Removing One Silt-Choked Dam Will Cost CA $130 Million - LA Times

[hatrack]

"The 190-foot-high Matilija Dam in Ventura County can be removed over three years at an estimated cost of $130 million, according to a new study that examines the environmental benefits and challenges involved in demolishing the aging structure.

To minimize the possibility of downstream flooding, levees would have to be built or made taller in Meiners Oaks, Live Oak Acres and Casitas Springs; bridges would have to be altered; and in a few areas, structures and land purchased, according to the environmental report.


Fish and animals along the 17-mile-long Ventura River watershed would be temporarily stressed by the demolition, the report found. But the dam's removal would improve the Ventura River's ecosystem in the long run, said the study, prepared by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Ventura County Watershed Protection District. The Matilija project is the largest and most ambitious of a fledgling movement by environmentalists to remove federal dams that are no longer needed for power, water storage or flood control.

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Built in 1948, the dam has trapped so much sediment that its capacity to hold water is diminished. Getting rid of the millions of cubic yards of fine silt, sand and rock behind its concrete wall is a technical challenge that will have to be carried out carefully, the report says. After considering several alternatives, officials settled on a two-pronged plan that would drain about one-third of the silt through a slurry pipe."

EDIT

[Spinzonner]

1. Can we just use it for testing those MOABs

and the new MOP

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/781166.cms


or maybe just drop a tactical Nuke and vaporize the stuff

[Wilber_Stool]

2. Don't laugh too hard.

There was research don in the Fifties and Sixties to use nukes in construction projects. Channels for flood diversion and lagoons to name a few.

[SoCalDem]

3. "Fish and animals along the 17-mile-long Ventura River watershed"

This is an understatement.. There has been so much building in the intervening years, that there is literally nowhere for these animals to go.. Once the silt rushes down the existing river pattern, the fish will die, and the "tall levees" will virtually eliminate the possibility of the animals beiing able to reach the water to drink..

It's too bad that they built so many of these things.. They allowed for the huge boom of houses and development to be buit in the first place..:(

[NNadir]

4. One hopes that the technical challenges here will be applied some day

on the removal of the Hetch Hetchy dam and the Glen Canyon dam, two of the more egregious dams ever built. Removing the Hoover is probably too much to hope for, at least for now.