Dams

For Bill Leisic, the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta is a sort of Huck Finn country where he can drop a line into his favorite fishing hole and hook his limit of bass. To officials in charge of moving water to Central Valley farmers and millions of people in Southern California, it is the state's most important spigot. Without its fresh water, much of the state would go thirsty.

LAS VEGAS -- In what authorities are calling the first confirmed suicide at the new Hoover Dam bypass bridge, a 60-year-old San Jose woman leaped to her death from the 900-foot-high span Saturday. Federal police had attempted to convince her to step back from a precipice along the pedestrian walkway, but to no avail. The victim was identified as Patricia Oakley of San Jose, U.S. Bureau of Reclamation spokeswoman Rose Davis said Tuesday. Oakley's body was found downstream Sunday by Colorado River kayakers.

A pristine little fishing stream--unknown to many anglers, unfished by most--flows only about a two hours' drive from downtown Los Angeles. Bear Creek is the most subtle of streams. It is only 8 3/4 miles long and its source these days is what water seeps through the 76-year-old dam that restrains Big Bear Lake, Southern California's highest open and accessible mountain reservoir.

River deltas are among the most biologically productive ecosystems on Earth, and for millions of years the delta of the Colorado River was no exception. After a 1,450-mile journey from its headwaters in the Rocky Mountains south into Mexico, the Colorado sustained verdant marshes teeming with life before emptying into the aquatic Eden of the upper Gulf of California. In 1922, the great naturalist Aldo Leopold canoed through the delta, which he described as "a milk and honey wilderness" and a land of "a hundred green lagoons.

For years, the water stored by the Savage Rapids Dam has nurtured the green bean fields and grazing pastures of southern Oregon, turning them into a lush region of bounty. But there has been a price -- the death of thousands of fish, which slammed themselves into the concrete wall of the dam in a futile effort to head upstream. Scenes from years past now resemble a faded sepia-tone photograph. Many of the big farms have turned into 10-acre hobby ranches; the salmon are in danger of disappearing; and even the federal Bureau of Reclamation, the agency that harnessed rivers and irrigated the West, began saying a few years ago it would be better to just tear down the dam once and for all. So they did. On Friday, a platoon of bulldozers and earthmovers tore away at the last of the temporary earthen berms holding water behind the dam. The Rogue River rushed free, flowing through its historic channel for the first time since 1921.

Rescue workers searched desperately into the early-morning hours today for dozens of missing Indonesians after a dam burst just outside the capital and a wall of mud and water killed more than 60 people as they slept. "My prediction is we still have many people trapped in there, so the death toll will rise," said Rustam Pakaya, chief of the Health Ministry's crisis center. "I think the death toll can reach 100," he said. The Associated Press reported that at least 69 were dead.

Thousands of people marched Friday in Santiago to protest a proposed hydroelectric project in southern Chile that critics say will spoil much of the pristine and biodiverse Patagonia region that is an increasingly popular eco-tourism destination. The $3.2-billion HidroAysen project calls for construction of five dams on the Baker and Pascua rivers in the country's Aysen region. It is expected to increase the electrical power supply by 15% when construction is completed in 2020. The project has received less international publicity than the proposed Belo Monte power project on the Xingu River in Brazil's Amazon, which would produce four times the energy.

Scheduled for completion in August, Seven Oaks Dam near Redlands in San Bernardino County is designed to protect residents from catastrophic floods. It is one of many ongoing flood protection projects in Southern California, including the strengthening of some Los Angeles County dams. Here is a look at how the Seven Oaks Dam will operate: * Sources: Odebrecht Group; Orange Counry Flood District; Army Corps pf Engineers; Seven Oaks Dam; Los Angeles County Department of Public Works

With respect to damming the Sespe, first--when one says, "No dams on the Sespe," that is quite literally what is meant--no dams, ever. The rivers and streams of the Earth are like the circulatory system in one's body--cut off the blood flow in an artery or vein and you'll damage your body. As soon as you countenance having even one dam on the Sespe, anywhere, even around Fillmore, it's like being a little bit pregnant--psychologically, politically, you've opened up the possibility for future dams.

It's a memory from his early boyhood, and much has faded away. Charlie Casey remembers going with his grandfather to cut a ribbon at one of California's great new dams. He can't recall where, or exactly when. He does remember a VIP tour of the structure's innards. He remembers skimming across the reservoir in an amphibious car, and thinking: "Pretty cool." And why not? Dams meant growth and growth was good.

Myanmar's president ordered a halt Friday to work on a controversial $3.6-billion hydroelectric dam backed by China, a rare concession to the political opposition and public displeasure. President Thein Sein said in a statement read out on his behalf in parliament that the Myitsone dam project in the northern state of Kachin should be terminated because it is "against the will of the people. " The reversal — if in fact it proves to be one, given Myanmar's often opaque governance — seemed somewhat surprising in a country where leaders have for decades paid limited attention to the public's concerns.

Removing four hydroelectric dams and restoring habitat on Northern California's Klamath River would significantly boost the watershed's chinook salmon population and the commercial salmon catch, according to several dozen federal reports released Wednesday. The U.S. Interior Department will rely on the documents to decide whether the dams should be torn down. Removal of the structures would open upper portions of the Klamath to struggling salmon populations that have been blocked from historic spawning grounds for nearly a century.

If life imitated art, it would be a simple matter to follow the dotted line and snip a 200-foot dam near Ojai off the face of the earth. For years, an alliance of environmentalists, fishermen, surfers and officials from every level of government has called for demolishing the obsolete structure. Now, an anonymous band of artists has weighed in, apparently rappelling down the dam's face to paint a huge pair of scissors and a long dotted line. The carefully planned work popped up last week and is, no doubt, Ventura County's most environmentally correct graffiti by a dam site.

In a deep turquoise pool in a gorge of steep granite and thick Douglas fir, dozens of salmon swam fitfully. Swirling and slow, they made their way up one side of the riverbed, only to run into the steep concrete face of Elwha Dam — the formidable barrier that for nearly 100 years has cut off most of the Elwha River from the salmon that traditionally populated it. Some primordial genetic imprint makes these fish keep trying. Nurtured in hatcheries for years, supplemented by the few wild fish that managed to spawn in the limited five-mile stretch of river left below the dam, these 20-pound chinook still fling themselves up the river.

The removal of 25,000 cubic yards of sediment from the basin behind Devil's Gate Dam in Pasadena has been put on hold until August in order to prevent the destruction of a habitat for toads. Work was set to begin last week, but Pasadena officials decided to postpone the job pending further environmental review after Hahamongna Watershed Park users complained that Johnson Field, where the dirt was to be temporarily stored, was home to a large number of toads that would be smothered underneath the piles of dirt.

Researchers believe Colorado River damming projects that followed the creation of the Salton Sea could be one reason why Southern California is overdue for a major earthquake. In a new study led by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, scientists found that the floodwaters that periodically flowed through faults helped trigger earthquakes in the area, including several large ones along the mighty San Andreas. The modern Salton Sea came to life nearly a century ago when record floodwaters from the Colorado River overwhelmed barriers, and during the course of two years created the massive body of water in a desert sink.

Portugal's new Socialist Party government stopped work Tuesday on a controversial dam whose waters threatened rock carvings that archeologists say are among Europe's oldest. Prime Minister Antonio Guterres told the Assembly of the Republic that work on the Coa River dam project would be halted while experts are given time to confirm the date of the artwork.

Land owners at Big Bear Lake voted overwhelmingly in favor of a tax to help raise $10.8 million needed to rebuild the cracked and leaking 76-year-old Bear Valley Dam in the San Bernardino Mountains. The state, fearing that an earthquake could destroy the dam and flood residents below, mandated that the 82-foot tall structure be rebuilt by October or that the recreational lake behind it be drained.

A $1.4-billion project to remove four hydroelectric dams and restore habitat to return Chinook salmon to the upper reaches of the Klamath River amounts to an experiment with no guarantee of success, an independent science review has concluded. A panel of experts evaluating the proposal expressed "strong reservations" that the effort could overcome the many environmental pressures that have driven the dramatic decline of what was one of the richest salmon rivers in the nation.

The Los Angeles County Department of Public Works will start work in July to remove 25,000 cubic yards of sediment from the basin behind Devil's Gate Dam in Pasadena. The project is a stopgap measure to prevent valves and other dam works from becoming clogged this winter while the county studies options for the eventual removal of roughly 1.5 million cubic yards of mud and debris, most of it deposited after the August 2009 Station fire. Photos: Devil's Gate Dam Excavation work, which could begin as early as July 5, would be limited to within about 100 feet of the face of the dam — leaving all wooded areas in the basin intact and eliminating the need for dirt-hauling trucks to pass through La Cañada Flintridge, said Chris Stone, assistant deputy director of the public works department's Water Resources Division.