Re: O Dam: I fear this won't end well
The emergency spillway is a 30-foot concrete dam secondary dam. If we water gets high enough, it spills over this dam and down an earthen spillway, which was eroding. If the erosion undermined this secondary dam, it would fail. No, it isn't the main dam, but failure would be pretty catastrophic.
Can we at least make sure we all understand the dam itself is not in any danger of failing?
The issue is that the primary spillway was damaged and created a sinkhole that allowed water to escape and erode the surrounding hillside. Then the emergency spillway, which is earthen, was in danger of failing due to the amount of water released over it when they shut down the primary spillway. The primary spillway is back in use and is not causing any additional erosion at this time.
The emergency spillway is a 30-foot concrete dam secondary dam. If we water gets high enough, it spills over this dam and down an earthen spillway, which was eroding. If the erosion undermined this secondary dam, it would fail. No, it isn't the main dam, but failure would be pretty catastrophic.