donnelly 2/13/17, Twin Peaks, CA,
Breitbart
The Oroville Dam — at 770 feet, America’s
tallest — is on the verge of failing. And Sacramento, which has been fiddling for
decades while Rome burns, is running for cover.
This
isn’t just any dam; it’s the primary storage facility located on the Feather
River for the State Water Project, the state-owned conveyance system that
provides drinking water to more than two-thirds of California’s population.
If
the dam were to fail, it could inundate not only the city of Oroville but
numerous other communities downstream, including Yuba City, Marysville and even
West Sacramento.
At
the moment, the emergency spillway is being used for the first time since
Governor Ronald Reagan approved its construction, and almost 200,000 people
have been evacuated.
What’s
Governor Jerry Brown doing? The same thing he’s been doing for decades,
obstructing progress. California has been so busy defying President
Donald Trump in order to protect illegal aliens from deportation that it forgot
to do the things government is supposed to do, like maintain
infrastructure. Governor Brown is now going hat-in-hand to beg the Trump
administration for emergency funds.
According
to Breitbart News sources, the Trump administration is already closely
monitoring the situation, and has dispatched personnel and made contingency
plans to aid California in the event of a catastrophic dam failure.
But
it’s during the seven dry years, the extended drought, that the state should
have fixed its water infrastructure, like dams and canals. Brown and his
merry band of Democrats had different priorities, like high-speed rail,
benefits for illegal aliens, and unsustainable pensions.
The
reality is that Sacramento was warned over and over again.
Just a few years back, environmentalists raised concerns that an earthquake could degrade the massive earthen rock-fill dam. Sacramento just chose to ignore those concerns — and to
spend the money on other priorities.
According
to the San Jose Mercury News, it was “three environmental groups, the Friends of the
River, the Sierra Club and the South Yuba Citizens League, who filed a motion
with the federal government on Oct. 17, 2005, as part of Oroville Dam’s
relicensing process, urging federal officials to require that the dam’s emergency spillway be
armored with concrete, rather than remain as an earthen hillside.”
It’s
ironic that the same environmentalists who have opposed every new dam project
were the ones who raised the alarm.
Countless
proposals have been floated over the past two decades to fund infrastructure
out of the general fund, and prioritize critically needed upgrades to dams,
roads and bridges. But Sacramento spends a pittance out of its $180 billion budget on infrastructure, and most of that is earmarked for
the abysmal roads and a crumbling intrastate highway system. Instead,
California’s Democrat-dominated leadership depend on bonds to bail them out.
Californians
are probably scratching their heads wondering what happened to all the money
they had approved for bonds over the past few decades, something close to $20
billion (not including the latest water bond, Proposition 1, which alone was
$7.5 billion).
When
a bond is approved, the money is allocated according to the official stated
purpose and/or specific projects to be built. In fact, some of those bond
accounts are still flush with hundreds of millions of unused dollars, which
might have been approved by voters to use on existing infrastructure projects
like shoring up the Oroville Dam.
But
Gov. Jerry Brown never thought to ask them. According
to a PPIC report on how the money has been
disbursed on the latest water bond, all the pork projects got funded, but not a
penny has been allocated for water storage.
The chart
on the report page will show you everything you
need to know about Sacramento’s priorities. Even the so-called “Water
Bond” hasn’t been used to shore up or expand our water storage infrastructure
yet (in spite of projects being in the pipeline for decades):
To
date, the awards have focused on addressing priorities related to urgent public
health and safety issues and the drought. Thirty-one grants will help
disadvantaged communities with safe drinking water and wastewater treatment
projects, 19 grants will boost urban supplies with wastewater recycling
projects, and 21 grants will support local efforts to better manage groundwater
reserves. Another priority has been California’s ecosystems, which have
been hit hard by the drought; 45
projects address water supply and habitat to support native species around the
state.
No
funds have been awarded yet for water storage, another key area for boosting
drought resilience. This has led to some criticism that the pace of spending is
too slow, but this overlooks the bond language, which laid out a two-year
process for establishing funding criteria.
But
there is one thing Gov. Brown has done in cooperation with federal
officials regarding infrastructure. A little over a year ago, Brown signed
off on an agreement to tear down dams on
the Klamath River. Yes, you can’t make this stuff up.
Brown
did finally have his “rainy day” fund approved by voters in 2016.
Yet California, the so-called sustainable state, has refused to maintain
its infrastructure in order to sustain its way of life. Now the “rainy day” they’d
hoped to avoid is here. God
be with all those in the pathway of potential destruction.
Tim Donnelly is a
former California State Assemblyman. Author, Patriot Not Politician: Win or Go
Homeless FaceBook: https://www.facebook.com/tim.donnelly.12/
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California, Environment, democrats, environmentalists, Gov. Jerry Brown, Oroville Dam
Comments
The cost
of fixing this spillway is currently estimated to be $250 million. They knew
about this problem in 2005. The spillway
needed a concrete surface, but it was ignored. The reservoir feeds water to
Silicon Valley.
Norb
Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader
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