California’s Oroville Dam poses a threat. Here’s the dam’s layout.
Last week, northern California residents awoke to the dangers of major flooding in areas downstream from Oroville Dam. The concern was over the possible failure of the dam’s main and emergency spillways. Spillways help regulate the volume of water behind the dams during periods of heavy incoming stream flows. Look below at what has recently happened.
If the spillways fail, uncontrolled amounts of water flow through the breach till the water behind the dam falls below the level of the spillways. The rush of water could last some time if high volumes from the Feather River persistently flows into the lake.
How could this happen? Was it poor foresight? Was it due to a policy of the deferral of monitoring and maintenance of critical infrastructure, like dams? It is true, at a 2005 FERC (Federal Energy Regulatory Commission) re-licensing hearing, that a proposal to concrete-line the slope below the emergency spillway (last photo from above) was rejected by the state’s Department of Water Resources as too expensive. Since the dam is owned and controlled by the state, it owns full responsibility for this and all other decisions.
Resentment from many of those in the path of possible destruction is directed at the State of California, a government seen as more beholding to the passions of heavily-populated coastal realms than the needs of the interior. USA Today’s Trevor Hughes sensed the discord when he recently wrote while covering the dam situation, “Here, residents distrust a state government they think is all-too-eager to help undocumented immigrants and build a bullet train to serve the rich coastal elites, leaving them with little.”
California’s interior is so much different from the coast in more than temperament . The area to the east of the Coast Range provides much of California’s water, power, and resource industries. Yet, they bear the full brunt of the policies built around the coast’s lifestyle progressivism, especially the region’s passion for environmentalism in all its guises.
“Progress” for coastal activists is subsidies for solar panels and windmills while ensuring high prices for electricity. As it is, California is 42nd among all states in terms of the average price per kilowatthour. In other words, 41 states are cheaper. The impact is minimal if all you have to do in Monterey to cool down the house is open a window.
Not true in Bakersfield-to-Redding. You’ll take the solar panel subsidies – always paid for by somebody else – and drill into your roof trusses to anchor the things, as well as learn about sweltering during the hottest part of the day. If you want to sleep at night by using air conditioning, be prepared to be labelled an energy “hog” by the state’s commissars as you cool your way to bankruptcy.
The whole scheme is a hammer to anyone living on the sunrise side of the Coast Range. All the while, coastal sophisticates get to indulge their Europhilia and Japanophilia fantasies with bullet trains and light rail. There is a complete disconnect depending on which side of the Coast Range that you reside.
It shows in elections. As the the whole state seemed to go for Hillary-mania in 2016, giving her 4.2 million more votes than Trump, counties in the path of the flooding tacked quite differently. For instance, Butte County, in spite of being home to liberal Chico and Chico State University, went Trump 46% to 42%. Yuba County awarded Trump with 58%. The red/blue divide doesn’t follow state lines. Out west, the line of demarcation follows the ridge of the Coast Range.
The near calamity of the Oroville Dam is resurrecting the call for secession of the far northern counties and a union with the similarly disaffected southern counties of Oregon to form the long sought-after State of Jefferson. Rallies and signs are reappearing.
Recently, we’ve been hearing cries from some elements within California’s governing coalition (read “coastal elites”) to secede to get away from Trump. I wonder if it ever crossed the minds of these coastal urbanites that there are people who want to get away from them.
To the east of the coastal divide, there’s a growing realization that the state is no bargain for the hard working taxpayer. Instead of getting well-maintained roads, the folks get ruts, cracks, and potholes. Just rattling off the stats could turn any state resident into a Prozac patient.
* The state ranks 45 for the efficiency of its state highway system (Reason Foundation, Sept. 2014 report).
* 68% of its roads are in poor condition according to a State Senate report.
* The state has $135 billion of unfunded repairs according to state and local officials.
* 5 of the 10 cities with the worst road systems are in California according to TRIPP, a Washington DC research group.
* California’s interstate are the worst in the nation according to the American Road and Transportation Builders Association.
* The state is developing a habit of chronically under-funding its roads by two-thirds.
Not enough money for roads? How’s that possible? The state is tax happy. It should be rolling in the dough. And it is, but the money gets lost somewhere along the way from the motorists’s wallet and paycheck to the pavement underneath his or her tires.
The state’s taxes on fuel are one of the highest in the nation. The Reason Foundation ranks them at #5, meaning there are only 4 states with higher rates.
This dour claim-to-fame doesn’t tell the whole story. Breaking into the molecular structure of the California gas tax reveals a gas excise tax of 39.5¢/gal, state and local sales taxes from 7.5% to 10%, and a “cap-and-trade” fee of 13¢ to 20¢/gal assessed on wholesalers. Of course, the cap-and-trade hustle is passed onto the lowly motorist.
The meandering course of the “cap-and-trade” money has a dubious destination. Its first billion dollars goes to the dream of a bullet train from LA to San Francisco.
Since the revenue haul from the various fuel taxes is hitched to rising fuel prices, keeping them on a upward path is a fiscal necessity to fund the state’s low-carbon schemes. Thankfully, fuel prices in California are like a piece of foam in the water. There are forces keeping prices buoyant (up).
The buoyant effect arises from the powerful environmentalist lobby’s mania for punishing carbon fuels. California demands a very special low-emissions fuel. So special, in fact, no other state requires it. The base ingredient for fuel is called “blendstock”. Certain approved reformulated “blendstocks” are required by the EPA: CBOB and RBOB. RBOB is more expensive to produce. Not only is RBOB mandated by the state, an uncommon form of it, CARBOB, is the only one allowed. It’s even more expensive to make.
The expansion of supply could work to moderate the effect of the state’s fussy gasoline taste buds, if suppliers could expand capacity to produce more. Discouragingly, enlarging an existing refinery or building a new one in the state necessitates the patience of Job and the political muscle of Hercules.
The California Environmental Quality Act of 1970 creates a daunting maze with bountiful opportunities for eco-activists and NIMBY’s (Not In My Back Yard) to block and delay any project, particularly big ones, inflating its costs. The last refinery built in the state was Valero’s Wilmington plant in 1980, but the state has added 15 million souls since then. Sclerotic production leads to price shocks down to the gas station pump when a single pipe breaks at any one of the few remaining refineries. The state is always living on the edge.
A typical resident of California pays more to gas up the family sedan, as it is driven on cracked and rutted roads, to flee the floods from failing spillways. The state is trying to survive on 30-year-old fuel supply chains and a 50-year-old water and flood control infrastructure. It’s running on the fumes of the past.
Eventually, the fumes dissipate. Before then, either join the the rebel movement in the State of Jefferson or load up the U-haul to escape the clutches of the coastal eco-warriors. Good luck.
RogerG
Sources:
“Oroville Dam: Feds and state officials ignored warnings 12 years ago”, 2/12/17, The Mercury News, http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/02/12/oroville-dam-feds-and-state-officials-ignored-warnings-12-years-ago/
“The Oroville Dam Crisis Exposes the Flaws in Trump’s Infrastructure Plan”, City Lab (The Atlantic), 2/13/17, http://www.citylab.com/politics/2017/02/oroville-dam-flooding-california-infrastructure/516417/
“California highways among worst in the nation”, The Mercury News, 7/1/2013, http://www.mercurynews.com/2013/07/01/california-highways-among-worst-in-the-nation/
“California gas taxes: Higher than advertised”, Watchdog.org, 7/30/2015, http://watchdog.org/232083/california-gas-taxes/
“The Gasoline BOBs – CBOB and RBOB (and CARBOB)”, David Schneider, http://www.wearethepractitioners.com/library/the-practitioner/2012/03/15/the-gasoline-bobs-cbob-and-rbob-(and-carbob)
“Why are California’s roads so bad?”, Op-Ed, Jay Obernolte, LA Times, 7/17/15, http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-0717-obernolte-gas-tax-20150717-story.html
“21st annual report on the performance of state highway systems (1984–2012)”, Reason Foundation, Policy Study 436, September 2014, http://reason.org/files/21st_annual_highway_report.pdf
“Long neglected road maintenance is now urgent and expensive”, Kate Galbraith, Cal Matters (consortium of Calif Central Valley newspapers), 12/12/15, https://calmatters.org/articles/long-neglected-road-maintenance-is-now-urgent-and-expensive/
“Oroville Dam exposes rift between conservative town, coastal liberals”, Trevor Hughes, USA Today, 2/19/17, http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/02/19/oroville-dam-president-trump-governor-jerry-brown-feud-funding-conservative/98129510/
“Annual Average Electricity Price Comparison by State” as of 2015, state of Nebraska, http://www.neo.ne.gov/statshtml/204.htm
“California electricity rates to undergo biggest change in 15 years”, SFgate, 7/4/15, http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/California-electricity-rates-to-undergo-biggest-6365394.php
“FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS: When was the last refinery built in the United States?”, U.S. Energy Information Administration, https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=29&t=6