Faulty By ROGER RAPOPORT Pacific News Service WHEN IDAHO'S new Teton Dam sprang two leaks last June 3 the project engineer wasn't worried - despite earlier warnings by environ- mentalists and a projected geologist of earthquake faults riddling the site and of fissures in the north abutment. Two days later the dam burst, releasing a 15- foot wave that swept 75 miles downstream, killing 11 people and destroying thousands of homes and offices and 100,000 acres of farmland. Since then the House Committee on Govern- ment Operations has concluded that the problems at Teton were no exception. "A NUMBER OF DAMS now being designed or cons'ructed have significant safety problems re- lated to geology, seismicity and design," the com- mittee said in its report on the Teton disaster. "The po'ential for tragic losses in lives and property posed by these dams could be as great or even greater than the $1 billion damage that resulted from the failure of the Teton Dam." Dam building is an imperfect science. While past experience helps, each new reservoir is, in a sense, an experiment. Roger Rapoports a fornier Daily editor, is pre- sently a San Francisco-based freelance writer whose articles have appeared in many national maga- zines. dam constructio But as the House committee points out, govern- ment authorities have too often insisted on trying unproven designs in geologically unsafe areas. According to the Sierra Club, 20,000 of the 49,000 dams in the U.S. are situated in such a way that failure or malfunction would significantly imperil life and property. THE SIERRA CLUB'S Brock Evans contends that structures like the Ririe Dam near Idaho Falls, Missouri's Meramec Park. Dam and the Wolf Creek Dam in Colorado are potentially just as dangerous as Teton. Perhaps the greatest risk is in California, where scores of reservoirs have been created in earth- quake country. "Today in central California you've already got the Folsom, Oroville, Don Pedro, New Hogan, Pardee and Lake McClure reservoirs all sitting right on top of the Foothills Fault System," says one geologist. "These are big dams. If the Folsom Dam were to go in a quake, as many as 100,000 people could be killed in Sacramento by flash flooding." CORRECTING THE PROBLEM could cost billions of dollars and also force the state into a drastic water conservation program that could severely limit growth. One trouble with building in quake-prone regions is that years of study are required to be certain that a given fault is inactive. Thus seismic ex- perts urge dam builders to assume that faults in the vicinity of their construction sites are po- entially active unless convincing evidence exists to the contrary. The devastating San Fernando quake of 1971, for instance, took place on an obscure Southern Cali- fornia fault that was presumed dead. Had the shaking lasted just a few seconds longer, the Van Norman reservoir would have ruptured and killed as many as 10,000 people in suburban Los Angeles, according to U.S. Geological Survey sources. The same San Fernando earthquake also rais- ed serious doubts about standard dam construction practices. LIKE MANY OTHER hydraulic fill dams across California, the Van Norman had been built by pumping in wet mud that solidified as the water drained out. During the earthquake this filling li- quified. weakening the dam and nearly causing it to burst.. As a result, more than $100 million is how being spent to rebuild, modify or close 14 hydraulic fill dams in San Diego, Los Angeles, suburban San Francisco and half a dozen rural areas. Meanwhile, new problems have developed at sev- eral construction sites in the Sierra foothills. Experts recently ran a computer study on the Auburn dam under construction near Sacramento to see if the- $850 million project could withstand a moderate earthquake. After the 685-foot-high structure flunked the test the California Depart- plagu ment of Water Resources said it wanted to see more extensive tests on seismic activity in the area be- fore continuing its endorsement of the federal pro- ject. NONETHELESS, $15 million worth of prelimin- ary work is already underway while the outcome of the tests, not expected to be completed for another six monhs, is still in doubt. Perhaps he most dramatic example of the fed- eral government's willingness to build reservoirs before all the geologic facts are in is the New Melones damsite along Iron Canyon on California's Stanislaus River. Perched in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada, New Melones is destined to be- come the second highest earth fill dam in the U.S. In a May 1972 Environmental Impact Statement, the Army Corps of Engineers contended there was little earthquake risk to its $286 million project: "The projected area has experienced little seismic activity in historical times" the statement said. "The nearest known active fault is the Owens Valley Fault about 70 miles east of the project." BUT ACCORDING to 1974 studies by a San Fran- cisco-based consulting firm, that assessment may be off by at least 681/2 miles. While conducting sit- ing tests for a nuclear power plant on the Stan- islaus River, Woodward-Clyde Consultants discov- ered two branches of the active Foothills F a u 1 t es U.S. Sys'em in the immediate vicinity of the dam con- struction site. The Army Corps of Engineers recently retained Woodward-Clyde to make further studies. The firm, which anticipa! es completing its new study by mid-1977, says it won't know till then whether New Melones is sitting directly atop a potential major earthquake. Meanwhile the Corps is continuing construction on the dam. Half the project, which began in 1967, is now complete. "All evidence has. shown the faul's to be inactive," a Corps spokesman told PNS. "We just want to lay to rest all concerns." Among geologists familiar with the New Melones project, those concerns include fears of a dam- generated holocaust. "THE BILLION DOLLAR damage caused by the (Teton Dam) failure would be minor compared to what a giant New Melones-size dam could do," says one scientist who has examined the prob- lem. "This reservoir holds 12 times as much water as that one. If it burst, tens of thousands could die." "It's crazy to be building more big dams on (the Foo hills Fault) group before we know what the real story is geologically," says another geologist. "You know, earthquake experts like to joke that the best place to look for a fault is underneath the nearest dam. "I'" tell yog one thing " he adds, "I sure am glad I'm not living downstream." Eighty-Seven Years of Editorial Freedom 420 Maynard St., Ann Arbor, MI 48109 Wednesday, January 12, 1977 News Phone: 764-0552 Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan Public ignored in PBB crisis Anoth( By ROGER RAPOPORT Pacific News Service IN JUNE 1976 an enthusiastic flock of government geologists rushed to the central Sierra foothills to examine an historic find. While doing nuclear power plant sit- ing research for Pacific Gas and Elec- tric Co., a private consulting firm had uncovered evidence that local sec- tions of the Foothills Fault System, long presumed to be dead, might be very much alive and capable of producing major earthquakes. Scientists from the U. S. Geological Survey. Nuclear Regulatory Commis- sion and California Division of Mines Scientists arrived from Washington, Denver, Sacramento and Menlo Park and donned hardhats to inspect the site. BUT CONSPICUOUSLY absent were experts invited from the Army Corps of Engineers, which was spending about $4 million a month on construction of America's second - highest earth - filled dam just a mile and a half away. * * * 'r traged This was not the first time the fed- eral contractors behind the $286 million New Melones project had elected to ignore the firm's expertise. Eighteen months earlier the Corps had detained Woodward-Clyde Consult- ants, then known as Woodward-Lund- gren Associates, to assess what sort of shock might hit the New Melones fa- cilities were an earthquake to occur on any one of eight faults 60-130 miles away. But the consultants' proposal to study the impact of an earthquake on three faults at or near the site was vetoed by Corns administrators. One of these faults, the New Melones, passed just three miles unstream from the dam. A second called the Bar Mountain passed one-and-a-half miles downstream. .And a third, known as the Bostwick Mountain, borders the site of the 625-foot-high structure, now half completed. TlfTH THE New Melones and Bear ArThntain faults are part of the Foot- hills Fault System that triggered sig- in * * the SHOULD MICHIGAN residents be exposed to increased risk of can- cer to preserve corporate profits? Should Michigan farmers suffer dis- abling illnesses to cover up bureau- cratic bungling? Cutting through the self-serving rhetoric of the state Agriculture De- partment and chemical agri-business, these two questions are at issue in the PBB food contamination contro- versy. The Daily says NO; never should the public health and welfare be compromised for any special interest, corporate, bureaucratic or otherwise. Yet this is exactly what has hap- pened and continues to happen in the case of PBB poisoning. PBB, as readers may recall, is a highly toxic chemical used as a flame retardant in clothing. In 1973, the Michigan Chemical Corporation accidently shipped PBB to the Michigan Farm Bureau in place of a chemical nutrient ordered by the bureau. The Farm Bureau, in turn, failed to notice the substitution and mixed the poison with cattle and poultry feed sold to farmers across the state. AS A RESULT, thousands of farm animals became sick and died, while farmers and heavy consumers of con- taminated animal products began to report mysterious nervous, joint and skin disorders. For a year, farmers' complaints were ignored by the state Department of Agriculture. Since 1974, despite farmers' com- plaints and scientific data linking PBB with cancer in animals, the Ag- riculture department has consistent- ly opposed measures to lower PBB tolerance levels in food to a point scientists agree is safe -- that is, no PBB at all. The state legislature has also failed to act. Adequate funds were never ap- propriated to compensate farmers for their losses and provide rehabilita- tion for the effects of PBB poison- ing. For two and a half years, the Gov- ernor's office and the Agriculture Department- delayed an in-depth stu- dy of the effects of PBB on humans. Dr. Irving Selikoff, a nationally- reknown environmental health re- searcher, was denied a pro-forma in- vitation from state officials to car- ry out his own federally funded re- search on PBB. His study, finally released last week,confirmed the worst. One third of a thousand people heavily exposed to PBB were found to suffer some physical disability, ranging from skin disfigurement to permanent central nervous system damage. Maybe this report will belatedly produce the strong measures to deal with PBB that were needed two or three years ago. Most of the damage has unfortu- nately already been done. PBB is in the state food chain, and is likely to remain for some time to come. ,As long as agencies like the Agri- culture Department place the corpor- ate interests of the industry they reg- ulate and their own bureaucratic self- interests before the public welfare, there is nothing to stop another PBB- like crisis from striking the state. TODAY'S STAFF: News: Elaine Fletcher, Tim Schick, Stu McConnell, Barb Zahs, Liz Slowik, Shelley Wolson, Lori Carruthers, Elaine Elson, Joan Chartier Editorial Page: Steve Kursman, David Goodman, Rob Meachum Arts Page: Lois Josimovich Photo Technician: Chris Schneider nificant earthquakes at Chico in 1940 and again in 1975 at Oroville. In a 1972 Environmental Impact Statement, the Corps had discounted the chances of seismic activity along these faults. But after refusing to map the local faults out beyond the site boundary and finally blocking its own consult- ants from making an independent evaluation of the rift, the Corps has now decided to rehire the Woodward- Cl-de firm for more tests. The firm says it won't know the seismic potential of the area until mid-1977. As