Re: Just in case you had a hydrologically uninteresting day...

Jo Schaper <joschapern4ospam@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
news:11q2oeq53fo0jf1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx:

> Alan wrote:

>> In article <11q1st5kh06ob2b@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
>> joschapern4ospam@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Jo Schaper) wrote:

>>>George wrote:

>>>>"Jo Schaper" <joschapern4ospam@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
>>>>news:11q1mqrne319994@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

>>>>Nope, I didn't miss it. I thought I would wait for you to post first.
>>>>Thanks for the link, Jo. I had wondered all day what could have
>>>>caused the reservoir to fail, and your link provided at least a
>>>>preliminary assessment, which is more than I've seen elsewhere. If it
>>>>holds that this was what cased the failure, I suspect there will be
>>>>lawsuits.

"Knew or should have known" is the operative phrase.

>>>I first went to the powerplant when I was 7, and have been back a
>>>number of times since until 9/11, when they ceased having tours. Have
>>>lots of rhyolite off that mountain, and saw the leak they referred to
>>>on several occasions. I wonder (speculation only) if they hadn't had
>>>other problems in the past, but the leak served as an unintended
>>>pressure valve. Now that the upper reservoir was nice and tight,
>>>instead of gushing from the leak, the water blew out the side. I guess
>>>we wait for the engineers on that answer.

I have a cousin who was about a decade ahead of me in school who chose
underwater structural engineering as his career, following in his
father's footsteps. I was an undergrad when we had a discussion about
dams and water retention in general. It was considered, at that time,
a cardinal sin to fail to repair *any* leak in water retention systems.
A retention system showing any leakage at all is considered to be giving
warning that it is weaker then designed at that point, resulting in a
situation demanding thorough inspection of the entire structure. The
theory is that there are usually other places which are weak where it
hasn't started to leak, but that structural integrity has been compromised
and it is unsafe.

>>>It is going to be interesting to watch where AmerenUE goes from here.
>>>Although a net wash in terms of energy production, having Taum Sauk
>>>online meant it could shift electric around, and compensate for high
>>>daytime use vs low night draws, thereby minimizing brownouts.

I don't know about your part of the US but WEenergies (Wisconsin) is
severely proactive with green generation of power. Annually every
customer gets a phone call asking them to underwrite green power
by volunteering for a higher electric rate. I don't think the
program is audited so my best guess is that it is a remarkable
profit center.

I would think that given the demand for green the damaged facilities
in your part of the country will be replaced, probably built even
better.

>>>Having that reservoir blow out was about the last thing in the world on
>>>anyone's mind this morning.

I'll bet that when it comes to discovery during lawsuits management will
have been presented with lots of warnings about the leak from engineers
both inside the company as well as from visiting engineers. The integrity
of the entire installation comes into play in such warnings.

> Actually, AmerenUE has been doing the preventive maintenance. What was
> apparently lacking here was a pair of remote/and or human eyes on the
> level of the reservoir.

Unless management is really stupid someone was assigned to look at
the water level at least once a day. But then just how can you have
two forms of level sensing and not only have both of them fail but
no one noticed? Industrial control systems have a test mode,
especially those that are only an "alarm" type (like the idiot
lights in cars.)

It looks to me as though the failure by employees charged with
operations were the proximate cause for the dam failure, with
supervision responsible for not making certain their charges
were actually doing the job for which they were being paid.

.

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