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Engineers postpone high-pressure testing of Inland Empire dam
A high pressure test of the Seven Oaks Dam outlet
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Quyen Lovrich/KPCC
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Engineers postpone high-pressure testing of Inland Empire dam
Engineers postpone high-pressure testing of Inland Empire dam
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has postponed further testing of the Seven Oaks Dam near San Bernardino. The dam was to undergo a series of high pressure releases all this week. Engineers are closing the floodgates because of rain.
Floodgates opened Monday at the 10-year-old dam, pouring millions of gallons of water into the Santa Ana River. The releases began what was supposed to be a week of exercises to test the dam’s durability. But with heavy rain in the forecast, engineers decided to close the spigots.
They’d already expressed concern about safety when they opened the floodgates earlier this week. December’s rain caused erosion on two levees along the Santa Ana River, and a previous test six years ago damaged the dam’s concrete channel.
Rene Vermeeren is chief hydrologist for this region of the Army Corps. “We put our warnings out to insure that there’s no one in the river. We have monitors downstream, actual personnel downstream watching out and we’ve notified all public agencies, law enforcement that we are releasing this flow to assure the safety of the public.”
The decision to postpone the final phase of testing at Seven Oaks Dam will stop about 45,000 gallons of water a second from surging into the rising waterway. Testing could resume at the end of the month.
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