Oroville dam has been under scrutiny forever!
February 18th, 2017
That’s the mess that stopped Amtrak’s Coastal Starlight train, and we had to take a bus around it, from Redding down to Sacramento (that leg is up and running again, but now Costal Starlight between San Luis Obispo and LA is down). Climate change and extreme weather is the theme of the month, particularly during this “vacation” which is turning into a “Climate Change Tour.”
Yesterday’s storm fortunately was focused on southern California, so the Oroville dam area didn’t get hit as hard as was thought earlier:
Deadly storm slams Southern California – CNN.com
But this Oroville dam safety issue is nothing new:
Releasing water at Oroville Dam a lingering problem
How Did the Oroville Dam Crisis Get So Dire? – The Atlantic
Oroville Dam Disaster Is a Wake-Up Call for Infrastructure Investment
Sacramento Bee –Check out this interactive 3D model of Oroville Dam
For years there has been ongoing safety analysis and scrutiny, yet here we are now. ??? In crisis… many people evacuated, over 180,000 in many cities and surrounding areas:
Look up FERC Docket P-2100 for more info, much is about Thermalito, but much is about Oroville. It’s about 50/50. The “good stuff” is CEII, which means that regular folks can’t look.
I’d heard there was a 2005 safety report in the relicensing docket, but can’t find a public copy. Here’s an example of what I found most interesting in the Oroville docket… BUT WAIT… it’s CEII, so we have no way of knowing what’s at issue:
| Category/ Accession |
Doc Date/ Filed Date |
Docket Number |
Description | Class/ Type |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Submittal 20141216-5278 Document Components |
12/16/2014 12/16/2014 |
P-2100-000 | Department of Water Resources under P-2100 submits Ninth Part 12D Independent Consultant’s Safety Inspection Report and Supporting Technical Information Document for Oroville Dam. Availability: CEII |
Report/Form / Part 12 Consultant Safety Inspection Reports |
|
INFO | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Submittal 20141210-5070 Document Components |
12/10/2014 12/10/2014 |
P-2100-000 | Department of Water Resources submits CEII Potential Failure Mode Analysis Report for Oroville Dam under P-2100. Availability: Public |
Report/Form / Other Dam Safety Report |
|
INFO | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Submittal 20141210-5071 Document Components |
12/10/2014 12/10/2014 |
P-2100-000 | Department of Water Resources submits CEII Potential Failure Mode Analysis Report for Oroville Dam under P-2100. Availability: CEII |
Report/Form / Other Dam Safety Report |
|
INFO | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Submittal 20141205-5099 |
12/05/2014 12/05/2014 |
P-2100-000 | Update to Service List for Pierce Atwood LLP Under P-2100. Availability: Public |
Pleading/Motion / Procedural Motion |
|
INFO | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Gangs of America – good reading these days
February 9th, 2017
Looking forward to catching up with Ted Nace soon in San Francisco. He’s author of Gangs of America: The Rise of Corporate Power and the Disabling of Democracy — get your copy HERE.
Alan Muller and I had the good fortune of meeting him through our “no coal” work and the “No New Coal Plants” list that was instrumental in stopping so many coal gasification plants across the U.S., including Minnesota’s Excelsior Energy Mesaba Project (see also www.camp-site.info)and the NRG coal gasification plant proposed for Delaware. He wrote this Orion article about that coal gasification fight (a couple things are off — hey, Ted, it’s an ORANGE crate!!):
And from that, he also also wrote:
Climate Hope: On the Front Lines of the Fight Against Coal
Check these out, you can find them reasonably priced at www.abebooks.com. Support your independent bookseller!
Xcel’s new normal — 2016 year end earnings call
February 2nd, 2017
Xcel’s 2016 Earnings Call was this morning. Look at the above chart, pay close attention to the numbers I’ve highlighted in yellow. 2016 4th Quarter sales growth is down 0.6%. Yearly sales decrease is -0.3%. Here’s the rest of the Earnings Call Presentation:
Remember CapX 2020, based on projections of annual increases of 2.49%. Remember Commerce’s Steve Rakow who introduced the most bizarre chart ever in an effort to prop up need for CapX 2020, one without identifying the X axis or Y axis and just a sine wave trending sharply upward? Yea, this one…
Hasn’t worked out that way, has it… the 2016 10-K isn’t filed yet, so there’s only 2015 to go on, though looking at their 10-Q for summer, I expect it’s flat at best.
So with sales down, I presume it’ll be flat peak demand? It’s not disclosed in the 3rd Quarter 10-Q. Xcel, we’ll be looking for that this month in your 10-K filing!
tRump’s Memoranda & Executive Orders
January 24th, 2017
There’s been a flurry of activity, and finally they posted the actual documents so we can see what’s going on, or what won’t be going on. This was part of my “One a Day” plan to send off a missive to the White House every day, something of substance. When the Contact page was blank on Monday morning, I started calling, ALL DAY LONG, and got through around 7 p.m., when a human answered, and hung up. I called back, got that same human, who wouldn’t tell me who I should talk to about the Executive Orders (presumed that’s what they were as that’s what was said) and said the Comment office person was gone so I had to leave it online, and she got pissy when I said that the Comment page was blank, and hung up again. OK, whatever…
Civics Lesson from USA Today, Presidential memoranda vs. executive orders. What’s the difference?
Here are the Memoranda thus far from the White House page (these are not required to be published in the Federal Register, so ???, but they are now on the White House Memoranda page:
Presidential Memorandum on January 24, 2017Presidential Memorandum on January 24, 2017Presidential Memorandum on January 24, 2017Presidential Memorandum on January 24, 2017Presidential Memorandum on January 23, 2017Presidential Memorandum on January 23, 2017Presidential Memorandum on January 23, 2017Presidential Memorandum on January 20, 2017
And here are the Executive Orders, from the White House Executive Order page:
Executive Order on January 24, 2017Executive Order on January 20, 2017
Now maybe they’ll have the routine down and keep up with what they’re doing. Drives me crazy to be loating around in the dark — it’s hard enough to know or guess what these might mean in practice, but without an actual document to look at, it’s just blather. Well, it’s just blather anyway, but here it is. Read it and get busy!
Tuesday’s Executive Orders from tRump
January 24th, 2017
Of course there’s nothing on tRump’s Executive Orders page.
Trump clears way for Dakota Access, Keystone pipelines
And via email to the EPA:
Trump bans EPA from giving updates to reporters, bars new contracts, grants
“New EPA administration has asked that all contract and grant awards be temporarily suspended, effective immediately,” read the e-mail, which was shared with the Washington Post. “Until we receive further clarification, which we hope to have soon, please construe this to include task orders and work assignments.”