Was Truman's Engineering/Planning Flawed?

[fishinwrench]

Can you imagine a 70ft. wall of water making its way down the Lake Ozark channel !

Man what a mess (and boom to the economy) that would be !

[MoCarp]

 

[MoCarp]

 

“Truman exceeded its flood control pool Sunday night, and the releases are considered necessary for dam safety, according to chief of hydrologic engineering Eric Shumate. Travis Hart, a hydrology engineer with Ameren Missouri, said Bagnell Dam will follow suit with its own 70,000 cfs releases since Lake of the Ozarks has no capacity to retain floodwater.”

 

 

https://krcgtv.com/news/local/truman-dam-to-drastically-increase-releases-gavins-point-remains-steady

[tjm]

I used to fish the bottom of that pond when it was rivers and creeks, the consensus of people I knew back then was all anti Kaysinger Dam and only the name change got it approved. There were annual or perpetual campaigns against it. Wasn't old enough to vote, but seem to recall ballot issues relating to Kaysinger.  My uncle at Clinton fought them in Courts for years over compensation for his farm, that as far as I know has never been near the water, but they took. I grew up with the notion that Truman himself opposed that Dam, after  they named it for him I'm not sure  now.  Left Warsaw in '68 and haven't really been back since, more than passing through.

If it fails, i suppose it would take out Bagnell also and as mentioned be a tremendous boon to the local economy til the cleanup was over. Do you all think either or both dams would be rebuilt?

[MoCarp]

If they did it would be decades and all the party crowd would move to TR

[Devan S.]

2 hours ago, tjm said:

If it fails, i suppose it would take out Bagnell also and as mentioned be a tremendous boon to the local economy til the cleanup was over. Do you all think either or both dams would be rebuilt?

The dam failure causing another is an interesting proposition. In my opinion, you wouldn't see a failure like we all like to think about. The 70 foot wall of water would only be seen directly below the dam and even then it would have to be a result of almost the entire dam being gone in an instant. Likewise you have to have the narrow channelized features to keep up the wall of water as the water proceeds downstream it spreads out so the biggest wall would almost certainly be seen only at the dam since it would probably be the smallest available channel and get progressively smaller downstream as it proceeds. Could it happen? Sure. Is it likely to happen? Probably not. 

A far more likely event would be something like a serious hole or leak in the earthen structure is found. In order to "save" the dam, they begin huge releases in an effort to reduce pressure/flow. By huge I mean magnitudes much larger than 70,000 cfs. At that point, it would basically be a calculated risk that even a dam with all the gates wide open would be a more controlled/controllable than a run away washout that grows in size with no way to stop. You also hope that the "leak" is higher than the bottoms of the gate so serious repairs could happen. I am not sure how they could reasonably lower the water below the gates level without a significant amount of time to pass the water though non-stop generation or other means.

At that point, the real risk mitigation begins, does LOZ become a real flood control lake and begin trying to hold back some volume of water at the expensive of flooding houses? Does it pass the water through into the Mo river and further inundate areas downstream? What real level of release would be needed to get the drop they are wanting in the time frame they need? Is 200,000 cfs enough(that's basically doubling the flow of the MO at St. Charles at this point) or would it require more? What is the maximum they can release? How does everything up stream and down stream (Mo river flooding, Miss. River flooding, Ark river flooding) calculate into their risk management criteria? 

  

[Gavin]

If it fails tear it down. We need to move out of the flood plains now. It’s cheaper in the long run.

[MOPanfisher]

Ya'all should have gone to their public meeting.  Could have asked all the questions you wanted of the engineers.

[MOPanfisher]

BTW, the training, worst case scenarios etc. Are not new, that game has been played every few years for every dam in the Inventory.  There are reasons the COE has never lost a dam to failure.

[MickinMO]

1 hour ago, Devan S. said:

Is 200,000 cfs enough(that's basically doubling the flow of the MO at St. Charles at this point) or would it require more? What is the maximum they can release? How does everything up stream and down stream (Mo river flooding, Miss. River flooding, Ark river flooding) calculate into their risk management criteria?  

Like all things, follow the money. You'll find the answers and reason. Everything is and would be done to protect Bagnell. It's not just about protecting "rich folks", it's about total potential liability. Wonder why Ameren just spent $55 million on a "reliability upgrade" of Bagnell?  Shortly after the project is done Truman Dam is given a poor reliability rating with questions about the earthen part of the dam? What is cheaper for the Corps to replace when they get sued by thousands of people and businesses? If Bagnell were to fail due to a Truman failure, Ameren can say they invested in upgrades to make Bagnell stronger and can then point the finger at the Corps. $55 million becomes a cheap insurance policy. The Corps wouldn't want Bagnell to fail because you'd owe everyone at LOTO, Ameren, and still everyone downstream to Louisiana probably if it was a time of high water. Both dams fail say goodbye to Chesterfield/Gumbo Bottoms, again! 

Down at Table Rock, why was the auxillary spillway built? Probably to help Table Rock Dam withstand a failure at Beaver and keep there from being a domino effect of failures through the system. Just like Truman, there are probably issues with Beaver that are not being made public.