dam failure in Michigan

fuzzy · Post by **fuzzy** » 20 May 2020, 21:52

Cascading dam failure in Michigan over 24 hrs:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpZMb5TR-hU

Mark · Post by **Mark** » 22 May 2020, 10:25

Michigan floods: Evacuations after Edenville and Sanford dams breached:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-52735170
Michigan: threat of toxic contamination looms after dam failures trigger flooding:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... ion-threat

A large release of chlorine-based compounds, dioxins etc. doesn't sound great...
The environment loses again...

Post by **kenneal - lagger** » 22 May 2020, 16:12

Just another example of Trumpian government's lax regulation and what it gets for ordinary people.

BritDownUnder · Post by **BritDownUnder** » 22 May 2020, 22:40

kenneal - lagger wrote:Just another example of Trumpian government's lax regulation and what it gets for ordinary people.

I am not so sure about whether Pres. Trump in particular could be blamed for this. From the Grauniad article I got the impression it was the site of a factory that is now gone that was polluted in years gone by - even back to the 1900s when standards were a bit more lax, children went up chimneys and even Trump was a twinkle in his father's eye.
The US has had a thing called the "Superfund" that was supposed to help to clean up such sites. A specific case that was part of my university course was the rather saucily named "Love Canal".

Mark · Post by **Mark** » 24 May 2020, 16:47

Michigan Flood Inundates Toxic Dow Chemical Sites:
https://www.courthousenews.com/flood-in ... cal-sites/
The Dow site is (was ?) still operational - looks like this event might have negated the years of clean-up so far and made a massive task even bigger...
I wouldn't specifically blame Trump for this one either, but he's part of the capitalist system where big 'corporates' are allowed to make massive profits, whilst leaving a trail of environmental destruction behind them...

Also, it's not so long since the earth embankment dam at Whaley Bridge failed....
We got away lightly I think, but still 3yrs to repair...
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-d ... e-49422572
Think we need to be assessing all these types of structures a lot more closely....

Post by **kenneal - lagger** » 24 May 2020, 22:22

Trump has appointed his placeman to head up the US Environment Agency and has been trashing or completely removing regulations since he took office. These events are the direct result of his lax attitudes to regulation.

vtsnowedin · Post by **vtsnowedin** » 25 May 2020, 16:04

kenneal - lagger wrote:Trump has appointed his placeman to head up the US Environment Agency and has been trashing or completely removing regulations since he took office. These events are the direct result of his lax attitudes to regulation.

And just what regulation do you imagine Trumps administration changed that actually weakened those dams? Do you imagine the dam owner, free of regulation, started hauling the earth away to make a buck? Or was it just as weak during all of the Obama years and this storm just happened to fall on Trump's watch?

Post by **kenneal - lagger** » 25 May 2020, 17:17

The whole ethos of Trumps presidency has been reducing the regulatory burden on big business. In that scenario there wouldn't have been much pressure on the dam owners to make sure that their asset was safe. If they had thought that they may be prosecuted for leaving the dam in a dangerous condition they would have been more likely to do something about it.

vtsnowedin · Post by **vtsnowedin** » 25 May 2020, 17:41

It appears the Trump administration had actually done more towards bringing those dams into safer condition then the Obama administration by actually pulling one dam's license.
But no matter what work might have been done it probably would not have been able to take a thirty five foot river crest caused by seven inches of rain in a day.
https://www.mlive.com/news/saginaw-bay- ... dland.html

Mark · Post by **Mark** » 25 May 2020, 20:23

https://www.mlive.com/news/saginaw-bay- ... dland.html

The Four Lakes Task Force signed a $9.4 million purchase agreement in December to buy Wixom, Sanford, Secord and Smallwood lake bottomlands and the dams that regulate river impoundments from Boyce Trusts, according task force chairman Dave Kepler.

Kepler said Boyce Hydro still owns the dam. The deal was expected to close later this year.

Kepler, a former Dow Chemical executive who owns a home on Sanford Lake, said Boyce Hydro got to a point where it couldnâ€™t generate enough revenue from power generation to cover the cost of dam maintenance and upkeep. With state and county backing, the task force planned to acquire and upgrade the dams to bring them in line with federal requirements.

According to the task force, upgrades were already underway. About $300,000 in repairs were completed in March to the damâ€™s pier noses, wing walls and the gate system. Another $2 million in upgrades, including the installation of new gate hoists and de-icing improvements, were planned next winter.

â€œThis has been a longstanding problem,â€� Kepler said.

Emails and messages left with Boyce Hydro were not immediately returned on Wednesday.

Classic case of privatising the profits and socialising the losses...??
And those losses just got a whole lot bigger...