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Decision on how to fix Isabella dams still years away, official says
| Friday, Oct 10 2008 1:52 PM
Last Updated: Monday, Oct 13 2008 8:19 AM
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers official Ronn Rose said Friday that the Corps has not reached a decision on how best to fix structural and seismic concerns with the Isabella Lake dams.
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The water of Lake Isabella, at least in the area of the auxiliary dam, belonged to personal watercraft during the 2008 Kern Valley Personal Watercraft Race in July.
And no such decision will be made for at least two years, Rose said.
His statement refutes a report in a Kern Valley newspaper that the Corps has called for construction of a new dam.
Rose said it is likely that “something large will have to be done at both dams” to eliminate the risk that a total failure of the dam would represent to around 300,000 people living downstream.
But studies of the dam are still being completed and won’t be finished until early in 2009, he said.
And no solution to the problems at the dam will be chosen until the situation has undergone a detailed, exhaustive environmental review.
That environmental review is expected to take two years, Rose said.
The Corps will pick the best option, Rose said, “for the least cost with the best impact on the environment, and by the environment I don’t mean just the bugs and bunnies. I mean the people too.”
But evidence that the situation at the dam will need a serious fix has been mounting, Rose said.
Recent trenching along the Kern River Fault, which runs between the main and auxiliary dams at Isabella Lake, has shown evidence of geologically recent earthquake activity.
“It is definitely more recently active than we thought,” Rose said. “It’s at least several thousand years.”
Rose said consultants are carbon-testing materials found along the fault to test when the most recent seismic shift occurred.