Worse Than Isis. Mosul dam foundation dissolving. Half a million Iraqis could die State Dept. Warns

[eridani]

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/1/11/1468380/-Worse-Than-Isis-Mosul-dam-foundation-dissolving-Half-a-million-Iraqis-could-die-State-Dept-Warns

Only a madman would build a dam on a foundation of rock salt. That man would be Saddam Hussein. The dam would be Mosul Dam, Iraq’s largest. The rock salt would be gypsum, a salt of calcium and sulfate which is less soluble than sodium chloride (table salt) but dangerously soluble for the foundation of a dam. Mosul, a city of 2 million people below the dam could be hit by a 66 foot (20 meters) wall of water. The state department warns that half a million people could die and a million left homeless when the dam fails.

Mosul dam has required constant high maintenance since it was built, but occupation by ISIS disrupted the ongoing injection of grout to seal channels continuously forming in the dam’s foundation. Engineers have found extensive evidence of the connection of new channels formed by rock dissolution to ancient natural channels in limestone. The clay that was plugging those ancient channels may be washing away as the water flowing under high pressure erodes it and pushes open the channels. The Mosul dam may be beyond repair.

Engineers have recommended building a new dam below the failing dam to protect the people of Mosul, but time is running out. Dam failure could bring catastrophe beyond comprehension.

[tazkcmo]

1. Sadly, I think nothing gets done.

Even sadder, as a global collective, we could accomplish this toot sweet. Unfortunately, I'm sure there's a group out there that sees a benefit of 2 million people dying. It's rather sickening.

[deutsey]

2. We're an incredibly stupid species, aren't we?

Last edited Wed Jan 13, 2016, 10:48 AM - Edit history (1)

We know shit like this is going to happen, we have the know-how to stop it from happening (or at least to diminish its impact when it does happen), and we do nothing.

When I heard President Obama going on last night about how we stopped the Ebola outbreak, I couldn't help but think: "Yeah, after we ignored it and the growing number of fatalities for months and then took action only after it began to appear in America."

[tazkcmo]

3. Yes, we are.

I truly believe that if we are re-incarnated then the ultimate rebirth would be as a dog.

[atreides1]

7. I disagree

I don't think we'd rate that high on the scale...more like earth worms, instead of dogs!

[tazkcmo]

8. Clarifying

I mean to be a dog is the goal, not the reality. I do agree with you we fall woefully short.

[Orrex]

13. Nah. Dogs abandon their runts, kill their weak and roll in shit

Everybody's an asshole, even dogs.

The goal you're identifying is the romantic ideal of a dog, but you might just as well aim for the romantic ideal of our own species.

[Coventina]

22. That is survival, not being an "asshole".

They kill (or drive away) the weak for the good of the pack.

The rolling in shit is to disguise their scent while hunting. Although, since evolution has taught them to seek out and love that aroma, they will sometime do it recreationally, to the dismay of dog owners.


Anyway, the bottom line is that Nature is often unkind, and breeds unkind behaviors in many species. We are one of the few who have evolved to recognize and value altruism. But we're a looooong way of making that a common goal for our species.

[Orrex]

25. Well, try doing those things the next time you're at the movies

See if you get called "a survivor" or "an asshole."

Dogs have spent millennia training us to accommodate them, so they've got that going for them.

I get what you're saying about altruism, though. A long was off indeed.

[Coventina]

27. Well, what dogs have evolved to do for survival and we have evolved for survival is different.

Survival skills are unique to each species, which is why there are different species.

And, I think I have gone to movies where there were dogs disguised as humans.

[Orrex]

29. Very true, but consider:

Modern dogs display the traits that we find laudable because we've been selectively breeding for those traits since prehistory. It's not that dogs scampered out of the forest with these behaviors; we've manufactured them over thousands of generations.

In fact, most of the traits that I've seen praised in dogs are the very traits that we've cultivated, whereas their less desirable habits (shit-rolling, runt-abandoning, etc.) are the ones that they brought to the table themselves, and we minimize those habits in a variety of ways. We even bend over backwards to justify dogs' worst behaviors by blaming them on cruel or inept humans. We like to imagine that these animals are inherently noble, but we're basically saying "let us praise what we have made."

[Coventina]

31. Oh I agree with you. No species is inherently noble. Although some are more cut-throat than others

Nature is red in tooth and claw, as the poet said....

[Protalker]

5. Saint Reagan

25000 Americans were dead before he mentioned the word AIDS.

[Orrex]

26. To be fair, I'm pretty sure that he mentioned it before that

The Great Communicator used to enjoy joking about AIDS-related deaths, being the sick, incompetent asshole that he was.

[Bluenorthwest]

9. The US response to Ebola was fantastic compared to the US response to AIDS in the 80's. 40,000

Americans had died before Reagan and his Republicans even bothered to mention it.
In Africa, the #1 killer is HIV/AIDS. Well over 100,000 people a month die in Africa from it. Every month. Here is a quick comparison from 2012, Ebola and AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa:

"In the 39 weeks that the WHO has tracked the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, 3,338 individuals died from the virus – an average of about 86 deaths a week. HIV/AIDS alone claimed an average of 21,000 lives each week in 2012."


I'll add that US Ebola history is 11 cases, 2 deaths. US AIDS deaths, over 650,000.

[deutsey]

12. Reagan and his ilk were more than just stupid when it came to AIDS

They were evil. Just plain evil.

[Protalker]

34. Micturate, trickle down economics

Reagan voodoo economics has pissed down for 40 years.
Love the word, from your Jesuit education?

[karynnj]

32. Obama ordered the military to respond before the man who brought ebola to the US

Now, obviously, having first class medical response everywhere in the world would be ideal, the fact is that once the extent of the threat was known by the state department, they started to look at what the response should be. If you look at the details of the US led world response, there are many complicated, interrelated parts. Someone did a lot of work determining what was needed and how to respond.

It was obvious, in a day of routine air travel, that something this big would spread around the world unless contained and eliminated in Africa. Witness AIDS, where there was no such response for decades.

[deutsey]

33. I'm referring to how this was allowed to become a crisis by the world community

The US included.

There have been outbreaks before and mobilizations have responded quickly to contain them.

I was reading about this outbreak and how bad it was long before I remember it being mentioned in mainstream media in any significant way in the US.

There were many reasons for the outbreak spiraling out of control, from the lack of a modern healthcare infrastructure in that part of Africa, deforestation which has brought humans and diseased bats together, budget cuts at WHO, etc.

Or, in a word, given the deadly and highly contagious nature of the disease, stupidity on our part. We know how horrific and dangerous this disease is, and yet we cut budgets, deforest the land for a slimy buck, etc.

From the Washington Post:

So how did the situation get so horribly out of control?

The virus easily outran the plodding response. The WHO, an arm of the United Nations, is responsible for coordinating international action in a crisis like this, but it has suffered budget cuts, has lost many of its brightest minds and was slow to sound a global alarm on Ebola. Not until Aug. 8, 4 1 ? 2 months into the epidemic, did the organization declare a global emergency. Its Africa office, which oversees the region, initially did not welcome a robust role by the CDC in the response to the outbreak.

Previous Ebola outbreaks had been quickly throttled, but that experience proved misleading and officials did not grasp the potential scale of the disaster. Their imaginations were unequal to the virulence of the pathogen.

"In retrospect, we could have responded faster. Some of the criticism is appropriate," acknowledged Richard Brennan, director of the WHO's Department of Emergency Risk Management and Humanitarian Response. But he added, "While some of the criticism we accept, I think we also have to get things in perspective that this outbreak has a dynamic that's unlike everything we've ever seen before and, I think, has caught everyone unawares."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/national/2014/10/04/how-ebola-sped-out-of-control/

[snooper2]

15. Well, if there are two million ISIS members, is there a way to bait them all behind the dam?

Evacuate Mosul and drop leaflets saying there are thousands of 13 &14 year old girls waiting for them there?

[underpants]

4. IIRC this is the dam they have to pour concrete into daily

I remember the stories from the beginning of the invasion. Surely there is a big fat contract they could have been awarded cost+. Oh that would have required planning and follow up.

[liberal N proud]

6. Funny how we think we can control water

And once and a while it will let us. But in the end, water goes where it wants to go and dissolves what it wants to.

Water is the giver and take or life.


Here is a collection of Dam failures to remind us that we can't always control water:
https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&site=imghp&tbm=isch&source=hp&biw=1414&bih=872&q=Engineering+dam+failures&oq=Engineering+dam+failures&gs_l=img.3...1964.11515.0.12393.24.14.0.10.3.0.168.1770.0j13.13.0....0...1ac.1.64.img..1.15.1670.bkCIIUciGoc

[BeyondGeography]

10. I wonder where infrastructure reinvestment figures on the caliphate's priority list

[annabanana]

11. . . .nowhere unless god tells them personally, I suppose. . .n/t

[Coventina]

19. Yeah, time for Daesh to step up and prove it is a real government.

However, I'm not gonna hold my breath.......

[pampango]

14. Great article, eridani. Hussein ("a madman") and other dictators tend to get what they want,

no matter how stupid and dangerous their idea happens to be.

Plans to repair the dam have been delayed by Iraqi political infighting and the loss of skilled workers. Now, there may not be enough time to make repairs to prevent failure this year. The State department is warning Iraqis to make evacuation plans now because the dam could fail this spring when maximum river flow from snow melt adds pressure to the dam.

Hundreds of workers working 3 shifts a day 6 days a week were needed to maintain the dam, but ISIS drove those workers away. Many of them never came back. Moreover, ISIS is still in control of the source region for grout to repair the foundation. Meanwhile the rock under the dam continues to dissolve and wash away.

Even if the people can be evacuated in time to save half a million lives, a city of 2 million people may be destroyed by a massive flood. Right now there is no alert system in place. The Iraqi government claims to have an evacuation plan, but ISIS controls much of the higher ground below the dam so the plan may be impossible to implement. And Baghdad and millions more people live further downriver. The American embassy could be under 13 feet of water.

The water would continue along the Tigris, which runs by Tikrit and Samarra down to Baghdad, potentially knocking out bridges along the way, according to the administration’s analysis. As the water traveled south, debris, pesticides and corpses would become part of the flow, threatening the country’s supply of clean water and its irrigation system.

[Orrex]

16. I would love to see the specs on the dam that they build downstream

I'm not aware of any structure yet built that can withstand a fast-moving 66 foot wave of water full of shattered dam.

[dsc]

20. I would think the plan is to build dam two

then gently release water from dam one.

[Orrex]

21. I would hope so, but might that not take years?

The clock's ticking, and it's not as though this is the most stable region at the moment, so I don't know if a years-long engineering project is a realistic goal.

Better to drain now in as controlled a fashion as possible.

[meaculpa2011]

17. An acquaintance of mine returned to Iran...

after the revolution. He was a recent engineering grad and was immediately placed in charge of a large port project on the Persian Gulf.

After dredging, earth moving and laying in a large supply of construction materials an unusually high tide was caused by a full moon and planetary alignment washing it all away. That's the last we heard of him.

[eppur_se_muova]

18. "New dam" ?? WTF ? Draw the old dam's reservoir down ASAP !!

Shouldn't that be both the fastest and most effective way of diminishing the danger ?

[closeupready]

23. That's what I'm thinking. But I think ISIL controls Mosul, or

at least the dam. So how to work out personnel/logistics in a madhouse?

[eppur_se_muova]

30. Nutbag zealotry trumps rational thought, including engineering considerations. nt

[EdwardBernays]

28. two things

- it's reservoir is MASSIVE...
- it's the sole power source for millions of people

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Mosul+Dam,+Iraq/@36.6379841,42.7237941,75052m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m2!3m1!1s0x40087171c23c189f:0x341308438b886b05

[IDemo]

24. We have experience with dams built on substandard substrate:

Idaho's Teton Dam collapse, 1976. Eleven fatalities, not half-million. A nightmarish mess, nonetheless.