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Midland Dam break - a good preview of climate change consequences

ecofarm said:
Science is deceptive and school is for fools. We know. CT blogs got that Truth.
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The truth is that the rainfall event, was not that unusual!
The Dam was likely fine for this kind of rainfall event, when it was built in 1924, but 96 years had compromised
the dam's integrity, to the point that a rainfall event that has happened 3 other times since the 1970's caused a failure.
Unless Dams are maintained, they fail, it is just that simple.
Dam's are placing something where nature does not want it, and unless we maintain it, nature will take it back!
 
ecofarm said:
It's moronic to not be able to link climate change to a dam failure. I'm not saying it's the main cause, but to believe it's irrelevant is ignorant beyond comprehension.
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Science Illiteracy is a required course to graduate from Trump U.
 
longview said:
The truth is that the rainfall event, was not that unusual!
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Who cares? It's a special kinda stupid to not be able to link long term weather impacts and stress to climate change.
 
ecofarm said:
Who cares? It's a special kinda stupid to not be able to link long term weather impacts and stress to climate change.
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What change is long term weather? the rainfall event was less than 3 other since the 1970's, and the Dam did not fail in those events.
You have to ask yourself, what changed?
Since similar and greater rainfall events have occurred, perhaps the integrity has changed!
 
Threegoofs said:
If you can’t understand the link, I’d recommend more time reading quality work on the subject snd less time reading and spamming politically motivated blogs written by amateurs.
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Dittohead not! said:
If that's your opinion, you're entitled to it. The Earth does not care.
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There are no unicorns, either.
 
Threegoofs said:
Two dams were breached in Midland, MI, this week, flooding the town up to 9 feet deep in water and causing evacuation of 10,000 people (so far).



This is a perfect example of what climate change will bring everywhere in the future.


A slow change, compounded every year, in the face of decaying infrastructure that has been fine, until a 500 year flood event hits (and the 500 year and 100 year events happen multiple times within a a decade).


You can even see these consequences predicted in Midlands own town paper two years ago:

We should lead way on climate change - Midland Daily News

It’s a subtle thing.. sure, maybe they would have gone anyway... sure, but how can we know a 500 year rain event will happen again? I can tell you that Chicago has had record rain this May - over 8 inches - and it beats the previous record set.... LAST YEAR.

The science on this is quite clear, and you can see that here at DP as deniers either spam blog posts or make up their own amateur interpretations of scientific data all while telling us the people who study this for a living and collect the data they misinterpret are wrong.


The deniers are holding up public policy - because why fix something that isnt gonna break?


At least this time no one died.


Midland dam failures, flooding and evacuations: U-M experts available | University of Michigan News
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Beyond "climate change", it's an example of what our decades of neglecting infrastructure will cause. We needed trillions of dollars investment in repairs and updates. Instead Trump went with tax cuts for the richest. And now look where we are...

It's no exaggeration to say that between roads, bridges, dams, water mains, electrical grid, etc., we've got several trillion of work to do. And now it'll be kicked way down the road. We'll be seeing a lot more dam and bridge failures in the reasonably near future.
 
longview said:
How so, the article said the rainfall amount was the fourth highest in the last 50 years,
that means that the area has similar rain events at least every 20 years.
If anything the dam failure is more closely related to our crumbling infrastructure.
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ecofarm said:
Science is deceptive and school is for fools. We know. CT blogs got that Truth.
Click to expand...

Too many movies.

They don't understand that the reason the weird old man lives in the shack is not because he has discovered the real truth and thus embarrassed all the scientific minds. It's because he stores his urine in jars and shouts at trees.
 
Mr Person said:
Beyond "climate change", it's an example of what our decades of neglecting infrastructure will cause. We needed trillions of dollars investment in repairs and updates. Instead Trump went with tax cuts for the richest. And now look where we are...

It's no exaggeration to say that between roads, bridges, dams, water mains, electrical grid, etc., we've got several trillion of work to do. And now it'll be kicked way down the road. We'll be seeing a lot more dam and bridge failures in the reasonably near future.
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and they'll blame Joe Biden for it.

Or, if he loses, they'll blame Obama.
 
Mr Person said:
Beyond "climate change", it's an example of what our decades of neglecting infrastructure will cause. We needed trillions of dollars investment in repairs and updates. Instead Trump went with tax cuts for the richest. And now look where we are...

It's no exaggeration to say that between roads, bridges, dams, water mains, electrical grid, etc., we've got several trillion of work to do. And now it'll be kicked way down the road. We'll be seeing a lot more dam and bridge failures in the reasonably near future.
Click to expand...

This is true.
 
Yep, dams never broke before "climate change". Johnstown Flood anyone?
 
longview said:
What change is long term weather? the rainfall event was less than 3 other since the 1970's, and the Dam did not fail in those events.
You have to ask yourself, what changed?
Since similar and greater rainfall events have occurred, perhaps the integrity has changed!
Click to expand...

I would imagine Michigan has had similar rainfall to Chicago, and this has been the rainiest May in 150 years, beating out the last rainiest May which was LAST YEAR and that beat out the third and fourth rainiest Mays, which were all this century.

It’s changed.
 
Then you have the question of private ownership of dams. The owners were warned 20 years ago that their levee was at risk and they did sweet FA. What has Trump done for US infrastructure during the "good years"? Deregulated with tax handouts to his friends
 
Threegoofs said:
I would imagine Michigan has had similar rainfall to Chicago, and this has been the rainiest May in 150 years, beating out the last rainiest May which was LAST YEAR and that beat out the third and fourth rainiest Mays, which were all this century.

It’s changed.
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The article cited by the OP said that the rainfall was the forth highest since the 1970's,
While it was a heavy rain, it was not a 100 or 500 year rain.
Closer to a 15 year rain! The fact that the dam has held up in the past to at least 3 rainfall events greater,
leads me to think that the dam being compromised, was more a contributing factor than the rainfall.
 
Threegoofs said:
Can’t understand the point in the OP, or do you just refuse to?
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The point is the same as it always is; more climate change alarmism. Everything that is now attributed to climate change are things that have been happening for centuries. Dams break because they are faulty, not because it happened to rain more than usual.
 
veritas1 said:
The point is the same as it always is; more climate change alarmism. Everything that is now attributed to climate change are things that have been happening for centuries. Dams break because they are faulty, not because it happened to rain more than usual.
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I just saw this:

It’s a record setting month in Chicago, and I’m guessing Michigan too, given the fact that the vast majority of heavy rainstorms in spring come from the west and cross the lake, often gaining intensity.

We are on track to be the rainiest May ever, with a few days still left and some rain in next weeks forecast.

We will beat the rainiest May ever which was set LAST year, which, in turn, beat the rainiest May ever set THE YEAR BEFORE.

An alarming trend with over 150 years of records.

1) 8.25” 2019
2) 8.21” 2018
3) 8.20” 2020

Things are changing. And the pace is quickening.

And that’s exactly what the science predicted decades ago.

You know... the ‘alarmists’ predicted it.
 
longview said:
The article cited by the OP said that the rainfall was the forth highest since the 1970's,
While it was a heavy rain, it was not a 100 or 500 year rain.
Closer to a 15 year rain! The fact that the dam has held up in the past to at least 3 rainfall events greater,
leads me to think that the dam being compromised, was more a contributing factor than the rainfall.
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Again.

I’ll stick with the experts who study this for a living and dismiss some anonymous denier on DP who has no experience or training in this.
 
Aging infrastructure.

With apologies to William Shakespeare: “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our [climate] / But in our [dams], that we [neglected].” (Julius Caesar, Act I, Scene III, L. 140-141).

Mid-Michigan dam failures call attention to safety of state's ...

wsbt.com › news › local › mid-michigan-dam-failures-call-attention-t...
wYirQdfgAPJbYCQf6L4K0dWiKfCQvkLc5VYgLACsM3lPiEYumYgaINwkeXIOAbGuUYHw9Bxypdz 52bHcb BZr6YbztLxyH6BH81E7L02OHzAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC





20 hours ago - The failure of two mid-Michigan dams called attention to the safety of many others around the state, many of which experts said were aging and ...
 
Threegoofs said:
Again.

I’ll stick with the experts who study this for a living and dismiss some anonymous denier on DP who has no experience or training in this.
Click to expand...
The experts said that the rainfall event was the fourth highest since records began in the 1970's.
but the Dam choose now to break, rather than in one of those earlier greater rainfall events.
The logical conclusion is not AGW, but the degradation of the dam!
 

Michigan Dam Failures and Climate Change

Guest News Brief by Kip Hansen — 23 May 2020 In keeping with the NY Times’ Editorial Narrative on climate change (“every story is a climate story”), Henry Fountain writes this piece: ‘Expect More’: Climate Change Raises Risk of Dam Failures. It carries the sub-title “Engineers say most dams in the United States, designed…
Continue reading →

". . . . So – what is the real problem that resulted in this disaster for so many residents and businesses in the Midland area?
GREED: “The wrestling match among four communities in Michigan’s heavily flooded areas, state and federal officials, and Boyce [Boyce Hydro Power LLC] goes back several years. The company and the community have been trying to get the other to pay for improvements as far back as 2012.”
And self-interest: “When Boyce stopped generating power at the Edenville Dam, which is on the border of Midland and Gladwin counties, the company let the water level on Wixom Lake fall. Four area homeowners associations that had banded together to form the Four Lakes Task Force crafted a plan to have the two counties buy out Boyce and give oversight of the dams to the task force…. “People were upset because they couldn’t use the lake the way they wanted to,” said Stacy Trapani, a spokeswoman for Four Lakes.” [ link ]
In short, everyone – local, state, federal and corporate officials knew that the dam was unsafe and would not stand up to a major flood event. But no one wanted to pay for the needed upgrades to make it safe. Local residents were upset when the power company used the water in the lakes to make electricity as that caused the water levels to fluctuate and interfered with their recreational boating and marinas – thus they advocating for leaving the lakes full.
These two overlapping and competing interests caused a disaster – not the weather, not the climate, not climate change."

 
Jack Hays said:
[FONT=&][/FONT]
Michigan Dam Failures and Climate Change

[FONT=&]Guest News Brief by Kip Hansen — 23 May 2020 In keeping with the NY Times’ Editorial Narrative on climate change (“every story is a climate story”), Henry Fountain writes this piece: ‘Expect More’: Climate Change Raises Risk of Dam Failures. It carries the sub-title “Engineers say most dams in the United States, designed…
Continue reading →

[/FONT][FONT=&]". . . . So – what is the real problem that resulted in this disaster for so many residents and businesses in the Midland area?[/FONT]
[FONT=&]GREED: “The wrestling match among four communities in Michigan’s heavily flooded areas, state and federal officials, and Boyce [Boyce Hydro Power LLC] goes back several years. The company and the community have been trying to get the other to pay for improvements as far back as 2012.”[/FONT]
[FONT=&]And self-interest: “When Boyce stopped generating power at the Edenville Dam, which is on the border of Midland and Gladwin counties, the company let the water level on Wixom Lake fall. Four area homeowners associations that had banded together to form the Four Lakes Task Force crafted a plan to have the two counties buy out Boyce and give oversight of the dams to the task force…. “People were upset because they couldn’t use the lake the way they wanted to,” said Stacy Trapani, a spokeswoman for Four Lakes.” [ link ][/FONT]
[FONT=&]In short, everyone – local, state, federal and corporate officials knew that the dam was unsafe and would not stand up to a major flood event. But no one wanted to pay for the needed upgrades to make it safe. Local residents were upset when the power company used the water in the lakes to make electricity as that caused the water levels to fluctuate and interfered with their recreational boating and marinas – thus they advocating for leaving the lakes full. [/FONT]
[FONT=&]These two overlapping and competing interests caused a disaster – not the weather, not the climate, not climate change."[/FONT]
[FONT=&]
[/FONT]
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So it was fear of any change at all, in this case change in water level, that caused it.
 
[FONT=&quot][/FONT]
[h=1]When dams cause more problems than they solve, removing them can pay off for people and nature[/h][FONT=&quot]Jon Honea, Emerson College Across the United States, dams generate hydroelectric power, store water for drinking and irrigation, control flooding and create recreational opportunities such as slack-water boating and waterskiing. But dams can also threaten public safety, especially if they are old or poorly maintained. On May 21, 2020, residents of Midland, Michigan were hastily…
Continue reading →
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