The sun broke brightly over the Wasatch Mountains on a brisk early winter morning. Late to rise that 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