This is a copy of a letter I sent recently to President Trump:
Dear President Trump,
Back in 1983 I was on an all-night sand bagging crew trying to contain the Utah flood waters.
One of my fellow workers was the head of NOAA for the western U.S. We became friends over several nights and he told me NOAA was very worried that the Colorado river could over-top the Glen Canyon dam which holds back Lake Powell. Opening the turbine inlets as well as both emergency bypass gates was not stemming the rise of the water. A crew had been sent to the town of Page to buy all the plywood they could find to bolt to the handrail at the edge of the dam to gain an extra 4 feet of height. Fortunately that was not necessary, and you can still see the high water mark just inches from the top of the dam.
One night he told me the workers at the dam were hearing and feeling low “thuds” similar to what some of them felt during artillery strikes in Viet Nam. Looking closely they saw chunks of sandstone the size of Volkswagens shooting out the bypass exits. The bypasses are tunnels cut into the sandstone walls and used to divert the river while the dam is being builtand can serve as emergency drains. If the sandstone at the base of the dam failed … the dam could collapse! Someone figured the tidal wave from the collapsed dam would be 135 feet high when it hit the Hoover Dam lower down the river.
Of course I asked him if the people who live below the dam, especially the city of Las Vegas and downstream should be warned and he said, “The decision had been made not to cause panic.”
I saw on the news recently that officials from NOAA have recently “inspected” the bypass tunnels after 40 years, and decided some repairs to the coal tar “lining” need to be made. No mention of the “Volkswagen size chunks” missing from the tunnel walls. I’m sure all the officials from 1983 are no longer around.
Mr. Trump, could you have some competent, unbiased, qualified engineers inspect those tunnels? If we get another wet winter and get into a similar situation we saw in 1983, it could cause an historic disaster … even though my friend said “Our computers tell us it won’t happen again.”
Duane Carling