Missouri River *Flood of Biblical Proportions*

“There would be a flood like you’ve never seen,” Shanks told hosts Doug McElvein and Debbie Monterrey. “It would be literally of biblical proportions.”

He foresees a very real threat of “chest-high” water in St. Louis before summer’s end.

Shanks’ main concern: that the Fort Peck dam, which he maintains is built with a “flawed design”, would be overwhelmed by snow-melt and heavy rains up north and give way, causing reservoirs downstream to collapse in a domino effect.

“It would be the most epic man-made disaster in the United States,” Shanks replied bluntly. He says most of the dams holding back water along the Missouri River are 50 to 70 years old, and like people they tend to weaken with time.

“I have followed this issue for 40 years, and I have never seen them more at-risk than they are today,” Shanks warned.

Copyright KMOX Radio

June 10, 2011 by nathanjohnson

I have seen at least one man who has studied the dams for decades raise concerns that the likelihood of Fort Peck, especially, experiencing a failure increases with its age. That’s hardly a surprise.
Here is what Bernard Shanks, an adviser to the Resource Renewal Institute, wrote in St. Louis Today earlier this week. Needless to say, it created quite a stir.

The Fort Peck Dam is built with a flawed design that has suffered a well-known fate for this type of dam — liquefaction — in which saturated soil loses its stability. Hydraulic-fill dams are prone to almost instant collapse from stress or earthquakes. California required all hydraulic-fill dams be torn out or rebuilt — and no other large dams have been built this way since.

At three miles wide, Fort Peck Dam last opened its floodgates 36 years ago. By the end of the first week in June, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will be releasing a record spill of water. The corps recently answered the question of possible failure with a statement the dam is “absolutely safe.” It may be the largest at-risk dam in the nation.

He continues:

What if Fort Peck Dam should fail?

Here is a likely scenario: Garrison, Oahe and three other downstream earthen dams would have to catch and hold a massive amount of water, an area covering nearly 250 square miles 100 feet deep. But earthen dams, when overtopped with floodwater, do not stand. They break and erode away, usually within an hour. All are full.

There is a possibility a failure of Fort Peck Dam could lead to a domino-like collapse of all five downstream dams. It probably would wreck every bridge, highway, pipeline and power line and split the heartland of the nation, leaving a gap 1,500 miles wide. Countless sewage treatment plants, toxic waste sites and even Superfund sites would be flushed downstream. The death toll and blow to our economy would be ghastly.

I’ve seen Shanks in follow-up interviews say that he is not predicting this will definitely happen. He is just saying it is a possibility given the design of Fort Peck and its age. Let’s hope Shanks doomsday scenario does not come to pass, because in that case the “Inland Voyage” would likely become the “Atlantic Ocean Voyage.” That wouldn’t be cool, as it no longer contains the Robert Louis Stevenson reference or the multiple interpretations of just what an inland voyage is …

Guest commentary: The looming Missouri dam flood

There is very real threat of a flood that will leave St. Louis in chest-high water. The reason: Six old, huge, faulty dams that normally have reserve space for spring snow melt are nearly full now — before the spring floods start. Floodgates that haven't been opened in 50 years have begun to open. Flooding has begun. And the human and economic toll could be ghastly.

Why another flood disaster? Six dams from Fort Peck in Montana to Gavins Point in South Dakota, authorized by the Flood Control Act of 1944, are in the process of failing at flood control. With spring water levels low, they can hold back more than three years of average Missouri River flow — enough to stop the worst floods and protect 750 miles of the Missouri River valley and heartland cities. This year, that is not the case.

Let me give you a sense of scale. These reservoirs are massive. Four of the nation's 10 largest reservoirs are along the Missouri River — Fort Peck, Fort Randall, Garrison and Oahe. Three of these had less than five feet of total storage space behind the floodgates at the end of May. With a combined height of 700 feet, these three dams are nearly full. Melting snow surely will complete the task.

With cities from Wolf Point, Mont., to St. Louis facing record levels of water, hundreds of thousands of people are threatened by the unprecedented opening of floodgates. The greatest fear is the massive Fort Peck Dam, a hydraulic-fill dam that is the largest of its kind.

The Fort Peck Dam is built with a flawed design that has suffered a well-known fate for this type of dam — liquefaction — in which saturated soil loses its stability. Hydraulic-fill dams are prone to almost instant collapse from stress or earthquakes. California required all hydraulic-fill dams be torn out or rebuilt — and no other large dams have been built this way since.

At three miles wide, Fort Peck Dam last opened its floodgates 36 years ago. By the end of the first week in June, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will be releasing a record spill of water. The corps recently answered the question of possible failure with a statement the dam is "absolutely safe." It may be the largest at-risk dam in the nation.

Downstream, Garrison Dam never has had to use its floodgates since the dam was constructed 50 years ago. By mid-June, the corps plans to dump water equal to a good-sized river. The same is true for Oahe Dam, the next one downstream. Since the reservoirs are nearly full, the corps has no choice.

Effective flood control from six large dams is no longer an option. As a corps representative said, "It now moves us into uncharted territory."

We must all pose a question of national significance to the corps: What if Fort Peck Dam should fail?

Here is a likely scenario: Garrison, Oahe and three other downstream earthen dams would have to catch and hold a massive amount of water, an area covering nearly 250 square miles 100 feet deep. But earthen dams, when overtopped with floodwater, do not stand. They break and erode away, usually within an hour. All are full.

There is a possibility a failure of Fort Peck Dam could lead to a domino-like collapse of all five downstream dams. It probably would wreck every bridge, highway, pipeline and power line and split the heartland of the nation, leaving a gap 1,500 miles wide. Countless sewage treatment plants, toxic waste sites and even Superfund sites would be flushed downstream. The death toll and blow to our economy would be ghastly.

Years after Katrina and the New Orleans levee breaks, professional engineers and a federal court judge ruled theCorps of Engineers was to blame.

Are we once again at the brink of a massive corps failure? The corps is infamous for management errors, caving to commercial pressure and losing sight of its primary mission. This pending threat is so huge that it is gambling with the nation's security.

The corps is placing the nation at risk, and if the dams fail, Leon Panetta, who will become secretary of Defense later this month, will have the great Missouri Flood Disaster on his desk. And the entire nation will demand answers as to why the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers did not avert disaster with more economically and ecologically sound methods of flood prevention.

Bernard Shanks, an adviser to the Resource Renewal Institute, has studied the six main-stem Missouri River dams for more than four decades. He has worked for the U.S. Geological Survey and served as director of the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. He has written three books on public land policy and is completing a book on the hazards of the Missouri River dams.

Even though the usual claims of “no danger” and “no radioactive releases” are being made — exactly as has been the mantra from all “official mouthpieces” since the Fukushima meltdowns occurred in mid-March — this was reported on Friday (June 17th) [emphasis added]:

… the NRC has taken the unusual step of sending more inspectors and a branch chief to Fort Calhoun. A branch chief is a top regional regulator. In this case, it’s the individual responsible for overseeing Fort Calhoun inspections and compliance. ^[6]

It is certain that we are not being told the whole story about Fort Calhoun, exactly as we are never told the whole story about Fukushima. In fact, it took weeks for a major news provider in the USA to even mention the potential disasters with these two nuclear plants in Nebraska. The New York Times finally picked up the story on June 20th [emphasis added throughout]:

As record floodwaters along the Missouri River drench homes and businesses, concerns have grown about keeping a couple of notable structures dry: two riverside nuclear power plants in Nebraska.

. . .

Despite the official assurances of safety, the unusual sight of a nuclear plant surrounded by water — coming so soon after the still unfolding nuclear disaster that followed the earthquake and tsunami in Japan — has prompted concern and speculation, leading one utility to add a feature to its Web site called “flood rumor control.” It says, “There has been no release of radioactivity and none is expected.” ^[7]

However, these familiar “official assurances of safety” are certainly not the whole story. An Austrian news article published on the same day (June 20th) as the New York Times piece gave a far more candid assessment of the potential for radioactive releases into the flood waters of the Missouri River. Note that the quote is from an automated translation from German to English, resulting in the wording being a little strange — however, the meaning is very clear [emphasis added throughout]:

“In Germany there is the testimony of a former Siemens engineer, which regularly penetrated … at high water levels of the Rhine water into the reactor building of Biblis,” says nuclear expert IPPNW [International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War] Henrik Paulitz.

. . .

“Beyond the sufficient cooling properties of the fuel is, however, the question of whether there has been … contact between contaminated water and the cold river water, or is still to come,” said Paulitz. “One can not exclude that in this way it comes to radioactive releases into the Missouri River. Since the level of the river is still rising and if more dams are possible, the situation could escalate further.” ^[8]

Indeed, the radioactive releases into the Missouri River may well be taking place right now. If such is the case, we can be assured that the facts of this particular situation will only be revealed by the ruling “power system” as dictated by their “schedule” and desired “outcomes” — though it seems quite possible (based on the seriousness of events with these nuclear plants and the almost absolute media silence about it) that the “power system” has simply decided to “irradiate half the country” without ever bothering to tell “we the people” about it at all.

Whether or not radiation is currently being released into the Missouri River, we do know from an NRC “event” report on June 19th that the Cooper nuclear plant has been releasing oil directly into the water:

This condition has resulted in flooding of the burn pits in the fire training facility, with the subsequent release of the residue which includes unburned fuel oil. Any release of this water containing oil to the Missouri River is uncontrolled at this time. The[re] is no radiological contamination in this area. ^[9]

This is an acknowledgement that fuel oil was (and perhaps still is) being released from a nuclear power plant in an “uncontrolled” manner, directly into the Missouri River. The statement about “no radiological contamination” is of course expected from the NRC, given there is no independent verification as to whether this claim is true or false. Such verification will require testing for radioactive contamination along the course of the Missouri River, so until this independent testing is done (if it is ever even done) it can be assumed that the NRC is not telling the truth (and based on all the experience with Fukushima, this is evidently an appropriate assumption).

Declaration of Emergency by US Government Relative to Two Nuclear Plants in Nebraska

Yesterday, June 22nd, the US government made an official declaration of emergency for the two Nebraska counties with the nuclear power plants (Fort Calhoun and Cooper) threatened by the flood waters of the Missouri River:

Two United States nuclear power plants are on alert and President Obama has declared emergencies in Nebraska’s counties where the two nuclear stations are both experiencing “unusual events.” The official emergency declarations apply to both counties where the nuclear facilities are threatened with flood waters.Red Cross closed its emergency shelter at Fort Calhoun, home of one of the nuclear facilities, and is now referring and transitioning evacuees to other shelters. ^[10]

Although they have not used the loaded word of “evacuation” in this article it is obvious based on the actions of the Red Cross that an evacuation of people from their emergency shelter at Fort Calhoun is in fact taking place (and this evacuation may already be finished as of today).

A good overview discussion of the situation with these two nuclear plants is provided by a 15 minute video created by “DaBu7” one week ago (June 16th), which also shows a lot of stunning photos of the massive flooding (including the waters around Fort Calhoun and Cooper). Here are some key quotes from the video [emphasis added throughout]:

[From a KMTV Action 3 news report shown in the video:] “OPPD [Omaha Public Power District] did not want KMTV Action 3 News to shoot this video. But, because the Missouri River is a public waterway we feel it’s our job and our right to show the public what’s happening at the Fort Calhoun nuclear power station. Water, in many places, already up to the buildings, with the flood expected to rise another five feet or more this summer.”

[Comments from Arnie Gundersen in an interview on June 14th:] “Sandbags and nuclear power plants really don’t belong in the same sentence, and nowwe’re seeing one that is literally putting sandbags up to reinforce itself against the flood. … My concern is: what if a dam breaks? … which could inundate this [nuclear plant] like Fukushima was, with essentially an inland tsunami. The dams are not structurally sound, like, built to the same standards as the nuclear plant, but in fact the nuclear plant is now relying on the integrity of something that’s basically a big earthen berm. … They’re within a foot or two of what they were designed for …”

[From closing comments by DaBu7:] “You just heard him say they’re within a foot or two. And you also heard them say they expect it to rise another five feet. Do the math here folks!” ^[11]

This video is definitely worth a look if only to see the seriousness of the massive flooding of the Missouri River, though the no nonsense summary of the threat to these two nuclear power plants is also one of the best out there.

Now one week on from when this video was made, a CNN affiliate ran a story today (June 23rd) with an update relative to the two nuclear plants under threat from flood waters [emphasis added throughout]:

Missouri River floodwaters are less than three feet from reaching the site of a nuclear power plant in Nebraska, according to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Some of the grounds at another plant, which has been shut down since April, are already under water, the NRC stated.

The Cooper Nuclear Station, which is currently operating at full power and the Fort Calhoun nuclear power plant are under an “unusual event declaration” by the NRC.

“We are closely following events at both plants,” NRC Region 4 Administrator Elmo Collins said, in a prepared statement on Wednesday.

…

Cooper, according to the statement, “sits two and a half feet above current river levels.”

…

“The licensee [OPPD] does not expect floodwaters to impact vital plant equipment,” the NRC stated.

However, CNN affiliate KETV reported Wednesday that, as a precautionary move, the facility is keeping dozens of staff members onsite around the clock. The station reported that about 60 people are sleeping on cots at the plant and that the staffers are being rotated out every two days.

The NRC has sent more inspectors to Fort Calhoun where many areas of the plant are under two feet of water, according to the statement. ^[12]

So, this article confirms that the flood waters only need to rise less than two and a half feet (as more water has accumulated since the article was published earlier today) before the Cooper nuclear plant is also going to be under water (in addition to Fort Calhoun, which is already under water). Yet the news stories about the flood (such as that from KMTV Action 3) clearly state that the water levels are expected to rise at least another five feet! This confirms that no one at the NRC or OPPD is capable of doing even a simple math calculation with two single digit numbers, at least not when writing up any reports that will be quoted to the public.

Also, note that the Cooper nuclear plant is continuing to operate at full power even when it is so obviously under great threat! It is difficult to find sufficiently descriptive words for such incredible insanity. What extra warning signs are needed as to the emergency situation that will inevitably be developing (once the plant is under water within days or weeks, given the expected rise of water levels by “five feet or more”) before they will shut down the plant and take every possible measure to ensure that it is as safe as possible?!

In another article published today, June 23rd, titled “Why is there a Media Blackout on Nuclear Incident at Fort Calhoun in Nebraska?” there are some strong words of warning about the developing situation [emphasis added throughout]:

Since flooding began on June 6th, there has been a disturbingly low level of media attention given to the crisis at the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Facilitynear Omaha, Nebraska. But evidence strongly suggests that something very serious has in fact happened there.

. . .

[Tom] Burnett states, “Ft. Calhoun is the designated spent fuel storage facility for the entire state of Nebraska … and maybe for more than one state.Calhoun stores its spent fuel in ground-level pools which are underwater anyway — but they are open at the top. When the Missouri river pours in there, it’s going to make Fukushima look like an X-Ray.”

. . .

One of the lessons we can learn for Japan’s tragic Fukushima disaster is that the government’s choice to impose a media blackout on information around the disaster may have already cost thousands of lives. Only time will tell the scope the disaster and how many victims it will claim. ^[13]

So, we will have to wait and see what happens (and what is revealed publicly, if anything) relative to these two now partially submerged nuclear power plants that are both experiencing “unusual events” (= “events that may well mark the beginning of even more nuclear catastrophe” — after a little Newspeak decoding).

The situation is certainly not looking good as of today. Prayer (or any similar invocation, if you are not inclined to prayer) for a wholly benign outcome to this extremely dangerous situation is definitely positive and useful. Also, helping to break the media silence by informing as many people as you can about these events is essential. If people do not get hip to the incredible dangers of all nuclear technology such that we are collectively able to make the only sane decision relative to nuclear power — the decision to bring a complete and permanent end to the “nuclear era” (and immediately!) — then planet Earth may soon be so utterly irradiated that it will be hostile to all life.

See the rest of this webpage for some amazing photos of the Missouri Dams and Fort Calhoun and Cooper Nuclear Power Plants

Why Is There A Media Blackout On Nuclear Incident At Fort Calhoun In Nebraska?

Nebraska’s Fort Calhoun Shut Down; 2nd Nuclear Plant Also Flooded

How Safe are our Nuclear Reactors?

The Mysterious Fluctuating “News Blackout” Over Nebraska’s Nuclear Plant Accidents

Negligence and Cover-Ups at Fort Calhoun Reactor... X 2!!!..Pay attention

Flood Wall Fails at Fort Calhoun Nuclear Station

Flood Berm Collapses at Nebraska Nuclear Plant

Floodwater Seeps into Nebraska Nuclear Plant Building

Death of the Phoenix: Final Act for the United States of America

WEATHER MODIFICATION - Part 1

Fort Calhoun Nuclear Plant: How Bad Can It Get?

Expert Warns Missouri River Could See “Flood of Biblical Proportions”

June 8, 2011 9:48 AM

"… it isn’t all bad. The Missouri river is cold enough to keep the pools and cores cool all by itself. And it’s also powerful to pull the fuel out and irradiate half the country." . . .