Wrapping Cracks in Red Tape
How long should it take to fix critical infrastructure?
Just as World War 1 was ending the Lake Hodges Dam in San Diego county was finished and the new lake behind it began to fill up.
In 2017 in Northern California the Oroville dam nearly collapsed and people started to wonder about the state of other dams in California and the just about a century old Hodges dam was one of the ones that was inspected.
A mere 5 years later, in 2022, work was started to repair the worst cracks (and in the process of lowering the water level to do that more cracks were found). Those repairs were finished in 2023 and plans were made for a new dam to be built about 100ft downstream of the current one.
“It is envisioned a new dam could be built by 2034 following the required environmental review, design and permitting processes,” Collins said. “The preliminary cost estimate is $275 million.”
In 2023 it was decreed that for safety reasons the system needed to be maintained at a maximum of 30% of the previous fullness. This got people’s attention and so the authorities decided to speed up building the new dam
“We’ve been able to shave a number of years off the schedule, and we are committed to starting construction by the end of calendar year 2029,” she said.
The new dam, a roller-compacted concrete dam, is expected to cost $275 million. It will be built roughly 100 feet downstream from the existing dam.
In 2024 the rains this February have already resulted in a large amount of water being released from the dam and the low water level meant that San Diego residents have seen their water bills increase at an inflation busting 35% to cover water purchased and moved in from other more expensive sources. In addition a pumped storage hydro scheme no longer works because the intake/outlet is now above the water level. This is costly
Because of the state’s February 2023 order to lower Lake Hodge’s water level to 280 feet, the pipeline to Olivenhain Reservoir had to be shut down due to the level of the intake pipe. As a result, the city of San Diego no longer has access to water from Lake Hodges until the dam is replaced and the state order is lifted.
The city said it could take a decade to build a new dam.
Additionally, because of the state order, the Water Authority’s hydroelectric plant had to be shut down, as well. The agency estimated it will lose $3 million dollars per year for the next decade, as a result of the Lake Hodges hydroelectric plant being shut down.
So even starting construction in 2029 - a decade plus after the original inspection work pointed out that the dam was in poor shape and 110 years after the first dam was finished - it will likely take five years or so to complete. That means the Hodges Dam, in its currently unsafe state, will remain that way for a good 15 years since the initial problems were discovered, which is roughly an eighth of the time since it was built. It is also ten to fifteen times as long as it took to build the original dam back in the 1910s (from the first link in this post):
The design of Lake Hodges Dam was started in 1917 by engineer John S. Eastwood. Eastwood had designed several dams throughout California, and he designed the Hodges Dam later in life. While striking in appearance, the Hodges Dam is not unique and was designed like others earlier in Eastwood’s career. The structure consists of 23 hollow 24-foot wide, 24-inch-thick reinforced concrete arches, supported with buttresses of mass concrete. It was 550 feet long and 137 feet high.
In comparison to other public utility projects, particularly those designed in the current web of laws and regulations, the actual construction of Hodges Dam was relatively quick: the actual pouring and placing of concrete took only 12 months, from November 1917 to November 1918.
Can anyone tell me what harms will be averted by taking 15 years to replace a dam that was originally built in under two?
By the way I should point out that California is not the only place in the world where it takes an age to replace crumbling infrastructure. Here in rural Japan the replacement for a bridge near Izumo Taisha is also taking several years. I forget when the project started but it was probably 3 or 4 years ago and they still aren’t close to finishing
I have no idea why this project is taking so long either, one suspects some of this is due to pork barrel spending meaning that the project was larded with unneccessary extra features. To be honest I’m not entirely sure what was wrong with the original bridge but I can believe that it was old and in need of some kind of repair.
I’m not saying we should seek to emulate the Chicoms and build shoddy stuff in a few months that collapses in under a decade but there has to be a happy medium where stuff is (re)built soundly but without it taking a decade or two from the time the first bureaucrat or politician says “We should do…” to some other grandee cutting the ribbon and declaring the new thing open.
PS Red tape also helps raise the cost and slow the speed of new critical infrastrucutre development like high voltage power lines that are critical for the transition to “clean green” energy as the article below points out
You ask, “Can anyone tell me what harms will be averted by taking 15 years to replace a dam that was originally built in under two?” Yes, I can. The harms to the pocketbooks of union reps and to the Democratic Party who automatically receive contributions from rank and file union members through union dues and to the hordes of civil servants employed to do fuck all and get paid over that longer time span.
"Managers hear 'Slow down and spend money', is what managers hear when you say to the word 'control'. Spoken by a business analyst to a young audit manager. Same as Red Tape in government or business processes. Yes, some of these processes are potentially tied to risk, but there is little conversation on acceptable risk appetite.