{"id":9856,"date":"2017-02-15T12:10:30","date_gmt":"2017-02-15T20:10:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/?p=9856"},"modified":"2017-02-17T16:37:39","modified_gmt":"2017-02-18T00:37:39","slug":"the-oroville-dam-disaster-is-yet-another-example-of-californias-decline","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-oroville-dam-disaster-is-yet-another-example-of-californias-decline\/","title":{"rendered":"The Oroville Dam disaster is yet another example of California’s decline"},"content":{"rendered":"
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PG&E crews work to move two electric transmission line towers as a precaution should the Oroville Dam emergency spillway needs to be used in Oroville, Calif., on Feb. 10. (Los Angeles Times)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By Victor Davis Hanson\/\/ Los Angeles Times<\/em><\/p>\n

A year ago, politicians and experts were predicting a near-permanent statewide drought, a \u201cnew normal\u201d desert climate. The most vivid example of how wrong they were is that California\u2019s majestic Oroville Dam<\/a> is currently in danger of spillway failure in a season of record snow and rainfall. That could spell catastrophe for thousands who live below it and for the state of California at large that depends on its stored water.<\/p>\n

The poor condition of the dam is almost too good a metaphor for the condition of the state as a whole; its possible failure is a reflection of California\u2019s civic decline.<\/p>\n<\/header>\n

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Oroville Dam, along with Shasta Dam, is the crown jewel of California\u2019s state and federal system of water transfers. Finished nearly 50 years ago, the earthen Oroville Dam is the tallest dam in the United States.<\/p>\n

The resulting Lake Oroville stores 3.5 million acre feet of snow and rain runoff, and is central to transferring water, eventually via the California Aqueduct, from the wet north to the dry southern half of the state.<\/p>\n

The dam was part of the larger work of a brilliant earlier generation of California planners and lawmakers. Given that two-thirds of the state wished to live where one third of the rain and snow fell, they foresaw a vast system of water storage and transference that would remake the face of a growing California by putting people, industry and farms where water was not.<\/p>\n