Crapposa, might have to die by water yet.
If that dam breaks, I'm out of heah!
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Letter to a person such as Dave W.
Local guy!
Owns a board!
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Dear Mr. Schmidt,
We appreciate your interest in the situation at Lake Livingston. We are working very hard to develop answers to all of your questions. As soon as we have answers worthy of your attention we will be posting additional information on our web site. More complete information on how long the reconstruction work will take should be available by October 26.
The good news is that Lake Livingston is stable although the dam is severely damaged. During the wind and wave action generated by Rita we lost or had damage done to 11,000 feet of the protective rip rap (large rocks weighing up to 3,000 pounds) covering on the lake side face of the earthen structure. The dam is a little longer than 13,000 feet long. Sections of the clay structure under the rip rap was also eroded. We can not allow any further erosion to occur.
For this reason we were obliged to make emergency releases from 131 MSL, the normal pool elevation, to 127 MSL. We will remain at 127 MSL until the repairs are completed. We are not yet clear on how long this will take, or exactly how we are going to do this. I think you can safely count on months and we don�t know how many or how much this will cost. We are hopeful we can complete the work this winter. How long it will take for the lake to refill is unknown. It is totally dependent on rainfall upstream. If we feel threaten by any approaching weather, or if construction requires it, we may have to go lower.
We have some of the best engineers and contractors in the United States working on the problem as we speak. We have a local contractor working on a very specific area of concern and he has already completed the most critical phase of this work. He will be completely finished this week. We have surveyors working on the dam and they will also be finished by some time this week. With their work completed we will be able to determine how much material we will need to repair the dam.
We will be issuing periodic press releases to up date the public as to what we have done and where we are headed. These press releases are also being posted on our web site (trinityra.org). The release on 8/28 aws the last posted. If you have any questions you also have my address. Feel free to share this address with your friends and neighbors.
We are not aware of any dam operator who has ever experienced damage on this scale. We are venturing into a terra incognita and have to ask everyone concerned with Lake Livingston to please, please be patient with us. We are doing the best we can in a very bad situation. We can not allow the dam to fail. When we rebuild the structure you can count on us taking recent events into consideration as far as improved protection from future wave damage.
If you have any shoreline bulkheading or pier work that needs to be done, now is the time. TRA will not be cutting standing timber in the lake bottom area while the lake is low. If you have a need to this kind of work in the immediate vicinity of your property to improve access you may do so. Please remove the cut timber from the lake bottom when you are done and don�t burn it in the lake bottom. You are discouraged from cutting timber any where else in the lake bottom. The standing timber is considered excellent fish habitat and cutting timber may in fact ruin someone�s favorite fishing hole.
John Jadrosich
Public Information Officer
Trinity River Authority of Texas.
More Texas
Charlie, I was wondering about you when I heard about the damage to the dam and the necessary release of water last week. I figured from your desciptions that you were south of the lake fairly close. I hope the repairs to the rip rap are quick and you are not in any danger of being flooded.
Hey sweezel
We live 12 1/2 miles from the dam but the river curves around to where its 5-6 miles from here.
They have lowered the lake level to work on the levee, dam.
No danger at this time.
Thanks..........
Good to hear!