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Shortly after the dam went into use, Nadhir al-Ansari, a consulting engineer, made an inspection for the Ministry of Water Resources. “I was shocked,” he told me. Sinkholes were forming around the dam, and pools of water had begun bubbling up on the banks downstream. “You could see the cracks, you could see the fractures underground,” Ansari said. The water travelling around the dam, known as “seepage,” is normal in limited amounts, but the gypsum makes it potentially catastrophic. “When I took my report back to Baghdad, the chief engineer was furious—he was more than furious. But it was too late. The dam was already finished.”
The dam was built in an area that contains a high amount of water-soluble gypsum. The pressure from the dam's water is causing this gypsum to dissolve, leaving behind voids in the ground beneath the dam. Workers and engineers have been working to fill the voids with 'grout' - a cement mixture:
Inside the gallery, the engineers are engaged in what amounts to an endless struggle against nature. Using antiquated pumps as large as truck engines, they drive enormous quantities of liquid cement into the earth. Since the dam opened, in 1984, engineers working in the gallery have pumped close to a hundred thousand tons of grout—an average of ten tons a day—into the voids below.
[...]When ISIS fighters took the dam, in 2014, they drove away the overwhelming majority of the dam’s workers, and also captured the main grout-manufacturing plant in Mosul. Much of the dam’s equipment was destroyed, some by ISIS and some by American air strikes. The grouting came to a standstill—but the passage of water underneath the dam did not.
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/01/02/a-bigger-problem-than-isis
(Score: 2) by zocalo on Thursday December 29 2016, @10:05PM
Unless there's an equally good reason for keeping the reservoir topped up, then something just doesn't feel right here...
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 2) by Arik on Thursday December 29 2016, @11:31PM
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 29 2016, @11:54PM
Also funding which was in the articles too. They have 270ish million allocated but not being used. They apparently finally hired someone to look into it.
1) So either they fix it. All is well. However, more difficult to achieve with potential for option 2 to still occur
2) Do not fix it. Probably flood.
3) Drain it to fix it. Medium bad for the region but eventually all is well again.
All 3 options suck. The matter at this point which option sucks the least.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by zocalo on Friday December 30 2016, @11:06AM
The only theory I have is that they fill the reservior during the spring melt, and then more or less drain it completely over the course of the summer, and keeping in mind that you need to maintain a base level as well, or the water becomes unfit for consumption, which might mean they rely on the maximum capacity each year. That's a pretty important detail if so, so it seems odd that it's not actually contained within the article, as to would be the fact that if that were the case then late summer/autumn, when the water level would be at its annual low, would also make a major annual maintenance window. The article seems well researched and written, but it also seems to have so pretty major omissions they should have been able to close, and it's that which is making me question whether they might be giving it a bit of a slant.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 2) by edIII on Friday December 30 2016, @12:38AM
I believe it is that serious. The dam was built with a huge gaping fundamental flaw. Having read the article, it's not hard to understand that they are fighting a losing battle. It's not if, but when, the dam fails and it always has been.
Propaganda is everywhere, and we may need to take it with a grain of salt. However, what's not in contention is what the dam is built on. That being a whole bunch of water soluble gypsum. Engineers brought this up before the dam was built, but military considerations along with the fact that there really wasn't suitable locations elsewhere dictated the project went forward.
As long as they engage in a serious and uninterrupted program of filling in the voids and sinkholes they will be fine. They stopped for 18 months. Science and experience tell us the dam is in extreme danger. The springs forming downstream from the dam, and the 65ft wide sinkholes found upstream in a bathymetric survey are hard to ignore and hand waive off.
In the U.S we have had dam failures for very similar reasons. I'm not seeing clickbait anywhere, but a very detailed history of the dam and the technical reasons why the damn thing my fail.
Boy will it be catastrophic if it goes.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 30 2016, @06:52PM
Yeah and how many layabout engineers are getting fat and happy off of "research grants" that predict they need "more research". It makes me sick.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 30 2016, @01:46AM
not just alarmist clickbait
My point was that the articles were not clickbait but equalish in quality and the ones from SD were not as good.
If they can not get it under control it *will* be a shitshow. The thing is the maintenance was ignored. So they may be just be sticking fingers in the proverbial dike and it will flood out. My bet is they have to open it wide and try to control the flooding.