Live and Let Live

The sun broke brightly over the Wasatch Mountains on a brisk early winter morning. Late to rise that dark time of year, I had the sun beat by a few hours and was on my way down south already for my final dam inspection of the year. A recalcitrant dam owner had refused to inspect his own leaking outlet pipe, and I would be damned if I let this carry this over into the new year. It could be a leaking gate, or worse yet, water seeping into an outlet pipe though the dam, acting like an uncontrolled, unfiltered embankment drain.  We had a dam almost fall, above Salt Lake City, with that problem.

My office was slow around the holidays, and I wanted to get out-and-about one more time before the weather got really bad and we got into full winter lockdown mode.  That would mean just the boring public, politics, personnel, computer hydro-modeling of drainage basins and rivers, portfolio inventory, risk assessments and analysis. There are few days better spent indoors, but this was not one of them. I’m a field engineer, dam it.  So, I headed east towards the cresting sun, from I-15 around mid-state up to the Manti La Sal Forest and then the Wasatch Plateau.  Years before we had found the remains of a woolly-mammoth remnants up in this country while excavating a dam foundation, but today there were just elk and deer moving around skittishly from the first snow of the year.  As I drove through the dark forest of the North facing road, cresting the first summit, I was in the blazing direct sunlight and Albedo reflected off the clean new snow. I pulled up to the gate at the end of the road and the truck thermometer said lucky 7°.

I got out of the warm truck, and it felt colder than it actually was. Truck shock I called it. I put my layers on quickly and stretched mohair climbing skins on the bottom of my Telemark cross-country skis. With too much to carry in my backpack with my inspection skateboard et al, I left my thick Irish wool sweater in the truck, just in case. Too cold to dilly dally, I got moving right away, climbing in the fresh snow capped with potato - chip sized ice crystals, called Surface Hoar, from the cold clear night before.  There was enough to sink into softly without hitting the bottom and enough purchase from the compressed shear strength of the snow, to push forward and up. Coming around a wide curve and out of the forest and up to the lake level, I spied the long reservoir ¼ full by volume and ½ full by height, from the wet summer, and frozen over slightly from the cold calm night before.  I was alone on an important, dangerous, mission impossible that I willingly chose to accept and I had my sunglasses and lucky neck gaiter on. But the sun was out so what could go wrong?  I felt like Tom Cruise.

The last time I was out for an outlet inspection we had a herd of owners and several young guys from my office with a new camera - tank device to take pictures without us going up the 24-inch CMP outlet. There was also a gaggle of affirmative action women from the US Forest Service, keeping an eye on us, to see how it is done. Of course, the camera broke and got stuck way up in the outlet pipe and the big young Millennials refused to go up and get it. I was a Baby Boomer mentor and supervisor and dressed nicely so I showed the women to the dam crest and took my clothes off, down to my tighty-whities, to go up the outlet on hands and knees to retrieve the camera - tank. The pipe was rotten CMP that sliced my knees as I crawled up. I was aggravated to begin with for having to do this chore without my skateboard, and I was hurting from cutting my knees so much on the outlet pipe. I may have whispered an expletive or two as I went along, getting louder the deeper I crawled. When I triumphantly emerged from the pipe with the camera - tank, the owner and regulators were laughing at the downstream toe and even the ladies up top on the crest were howling and it was not just my skivvy’s or bloody knees. Outlets function as a megaphone, apparently, and they heard every New York swear word I uttered.  Live and learn.

Circumnavigating around the large frozen lake, I soon noticed a big new Beaver Dam on the shore and an isolated lodge in the shallow part of the lake, but no sign of Mr. Beaver. I erroneously thought that he must be hunkered down for the winter, or the water was too cold. The water was 25° warmer than the air outside and their lodges must be warm and safe and dry. These innocuous animals had historically helped form the geomorphology of the western United States, stabilizing streams, creating cleansing lakes and wetlands, thereby recharging the near field groundwater and dependent flora and fauna of the floodplain. This created stable, sustainable streams, along with the predators that chased the large dominant ungulate, uber species away from the riparian zones, ensuring the stream health by preventing detrimental, erosive overgrazing. Things were best in moderation and balance.

Then came the 1820s when beaver skin hats were all the rage in New York, Washington, Boston, London and Paris. The mountain man came out and trapped and killed almost all of the Beaver within 30 years, destabilizing the regions riparian ecosystem and geomorphologic balance. Rivers started eroding and cutting down, perching the floodplain dangerously high above the water table, drying and desiccating the natural plant species that were eventually replaced by sage and herbaceous grasses and invasive species. Like the bison yet to come, we wiped out an entire species in the western United States in 30 years. So goes moderation and balance versus human nature, fear and greed.

But that was water over the dam, so to speak, and today is another day of challenges with our natural resources, water and climate. Water has turned into a commodity bought and sold by the highest bidder, and Beaver and Bison are just a metaphor for our own use of natural resources. They are just minimized or forgotten Externalities in our benefit cost calculations and risk assessments. The Environment and Climate will be ignored until it becomes untenable or catastrophic. The players have changed, but the gene pool stays the same. Only more so.

Another inspection of a new outlet pipe ranked much the same in my history of bad judgement. I was with a potential girlfriend for an inspection of a smooth 24 - inch concrete outlet pipe that was flowing water, smooth and clear. I stripped down to my boxer shorts and easily pushed my skateboard all the way up the pipe on my stomach and took pictures. On the way down, I rolled over on my back and let it rip. As I accelerated, the clicking sounds of the pipe joints compressed with speed as the Doppler effect of an incoming train. When I got to the bottom, I shot out of the perched pipe and skimmed across the plunge pool smoothly and sank at the far end. The good Mormon owners were momentarily amused, but they then walked the damn toe in search of rattlesnakes to chop up with their shovels.

My new gal pal, who had a delightful penchant for skinny dipping, said she wanted to give it a try and stripped down to her underwear and crawled on the sled. She quietly slid all the way up the pipe as the owners returned. At the top she rolled over and let it rip. The rhythm of the joints increased exponentially, indicating she was going really fast. Boom - pop, boom – pop, boom - pop. She started wailing rhythmically with delight. The Quorum of LDS owners sat wide eyed in expectation, and when she shot half naked across the plunge pool screaming, their heads almost exploded. These are the times when legends are born.

But the devil - may - care about dam safety history this day since I was isolated in my little bubble, skiing in fresh snow, in new country, and getting paid for it, my best job ever. As I rounded the corner I heard the ice crackle and out only 20 or 30 meters I spotted a Beaver nose breaching through the ice like a great humpback whale in the ocean, to take a look, a breath, or just for the fun of it. ‘Right on, little fellow’, I thought.  I continued, eventually reaching the dam outlet, a 24-inch welded steel pipe with a classic USACOE plunge pool, energy dissipator, flowing about one CFS or 500 GPM. I took off my skis and pulled my skateboard from my backpack and climbed down gingerly to stay dry getting into the outlet. Forget about all those Mountain Man movies, I know that staying dry on these kinds of days was critical, a matter of life and death.

Despite my false overconfidence, I began to worry a little and a cloud came over my happy little scene. This was before OSHA rules and regulations, when you could do what you want, but maybe going alone in the dead of winter was a mistake. Once inside the pipe I realized that I was in a slimy, frictionless tube with water about four to six inches deep flowing rapidly below me. I had trouble gaining purchase with my plastic ski boots and leather gloves. Making progress up the pipe was slow and arduous with two steps up and one step back. The deeper I got, the mustier it smelt of cold water, fish and mystery outlet gas. ‘In and out’, I thought, ‘In and out.’ I interminably inched my way up hundreds of feet until I came to an anomaly, the crux as climbers would say. The pipe began to slope down slightly towards the outlet gate, making it easier to approach, but causing water to pool slightly. When I arrived at the outlet there was a dead fish, and a stick caught in the gate causing water to spray in every direction. I pulled them both and separately caused them to shear off in half in my hands.  The vent manifold was clogged with a red goop algae that forms in cold springs and drains. I took off my glove and carefully poked each 1/2-inch manifold hole to remove the goop. Satisfied with my work, I took a few pictures and started to plan my lunch and escape from the gloomy manifold mausoleum.

That's when I realized that it was much harder going backwards over the hump in the pipe that tilted towards the outlet gate. I could get no purchase standing on my fingers and toes with my feet on the ceiling or on the floor, on the flow line or spring line of the pipe. ‘Don't panic’, I thought as my claustrophobia started to kick in. Lying on my stomach, I looked over my shoulders and I could still see a slight crescent of daylight way down the crooked pipe. I tried to rotate my back and crunch my knees on the pipe to get some traction, but to no avail. I tried to turn around to face downstream, but I was no circus contortionists and wound up falling off my skateboard and jamming it sideways in the pipe and plunging me into the little pool in the bottom of the pipe. I was amazed that my little blockade of the flow would cause the water to back up quickly and quickly flood the pipe even deeper. I dropped my flashlight and the pipe went dark.  I hate it when that happens.

I thought ‘now I'm going to drown, not freeze to death of hypothermia in this cylindrical sarcophagus’. ‘At best, I'm going to spend several cold hours or days here because nobody knows where I am or where to look for me’. ‘I might spend the rest of the winter, or my life in here, I thought despondently.’ After a few frightful minutes of panic where I lamented missing Christmas and New Years, friends and family, my dog and the ski season and the next episode of NYPD Blue, I settled down, out of necessity, into the pragmatic problem-solving I was trained to be. They don’t teach that in engineering school, but they taught me this; “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time”. I concentrated all my effort, weight and power to spread out my pressure load on the walls of the pipe for more friction area and less unit shear force and I moved myself imperceptibly in the right direction. Resting slightly, I slipped back into the pool. One step up, two steps back.

But I learned a method and could make progress. I had hope. Slowly but surely, I made my way up the vertical curve of the pipe, feeling it flatten almost gradually as I went, heightening my spirits and my effort as I went. Just when I felt I had gotten good at this, I rolled over the top and started rolling towards the outlet opening. Exhausted and relieved, I rode rolled freely, picking up speed that I half-heartedly tried to scrub. With my hands and feet, knees and elbows. When I finally burst into the open and dropped into the plunge pool, throwing caution to the wind.  In the name of expedience, since it was cloudy but still wicked cold out, I had to keep moving and get out of there. I strapped my skis on and beat-feet towards a warm car. As I circled the lake, my friend Mr. Beaver was still breaching the ice surface of the lake, like nothing had happened, and his personal happiness and species resilience had never impressed me more. I stopped to salute him.  Good on you man.  Live and let live. 

 I was beginning to get goofy from the cold and hypothermia, which I knew would be followed by surrendering, giving up or not giving a crap if I made it home. So, I redoubled my efforts, plowing through deeper, untracked snow for the effort and body heat.  My extremities began to shut down with frozen fingers and toes, but my core was still warm, protecting the vital organs. When I finally reached the truck, I started it hopefully and blasted the heater, putting on my warm and dry, just in case Irish Sweater, safe-and-sound and much more-the-wiser. Things that don't kill you make you smarter and stronger. Except for stupidity and frozen outlet pipes in the winter. They will kill you. As I devoured my late lunch and warmed up slowly on the drive home, retching from the adrenaline, fear and relief, I promised myself; never alone, never in winter, never again. Live and learn.  

Matthew Lindon, PE

Hydrologist