This is meant as a followup post to the TB2000 ongoing if scattershot investigations (>ahem<) regarding the stability of the post-Y2K electrical grid, in light of numerous isolated reports that *could* suggest that electrical power -- at least in some areas of the country -- was -- or has become -- dirty after rollover.

TELLTALE SIGNS OF A GRID "STRESSED" BY Y2K

If you ask me, the strongest proof for the possibility of "dirty power" was the Monday, January 3 outage to FAA ATC systems at O'Hare Airport in Chicago, where -- as was revealed in wire service stories -- the outage in air traffic control systems computers there was due to a *failed generator. The generator in place to servie O'Hare suffered a power surge, evidently fritzed out the ATC system -- both radar and radio as I recall -- and (as was reported in later stories) had to be replaced by yet another *backup generator*. None of the news stories posted or linked on the forum bothered to investigate the matter of WHY O'Hare was on back-up power, and why, after the generator surge, the control tower was restored to service with ... a second genny. It was a strange omission indeed.

That's leaves the question open to speculation, which is why I am still wondering what may be going on.

In addition to this (singular) main-stream media acknowledgment of hard-tack facts suggesting an unreliable grid, there have been numerous input posts here from professionals and techies who instrument-monitor their own power, for the sake of their 'puter and EE equipment. These (3-5 posts) report unprecedented fluctuation in voltage on their domestic lines, beginning January 1, 2000. There have also been outages in Tampa Bay, Derby, KY (think it was) .... oh yeah, and Delhi, India, but will skip those, since there's no way to establish they were anything other than "routine failures". There have also been continuing reports of nuclear reactor shutdown and hot standbys, but we have little way to determine whether these have affected the avaialabilty of power. We're still waiting for Krempasky to educate us on this score.

Then, mid-week, Warren Blim posted in from Montana (I beleive it was) with an observation that reservoirs feeding hydro-electric dams in his region were at an extraordinarily low level for this time of year. that lead to a fascinating thread on river levels and etc., and I posted my descriptions of the webpages for streamflow monitoring sites along the Columbia River, which showed rather wide fluctuations in river level voer the then 4 days since rollover.

DRASTIC FLUCTUATIONS IN STREAMFLOW

So, just posting back in followup to say that the fluctuations in streamflow along the Columbia River, especially as measured at Station 14105700 at the Dalles, OR, have been increasing not just noticeably, but *drastically* just in the last two days. What this indicates of course is the volume of water being released by the Army Corps of Engineers from reservoirs upstream into Washington State (Grand Coulee Dam release data would be worth checking into next).

What the graphed data show (at http://oregon.usgs.gov/rt-cgi/gen_st_pg?station=14105700) (sorry, I don't do links) is increasing higher highs of volume of H20 released, and especially in the last two days *extremely* low lows. IN fact, the grid for graphing the release data is barely able to contain the new highs and lows -- verging on "off the charts" waterlevels.

Once again, FWIW, new highs of 279 ft3/sec were recorded at the Dalles on Thursday, January 6, and high levels were maintained throuhgeout the day, by my eye-ball estimate averaging 225 ft3/sec on Thurday, about 90-100 ft3/sec above the mean of 130 ft3/sec recorded over the precdeing 69 years. However, at about midnight, between both Jan 5-6 and Jan 6-7, the streamflow drops precipitously to as low as 87 ft3/saec (5-6) and 82 ft3/sec (6-7).

These latest troughs ares about 65-75 ft3/sec below the recorded MEAN for that time of year; whereas, earlier in the week, both peaks and troughs -- though dramatic -- were above the mean streamflow level -- suggesting an abundant supply of H20. NOW HOWEVER, with the ACE created dips dropping to 1/2 the mean, it looks as if the River were being turned off at night, and turned on again in the morning. This is a new development from that noted on Wednesday-Thursday, in Warren Blim's thread.

The data for the last two day continues the pattern begun on about December 30-31, but exaggerates it and increases the amplitude, so to speak, of the fluctuations being graphed. Put another way, the streamflow volumetrically is THREE TIMES GREATER during the daylight/peak-usage hours than it is at mignight-1:00 am.

I am not a hydrologist or an elctrical engineer, but have always understood the dam/reservoir system was meant to provide stable flow and generation. I have no idea why the river would be managed in such a way as shown on these graphs, unless there were an urgent requirement for peak-hour electrical power.

SPECULATIONS, NOT CONCLUSIONS

Furthermore, I want to pose the speculation that the reason the "off hour" streamflow is now dropping SHARPLY from where it was, may be precisely becuase Warren Blim's observations were correct, and the reservoirs are WAY DOWN and may be indeed running out of water -- so they are conserving what is left during the few "offhours" and cranking the gate open during usage hours. IF so, the graph suggests this may not be a sustainable pattern/practice .... if indeed hydro electric generated out of the Columbia River Basin system, etc. is being generated and diverted to compensste for downed nuke facilities or other generating facilities, then the water will run out eventually. Nop telling when, but perhaps within the next 2-3 weeks.

AS A FINAL NOTE: the drastic peaks and troughs of January 6-7, which seem to show a highly stressed river system, coincide with Secreteary of Energy Richardson's January 7, 2000 recently released report on the "stressed" and unstable electrical grid. Recall, that Richardson came to Bonneville Dam, east of Portland on the 9/9/99 "non-event" ostensibly to test backup communication systems for coordinating power dittribution in the event Y2K fractures appeared in the grid.

If my hunch proves out, we'll be seeing more outages soon.

>"<

-- SH (squirrel@huntr.com), January 08, 2000

Answers

No, I read in TIME Magazine that we can come out of the bunkers and eat our Spam.

-- Mara (MaraWayne@aol.com), January 08, 2000.

Actually these fluctations are normal, as I shall shortly prove.

-- John Krimpassky (JHKrimpassky@dmvit.com), January 08, 2000.

Actually, you are abnormal, as you have recently proven.

-- Ron Schwarz (rs@clubvb.com.delete.this), January 08, 2000.

Hey John,

Could you check this out too?? This is where over 1 million (60-70%) of baby salmon in hatchery were killed ...

"The alarm system failed to reset properly after power was cut off for maintenance performed by the Army Corps of Engineers, which operates the Lost Creek Dam above the hatchery, Otto said.

The alarm was tested after power was restored following the maintenance, but when a water pump supplying fish incubators failed during the night, alarms failed to ring in hatchery workers' houses" ...

http://hotnews.oregonlive.com/cgi-free/getstory.cgi?o0426_AM_OR--FishH atcheryLoss&OR&news&ornews

Might not mean a lot to people back east, but made the top, front page headline in my neck of the woods. Sure impacts local economy. But, looks like impact won't hit for a couple of years.

-- Cheryl (Transplant@Oregon.com), January 08, 2000.

Um ..... John's not here today. We just have similar names.

-- (JohnHKrimpassky@dmvit.com), January 08, 2000.

For those who want more on the issue of water see the following thread (I'm not sure anything was ever concluded by the end however)

Where did all the water come from?

-- Interested Spectator (is@the_ring.side), January 08, 2000.

BRACKET! this thread until I read some of the later posts on that first one. Thanks, IS. Looks like I'm outta my league here. Al. K. Lloyd, if you get over here, excuse the hypothesizing, and graciously explain why the peaks and troughs on the graph referenced are becoming so extreme.

-- (squirrel@huntr.com), January 08, 2000.

Amazing how just being on-line seems to breed paranoia in otherwise rational minds.

-- Roch Steinbach (rochsteinbach@excite.com), January 08, 2000.

Welllllll, ALRIGHT, already. Nothing funny going on, but maybe something fishy. The news about hte Rogue River hatchery smolt kill- off yesterday is devastating. In the preceding thread linked by IS, there was this post:

"I have some famliarity with water release regimes that hve been implemented on the Klamath mainstem for (threatened) salmon and in consideration of tribal trust issues. Generally these releases do not occur until very late spring. IN WINTER, THE DAMS TRY TO EMUATE THE NATURAL FLOWS AND NOT VARY LEVELS WHEN THE SLAMAON REDDS (NESTS) ARE IN PLACE/ RIGHT NOW THERE ARE EGGS AND SMALL FRY IN THE GRAVEL. VARIED LEVELS UP OR DOWN CAN DISTRUB GRAVEL OR DEWATER REDDS. THEY DO NOT TRY TO DO THIS UNLESS THERE IS A NATURAL EVENT. (emphasis added).

"Spring releases have been performed in the past timed either to encourage hatchery fish to outmigrate before natural spawners come down the tirbutaries or to encourage natural spawners to outmigrate down the mainstream so that they are not harmed by solar hearing or low dissolved oxygen from algae blooms."

SO ... if THIS post is true, and it sure matches my limited understanding and experience of hydro management, the fluctuations reported on the USGS NWIS page above, for Station 14105700 at the Dalles (and the others correlate of course) would seem to pose a threat of washing out the redds and young salmon. In which case, the streamflow seems that much more dangerous. Have I totally misread the data? Do giant peaks and spikes eqwuate to steady seasonal flow?

>"<

-- (squirrel@huntr.com), January 08, 2000.

Are there any owners of Sundance spas out there the 800 or 850 system with digital led screens.Your spa keeps a log of those electrical measurments. If you would like to report these readings 1 high voltage 2lowest voltage 3 present voltage also available is the clock speed wich should be at 60 hz for our grid I would like to see this info posted here so it can be veiwed as evidence and your spa is able to show wether we are getting dirty power please contact davebullis@aol.com Dave

-- davebullis (davebullis@aol.com), January 08, 2000.

SH [aka S. fisher]:

You are correct, regardless of what is being done at the moment; and why. Water regulation will be impacted by the rules designed to improve salmon reproduction and survival.

Best wishes,,,

Z

-- Z1X4Y7 (Z1X4Y7@aol.com), January 08, 2000.

Squirrel Hunter, I appreciate your having asked me for help in analyzing the data presented here.

First, a caveat. Although I have a lot of experience with water resources, my experience does not specifically deal with any Columbia River stream gauges; therefore, I will attempt to explain what APPEARS to be going on there. I am sure that if you were to contact the Corps of Engineers, Bonneville Power or U.S Geological Survey (I used to work for the US Geological Survey, Water Resources Division, in the same region as the Columbia River, but down in California.

Ok, I am going to go through some of the statements made in this post a paragraph at a time. Sorry, sysops, if this takes up too much memory, but I don't know how else to do this.

That's leaves the question open to speculation, which is why I am still wondering what may be going on.

In addition to this (singular) main-stream media acknowledgment of hard-tack facts suggesting an unreliable grid, there have been numerous input posts here from professionals and techies who instrument-monitor their own power, for the sake of their 'puter and EE equipment. These (3-5 posts) report unprecedented fluctuation in voltage on their domestic lines, beginning January 1, 2000. There have also been outages in Tampa Bay, Derby, KY (think it was) .... oh yeah, and Delhi, India, but will skip those, since there's no way to establish they were anything other than "routine failures". There have also been continuing reports of nuclear reactor shutdown and hot standbys, but we have little way to determine whether these have affected the avaialabilty of power. We're still waiting for Krempasky to educate us on this score.>

I'll leave this to others to explain, as it is totally out of my area of expertise.

DRASTIC FLUCTUATIONS IN STREAMFLOW

So, just posting back in followup to say that the fluctuations in streamflow along the Columbia River, especially as measured at Station 14105700 at the Dalles, OR, have been increasing not just noticeably, but * drastically* just in the last two days.>

I went to the Colubia River at the Dalles site. The data shown today are from midnight, Jan 1, 2000 to 3:30 p.m today (Jan 8, 2000)

There are large fluctuations shown here. As I said, I can't say if these are unusual or not, not being familiar with this site. I'm sure the USGS would be willing to send you comparable graphs for other time periods. In fact, they probably have them available on the net, if you know where to go. I don't, and frankly, at this point I don't have enough concern about these data to want to try to find graphs for other time periods.

However, I will give explain what I DO see here (Jan 1-8):

The streamflow for this period fluctuates from a low of approximately 82,000 cfs early on Jan 7 to a high of about 274,000 cfs late on the night of Jan 7. If you were to average the flow rates throughout this period of time (Jan 1-8) you would see that the DAILY MEAN flow rate is somewhat higher than the MEAN DAILY STREAMFLOW for the period of record. This is very normal, as virtually all northwest rivers have very different flow rates from day to day, and from year to year, due to changing weather patterns, etc. In addition, a river which is "controlled" by a hydorelectric dam will have much more drastic changes in flow rate than one which is not "controlled" by a hydroelectric dam, since the flow rate is affected so much by power demand.

< What this indicates of course is the volume of water being released by the Army Corps of Engineers from reservoirs upstream into Washington State (Grand Coulee Dam release data would be worth checking into next). >

Here I'd like to quote from the station description from Columbia River at The Dalles: "REMARKS.--Considerable regulation by many large reservoirs. Diurnal fluctuations caused by powerplant and gates at The Dalles Dam. Many diversions for irrigation upstream from station." What this is saying is the flow rates at this stream gauging station are affected not only by many dams upstream, but especially are affected by the Dalles Dam, 2.6 miles upstream from the streamgauge (this distance is shown in the "location" section of the stream gauge description). So the wild fluctuations you see on the graph are caused primarily by fluctuations in releases due to changes in power demands. I can't tell you why the high power demands are occurring late at night, while the lower power demands are occurring early in the mornings. I could only speculate--people using less heating and lights during the night? Aluminum foundaries (the largest single users of electricity in the Northwest-indeed, the reason the dams were built in the first place, for the most part, I'm told)

Anyway, the flows being released from upstream dams are not likely to play any significant part in the daily fluctuations at this site.

< What the graphed data show (at http://oregon.usgs.gov/rt-cgi/gen_st_pg?station=14105700) (sorry, I don't do links) is increasing higher highs of volume of H20 released, and especially in the last two days *extremely* low lows. IN fact, the grid for graphing the release data is barely able to contain the new highs and lows - - verging on "off the charts" waterlevels.>

This is why I offered a caveat about people without training being less able to make decisions about when and how to make water releases (made in an earlier post, and offending some people. Sorry, it wasn't meant to be offensive, just to point out that running ANY dam is very technical, and I assume that, with the extra variables, a hydroelectric dam would be even more so.) The "extremely low lows are NOT extremely low at all. The lowest is about 82,000; if you look at the chart on this same USGS web page (here, I'll try to cut and paste it:

Daily Mean Flow Statistics for 01/08 based on 69 years of record, in ft3/s Latest flow 01/08 15:30

Minimum

Mean

Maximum 80 percent exceedance 50 percent exceedance 20 percent exceedance 170,000 39,400 135,000 279,000 87,400 125,000 193,000 Percent exceedance means that 80, 50, or 20 percent of all daily mean flows for 01/08 have been greater than the value shown.

Well, that came out pretty lousy. What the chart says, if you go to the site, is that the lowest and highest mean flows for this day (Jan 8) during the 69 year period of record, are 39,400 cfs and 279,000 cfs, respectively. The mean flow for today (Jan 8, 2000) looks like it will end up around 175,000 cfs (estimated, as the last few hours of the day haven't gotten here yet.) So the mean for today (and for the last few days as well) appear to be quite normal.

By the way, here are some more data which may help: "EXTREMES FOR PERIOD OF RECORD.--Maximum discharge (since 1858), 1,240,000 ft3/s June 6, 1894, elevation, 106.5 ft; minimum discharge (since 1878), 12,100 ft3/s Apr. 16, 1968 (due to closure of John Day dam, recorded by AVM)." Note the lowest level ever recorded was 12,100 cfs, way less than the lowest flow shown in the Jan 1-8 period (82,000 cfs). When you say, "IN fact, the grid for graphing the release data is barely able to contain the new highs and lows - - verging on "off the charts" waterlevels." you are also jumping to an incorrect conclusion. Fact is, the charts are written so as to put only the amount necessary to show the data. If the flow were higher, the chart would be different. In other words, if the flow for some period ranged from, say, 100,000 cfs to, say, 850,000 cfs, the chart would be calibrated from maybe 90,000 cfs to 900,000 cfs. This is for clarity. As you can see, the highest flow on record for this station is 1,240,000 cfs. Since the chart for the period Jan 1-8, 2000 only extends from 70,000 cfs to 300,000 cfs, the peak flow on record would be so far off the chart that it would be somewhere above your monitor! Likewise, the lowest flow ever recorded for this site, 12,100 cfs, would be far below the chart for Jan 1-8, 2000, since it only goes down to 74,000 cfs.

< Once again, FWIW, new highs of 279 ft3/sec were recorded at the Dalles on Thursday, January 6, and high levels were maintained throuhgeout the day, by my eye-ball estimate averaging 225 ft3/sec on Thurday, about 90-100 ft3/sec above the mean of 130 ft3/sec recorded over the precdeing 69 years. However, at about midnight, between both Jan 5-6 and Jan 6-7, the streamflow drops precipitously to as low as 87 ft3/saec (5-6) and 82 ft3/sec (6- 7).

These latest troughs ares about 65-75 ft3/sec below the recorded MEAN for that time of year; whereas, earlier in the week, both peaks and troughs -- though dramatic -- were above the mean streamflow level -- suggesting an abundant supply of H20. NOW HOWEVER, with the ACE created dips dropping to 1/2 the mean, it looks as if the River were being turned off at night, and turned on again in the morning. This is a new development from that noted on Wednesday-Thursday, in Warren Blim's thread. >

If you look at the left side of the flow graph, you will see "STREAMFLOW, IN THOUSANDS OF FT3/SEC. What this means is "streamflow in thousands of cubic feet per second. Cubic feet per second is abreviated "cfs". If the river really did have a flow rate of less than 100 cfs, as you say, I would certainly be VERY concerned, because this is the size of a medium sized creek, this time of year, rather than the second largest river in the US. (Remember, the lowest flow EVER RECORDED at this stream gauge is 12,100 cfs)

Furthermore, I want to pose the speculation that the reason the "off hour" streamflow is now dropping SHARPLY from where it was, may be precisely becuase Warren Blim's observations were correct, and the reservoirs are WAY DOWN and may be indeed running out of water>

I hope this helps, SH, and puts to rest your concerns about the Columbia River being an indicator of problems elsewhere.

What I conclude, from looking at these data, is that there is nothing here to make me believe that there is anything all that unusual. Again, I can't swear to that, because I am not familiar with this specific gauging station. But if you want to find out the level of the reservoir behind the Dalles Dam, or any other on the Columbia River, there are contact people listed on the USGS webpage, and they could tell you where to get current lake levels and conditions, possibly even on line.

-- jumpoff joe a.k.a. Al K. Lloyd (jumpoff@ekoweb.net), January 08, 2000.

One other comment, Squirrel Hunter. You say

The dam/reservoir system is NOT designed to provide "stable" flow and generation. It is designed to meet NEEDS. If needs are not stable, which they generally are not (which is why some power companies make available "off peak hour" rates), the flow rates will not be stable. The great thing about hydro is its ability to change very rapidly to produce whatever power is needed at any given time.

-- jumpoff joe a.k.a. Al K. Lloyd (jumpoff@ekoweb.net), January 08, 2000.

Now?

-- Tom Carey (tomcarey@mindspring.com), January 09, 2000.

Regarding the increased activity of hydroelectric utilities during the night (off-peak demand), it sounds like they are taking up the slack for some other utilities (maybe nuclear) that are powering down overnight for repairs/changes/maintenance. That's my take on it.

-- Y2kObserver (Y2kObserver@nowhere.com), January 09, 2000.

As follow-up on my prior posts on avoidance of artificial high peaks and low valleys in dam flow management on anadromous fish-bearing streams.

I can't speak for the Columbia River system, but the Klamath system has been under intense study for flow/salmon relationships.

Mike Deas and Dr. Orlob of UC Davis did some modeling below Iron Gate Dam. http://www.engr.ucdavis.edu/~wremg/klamath.html USGS/Fort Collins did the K-SIAM study and modeling between Iron Gate and the Klamath Project (BoR.) http://www.mesc.usgs.gov/sre/sre.html (longish download of abstracts from last basin conference) http://www.r1.fws.gov/text/klamath.htm There is a Instream Flow Incremental Methodology or IFIM http://www.mesc.usgs.gov/rsm/IFIM.html

The IFIM is based on the theory that river levels effect available habitat quantity and quality for salmon.

Several years back, I was involved in a federal technical advisory committee scoping for the IFIM. I am not a scientist. I was the token female non-biologist on the committee, sitting because of a long experience with community based watershed groups and field familiarity with a section of the basin. I offer this just to let you know that I have more than a usual lay-man's familiarity with the topic.

-- marsh (armstrng@sisqtel.net), January 09, 2000.

Thanks, Al, for the dedication & time you put into reviewing my post and responding at this level of your expertise. A good exercise and one that will further advance my weaning away from seeing govt Y2K subterfuge behind life's commonest details.

TNX

>"<

-- SH (squirrel@huntr.com), January 09, 2000.

Marsh, thanks for sharing that info about the fisheries, and about yourself. Now I KNOW we're neighbors (globally speaking, at least) So where is the Jumpoff Joe down where you are? Mine's near Grants Pass, Oregon

Squirrel Hunter, you're most welcome; I'm glad it helped. I, too, tend to look for various strange solutions to things, conspiracies if you will, especially when the "government" is involved. They are such easy targets! And so often doing things they shouldn't be. (Guess why I quit being a hydrologic technician and got an honest job building and designing houses and alternative energy products?

I actually had fun researching the Columbia River flow data; haven't put that much energy into streamflow for quite a few years.

-- jumpoff joe a.k.a. Al K. Lloyd (jumpoff@ekoweb.net), January 10, 2000.