<story><title>Oroville Dam: Cost to repair spillways nearly doubles in price to $500M</title><url>http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/10/19/cost-of-repairing-oroville-dams-spillway-nearly-doubles-in-price-to-500-million/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>jychang</author><text>I feel like this comment is callous, but unfairly downvoted.&lt;p&gt;All projects contain risk. Getting out of bed and taking a shower involves risk, you can slip and fall. The larger the project, the larger the sample size and the more statistical considerations for risk should be managed.&lt;p&gt;Modern western society has greatly lost all tolerance of risk. One difference that struck me for risk culture, compared to the past, is old footage of the 1955 Le Mans disaster: after the catastrophic crash, bystanders themselves helped carry bodies away from the scene, and clean up wreckage. This calmness and social damage tolerance in the process of a disaster is very different from a modern &amp;quot;evacuate and let the professionals handle it&amp;quot; attitude, and I think this is an example of a clear shift in social tolerance of risk.&lt;p&gt;I wonder if the Apollo project would have worked today, instead of in the 1960s. At the scale of an infrastructure project of half a billion dollars, we&amp;#x27;re not talking about something so big that zero injuries safety standards are bad. However, as you get larger projects, it is statistically impossible to keep risk at 0; I&amp;#x27;m not sure how willing modern society is to accept that injuries on large projects is inevitable.&lt;p&gt;Elsewhere in this thread, user JumpCrisscross comments about comparing the cost overrun to the second bid. Following up that comment, the top response is something along the lines of &amp;quot;nobody was injured, so showering the contractor with money is ok&amp;quot;. This attitude is prevalent in modern society, and it doesn&amp;#x27;t really get questioned. Let&amp;#x27;s pose a hypothetical scenario: If a person has their leg broken, let&amp;#x27;s say a platform caused someone to fall and hurt their back. Would that amount of damage be worth a $250million additional cost? Think of the amount of social good you can do with $250million. At what level does society overvalue the reduction of risk? This is an important question to ask.&lt;p&gt;Let&amp;#x27;s not even talk about minor injuries. Let&amp;#x27;s say 1 person died. If you walk up to a random person, tell them that they have the opportunity to die; BUT their immediate family would receive $125 million dollars, and $125million would be donated to the charity of their choice. I suspect a very large percentage of people would actually be willing to take that offer.&lt;p&gt;And yet, giving an extra $250million to a contractor to build something is considered &amp;quot;worth it&amp;quot; to the general public if no injuries were reported. At which point does society overvalue reducing risk?</text></item><item><author>jessriedel</author><text>If no one gets injured on a $500M project, safety standards are almost certainly too stringent.</text></item><item><author>pdkl95</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m not surprised at the cost, given the nature of the project. Filling in the &lt;i&gt;massive&lt;/i&gt; canyons that were cut when the spillway failed has taken an incredible amount of RCC (roller compacted concrete) and man-hours of difficult,dangerous labor. Last I heard the project is still zero injuries, which is really impressive.&lt;p&gt;The blancolirio channel that nraynaud mentioned has a &lt;i&gt;lot&lt;/i&gt; of very impressive reporting and flyover footage, and the CA DWR itself has also been posting regular drone footage[1], which I highly recommend for a sense of &lt;i&gt;scale&lt;/i&gt;. The spillway is a &lt;i&gt;lot&lt;/i&gt; larger than it looks like from most of the overview photos. The closeup drone footage that includes the repair crew shows how massive the structure really is. It&amp;#x27;s supposed to be able to handle 270,000 cfs outflow (the outflow that damaged the old spillway was &amp;quot;only&amp;quot; ~100,000 cfs).&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;d also like to point out this[2] video from blancolirio, which shows just how close the emergency spillway was to being undercut. Yah, this repair is going to be expensive, but it&amp;#x27;s good to see that proper repairs are being done. Some things are worth the money; the central valley flooding would be a lot worse.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.youtube.com&amp;#x2F;user&amp;#x2F;calwater&amp;#x2F;videos&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.youtube.com&amp;#x2F;user&amp;#x2F;calwater&amp;#x2F;videos&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[2] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.youtube.com&amp;#x2F;watch?v=oU4AGuQ5gMo&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.youtube.com&amp;#x2F;watch?v=oU4AGuQ5gMo&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>quanticle</author><text>&amp;gt;I wonder if the Apollo project would have worked today, instead of in the 1960s.&lt;p&gt;George Mueller (who was head of NASA during the Apollo program) said that it would be impossible to repeat Apollo today without it being a classified program as Congress has passed so many laws and regulations in the meantime.&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;dominiccummings.com&amp;#x2F;2017&amp;#x2F;06&amp;#x2F;12&amp;#x2F;the-unrecognised-simplicities-of-effective-action-2b-the-apollo-programme-the-tory-train-wreck-and-advice-to-spads-starting-work-today&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;dominiccummings.com&amp;#x2F;2017&amp;#x2F;06&amp;#x2F;12&amp;#x2F;the-unrecognised-simp...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>Oroville Dam: Cost to repair spillways nearly doubles in price to $500M</title><url>http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/10/19/cost-of-repairing-oroville-dams-spillway-nearly-doubles-in-price-to-500-million/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>jychang</author><text>I feel like this comment is callous, but unfairly downvoted.&lt;p&gt;All projects contain risk. Getting out of bed and taking a shower involves risk, you can slip and fall. The larger the project, the larger the sample size and the more statistical considerations for risk should be managed.&lt;p&gt;Modern western society has greatly lost all tolerance of risk. One difference that struck me for risk culture, compared to the past, is old footage of the 1955 Le Mans disaster: after the catastrophic crash, bystanders themselves helped carry bodies away from the scene, and clean up wreckage. This calmness and social damage tolerance in the process of a disaster is very different from a modern &amp;quot;evacuate and let the professionals handle it&amp;quot; attitude, and I think this is an example of a clear shift in social tolerance of risk.&lt;p&gt;I wonder if the Apollo project would have worked today, instead of in the 1960s. At the scale of an infrastructure project of half a billion dollars, we&amp;#x27;re not talking about something so big that zero injuries safety standards are bad. However, as you get larger projects, it is statistically impossible to keep risk at 0; I&amp;#x27;m not sure how willing modern society is to accept that injuries on large projects is inevitable.&lt;p&gt;Elsewhere in this thread, user JumpCrisscross comments about comparing the cost overrun to the second bid. Following up that comment, the top response is something along the lines of &amp;quot;nobody was injured, so showering the contractor with money is ok&amp;quot;. This attitude is prevalent in modern society, and it doesn&amp;#x27;t really get questioned. Let&amp;#x27;s pose a hypothetical scenario: If a person has their leg broken, let&amp;#x27;s say a platform caused someone to fall and hurt their back. Would that amount of damage be worth a $250million additional cost? Think of the amount of social good you can do with $250million. At what level does society overvalue the reduction of risk? This is an important question to ask.&lt;p&gt;Let&amp;#x27;s not even talk about minor injuries. Let&amp;#x27;s say 1 person died. If you walk up to a random person, tell them that they have the opportunity to die; BUT their immediate family would receive $125 million dollars, and $125million would be donated to the charity of their choice. I suspect a very large percentage of people would actually be willing to take that offer.&lt;p&gt;And yet, giving an extra $250million to a contractor to build something is considered &amp;quot;worth it&amp;quot; to the general public if no injuries were reported. At which point does society overvalue reducing risk?</text></item><item><author>jessriedel</author><text>If no one gets injured on a $500M project, safety standards are almost certainly too stringent.</text></item><item><author>pdkl95</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m not surprised at the cost, given the nature of the project. Filling in the &lt;i&gt;massive&lt;/i&gt; canyons that were cut when the spillway failed has taken an incredible amount of RCC (roller compacted concrete) and man-hours of difficult,dangerous labor. Last I heard the project is still zero injuries, which is really impressive.&lt;p&gt;The blancolirio channel that nraynaud mentioned has a &lt;i&gt;lot&lt;/i&gt; of very impressive reporting and flyover footage, and the CA DWR itself has also been posting regular drone footage[1], which I highly recommend for a sense of &lt;i&gt;scale&lt;/i&gt;. The spillway is a &lt;i&gt;lot&lt;/i&gt; larger than it looks like from most of the overview photos. The closeup drone footage that includes the repair crew shows how massive the structure really is. It&amp;#x27;s supposed to be able to handle 270,000 cfs outflow (the outflow that damaged the old spillway was &amp;quot;only&amp;quot; ~100,000 cfs).&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;d also like to point out this[2] video from blancolirio, which shows just how close the emergency spillway was to being undercut. Yah, this repair is going to be expensive, but it&amp;#x27;s good to see that proper repairs are being done. Some things are worth the money; the central valley flooding would be a lot worse.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.youtube.com&amp;#x2F;user&amp;#x2F;calwater&amp;#x2F;videos&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.youtube.com&amp;#x2F;user&amp;#x2F;calwater&amp;#x2F;videos&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[2] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.youtube.com&amp;#x2F;watch?v=oU4AGuQ5gMo&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.youtube.com&amp;#x2F;watch?v=oU4AGuQ5gMo&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>falcolas</author><text>I honestly think this is just reflection of how the value of a human life has changed in the last few decades. The thought of spending millions of dollars you don&amp;#x27;t have to save a newborn with a serious heart defect is praiseworthy. The thought of bankrupting yourself and your loved ones for a chance at another year or two on the earth is normal.&lt;p&gt;What I can&amp;#x27;t say is whether this is a good thing or a bad thing. There&amp;#x27;s a part of me that recoils at the thought of putting a price on a life. Then there&amp;#x27;s another part of me that recoils at the selfishness of bankrupting my wife should I get cancer. That same selfishness recoils at the thought of bankrupting myself should she get cancer.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m not looking forward to those decisions.</text></comment>