When Does Common Sense Safety Concerns
Become Ridiculous, Absurd, Ludicrous, Preposterous, Farcical
Or Just Plain Cockamamie?
I realize that when an engineer is tasked with approving any decision for which he/she may be held liable they will always err on the side of safety. Hence, the expression 'over-engineered'.
The term 'over-engineered' would be not unlike the standard that the Dam Safety Branch is holding the city to when it comes to designing the dams at Colliery Park. Because of a combination of probability and outcome (loss of over 100 lives) the Dam Safety Branch requires a new dam (or rehabilitation) be able to meet a standard for an event that 'could' occur with a once in a 10,000 year chance.
We are all for public safety and the reduction of risk, hence we have speed limits, airbags, helmets, mouthguards and the like but there comes a point where even bubblewrapping everyone would still be considered to pose a potential 'risk' albeit it may only happen once in a 10,000 year period, that some bureaucratic office might deem unacceptable.
Sound like so much nonsense? Well that is exactly what the Dam Safety Branch brain trust has decided is the new standard for dam safety.
How Much Of This Safety Paranoia Can Society Afford?
It is all well and good for some guy or gal hauling down $200,000 or so, to arbitrarily decide that Nanaimo taxpayers are going to have to spring for a dam what can withstand a 1 in 10,000 year event. A decision which will cost Nanaimo taxpayers multiples of what it would cost to build a dam that is designed to withstand a 1 in 3,000 year event.
What will the economic impact of this decision have on the 1649 dams throughout the province? Think about it!
How much paranoia driven decisions being made by highly paid 'professionals' can we as a society afford?
Not unlike another unelected bureaucracy that requires us to spend $82,000,000 to insure the safety of a water supply that has been safe for 150 years!
The request for re-classification of the dams was based on a no. of factors. The 2008 and 2010 seismic studies both indicated considerably less consequence from dam failure. The 2010 study was done by the engineer who is the current project mgr. He knows the city and dams well and said that he could not envision these dams being worthy of the highest classification. The flood study and potential cosequence was based on numerous factors including both dams being seismically vulnerable and both failing completely within 3 mins and 20 seconds. There was also the consideration that people in the flood zone were unaware that the dams could fail. This was true until the city finally made people aware of the risk in Nov of this year. Furthermore, the engineer who wrote the report said that accurate estimation of casualties is particulary difficult as a result of the many factors that influence the outcome. No kidding. Our efforts were an attemptto ensure that the dams were brought up to an acceptable level of safety at the least cost. Building these structures to a level that it could survive an event never previously recorded seemed to be overkill.
ReplyDeleteI was born in Nanaimo and grew up on hill crest avenue, just around the corner from the dams, i first got to know the dams by following the other neighbourhood kids up there, that was in 1954-55, we all were there, summer and winter, i learned to skate on the dam, as well as swim and fish, although in those early days there wasn't much in the way of fish to catch in the lakes, we would do that at the bottom of the falls, which in those days was a vertical, uninterrupted drop from the edge of the spillway to the bottom at creek level, was quite a spectacular scene in the winter, crystal clear blue water, cascading down, the rocks, on both sides of the falls, coated by the frozen crystals of mist into a sparkling sheet of ice, giant icecicles with their beautiful endless shades of blue, hanging and sparkling in the mid-day sun, i had pictures of the dams and the falls from those days, but unfortunately, i had a house fire and everything was lost, everthing but my memories.
ReplyDeleteIn the 1950's, the dams were a great place to be,a kids paradise, no need for disney land in Harewood, we had the dams and the forest around them, we had two diving boards, one of them a spring board, that was right in front of the bench in the picture over looking the lake, the cement block in the picture, held the controls for the discharge of water, there were times when the top of it, we called it the tower, was 8 to 10 ft. out of the water, scary as hell for 8-9 yr old kids, there was always a problem for the young ones to get out of the water, the edges of the lake in most places were quite steep, in all the years i was around the dams i remember losing only one, it was where the stairs in the fishing photo are, then, there were no stairs, but from about that point to the wall of the dam they put in a rock wall,and backfilled it, it's still there, well, a little kid named Ronnie Martin took a running dive off of that wall not log after it was built, he and his family lived on Lambert street, near the corner of 6st.
ReplyDeleteI may appear to rambling, but i am leading up to something reguarding your blog, so bear with me. The 50's were great, remember Elvis and Jerry lee, but then came the late fifties and early sixties and the nucular threat, air raid sirens, ducking under desks, the Diefenbunker, which is still there, Kruschof, Castro, the Cuban blockade, Kenndy's assination, and to settle everyone nerves, the McCarthy era and those witch hunts. Locally, in 1960 Oct 30th as I recall, we had the china town fire, i was delivering papers across the street from where it started on fifth str. in a old shed, cinders from the roof went into the air and were carried over to the main part of the town, it was pretty much gone in about an hour and a half, over 300 people were made destitute, homeless and without belongings, was a very sad day for the Chinese community, and for the people of harewood, except for ashes and debris,and the paved roads, there very little left. we had our own little heroshima right here in Nanaimo
ReplyDeletei could say alot more about my younger years in Nanaimo, Harewood, and the dams, but i'm going to jump forward to October, 2012, and this unbelieveable fiasco concerning the destruction of the Harewood colliery dams and their resulting beauty of the lakes contained within, for me, they will always be first and second dams. Now to your blog,, i concur completely Jim, you managed to hit most of my descriptive terms for what the City and associates have done or preparing to do, i would add OUTRAGEOUS, IRRATIONAL, EXAGGERATED,HYSTERICAL,FEAR MONGERING, FANCIFUL, FICTICIOUS, PANIC PROVOKING TERROR, THE REAL KICKER FOR ME WAS THE SO CALLED INUNDATION STUDY, IT IS QUITE SIMPLY THE MOST OUTRAGEOUSLY PREPOSTEROUS REPORT EVER RELEASED. The people of Nanaimo can enjoy a good joke as much as anyone, but the determination of what is to be done about the Harewood dams is no hurried or joking matter. the dams are a much beloved aspect of our community, and is for many of us, very hallowed ground, and should be treated with due reverance and respect.
ReplyDeleteJeff, the idea of the dams creating a massive wall of water is nonsense, if you look at the map of the area below the dam, where the original river flowed, you would see a naturally occuring catch basin, created over thousands of years, in the bedrock, the dam was built to close up a gorge created at the same time, to catch the water flowing through it. the water flowed into the catch basin, then made a sharp right, passed infront of where the spillway is,and then carried on pretty much as you see it today, except some of the river course was altered by the owner of the property along the river between the dam and howard avenue, who mined the top soil out of there, much against the wishes of the Harewood Improvement district, and people have been doing as they want with the property, ever since, did you never wonder how that property, zoned single family got so many houses on it, has two addresses and one driveway at the front of the property, on sixst str, with seven houses on it, all built on a flood plain and are below the historic 100 yr, high water mark. for a referance, the top of the foundations for the Howard str. bridge, legally, the high watermark should be just below the top of those foundations, as should every other structure along that river and every other river and lake foreshore, oceans included. my opinion is, the only property and structures threatened by the dams are those, between Howard and the base of the dam. check it out,then present this to the city and their engineers, then watch them blush.
ReplyDeleteJim, we cannot afford to let them destroy the dams, they are a living example of the resiliance of nature, not to be seen again in my great,great, great grand childrens life times, Are they to be lost because of someones sense of pride, or their loss of it, in this day and age, in our country, no one should have that much power. Jeff, i don't have any idea of what ways and means could possibly be to meet the criteria of sustaining a 1/10,000 years flood or earthquake, does that mean our little dams would have to withstand a collision with a comet or a very large meteor, i would like to meet with Mr. Gale and perhaps the cities engineer, did i already meet him at the fire hall, to discuss an idea i have, to hear what they think, i believe it could be a very sensible, cost effective solution if we can keep the bureaucrats and polititions out of it, at least until we have come up with something concrete, i think geraldine collins should be involved as well, if she is willing, she knows of what she speaks, as you well know. If you want me involved, phone me, i'm in the book, otherwise, Brad has my number. thanks for the use of you space Jim, i hope you don't mind, otherwise i've wasted alot of time typing, i would like to meet you as well, hopefully we can come up with more for you to blog about.
ReplyDeleteBy all means send us your ideas as well as sending them along to the city. The major problem has been that the city never wanted to pursue alternatives to getting rid of the dams and so they did not bother to entertain options. Unfortunatley because there had not been any work done to the dams in the last few yrs. the demands for them being built to a higher standard is being enforced .We can be contacted at solohunter@telus.net. .
DeleteI would be delighted to meet with you also, you can contact me via admin@nanaimoinfo.com or 250-753-6019.
DeleteThis whole issue of seismic upgrading has the potential of being a bottomless pit. We can spend billions on countless projects for the possibility of being prepared for an event that may or may not occur in thousands of years. In the interim we have incredible every day needs for our community that require attention. At some point there has to be a reality check. The dams need an upgrade and this should have occurred years ago because of the potential risk and liability but our administrators need to take a look at this never ending push for "upgrading" structures that also have a limited life span.
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