Bill Wood: Danger to Oroville Dam a failure of those we have elected
It is appalling what has happened to the people living in the potential flood area of the Oroville Dam. There are unbelievable design and maintenance failures in that dam. The primary spillway needed reinforcement and the emergency spillway could wash away the earth of the earthen dam causing it to fail. The money that should have gone into fixing the faults now goes to keeping the dam from failing.
My grandmother’s “stitch in time saves nine” applies. We spend millions even billions on illegal immigrants and other goofy projects (high speed rail). The result is the taxpaying silent majority gets orders to evacuate because of emminent failure of one of the tallest earthen dams in the world. Keep electing the same people to office and do not expect any changes. We need to elect people with common sense who care about the voters who elected them. We surely do not have that now!
Bill Wood, Oakdale
This story was originally published February 15, 2017 at 1:24 PM with the headline "Bill Wood: Danger to Oroville Dam a failure of those we have elected."