Comments by "Bo McGillacutty" (@Mrbfgray) on "City of San Diego releases 600 million gallons of water from Lake Hodges" video.

Dam has exceeded it's lifespan by 2X, it's failing. Do you want to see it full and catastrophically fail?
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@jonathancole6124 Yes very impressive, took them many decades to centuries to build much of it, longer than the brief history of the USA. Romans invented some high quality concrete but it's stone that really lasts.
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@BoltRM Doing something about it means removing it and ether replacing it or letting it run wild again. Either way you lose the storage capacity and flood control for at least a number of yrs. (most likely, some chance of building new dam down stream while existing dam stands crippled as it is) Anyway, it's a smaller reservoir that most in the state have never heard of.
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Probably built with something like 50 yr life and to lower standards than today. You can't maintain some things and this is clearly a very lightly built structure. If the concrete is crumbling near the base as indicated, not much u can do other than replace it.
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@jonathancole6124 Some kinds of rock can last far longer than just about any manmade structural material, granite for example. Sandstone, limestone and marble much easier to shape but not near as durable. Egyptian great pyramids are mostly made of relatively weak and erodible limestone with exception of key internal structural elements and they were externally cased in granite and alabaster I believe, most of that was pilfered, quarried to build Cairo over the centuries. (many think pyramids may be vastly older than official estimates, possibly even 10's of thousands of yrs, but that's a wild tangent) Point being--if we could build dams out of granite they could last many thousands of yrs, far exceeding any concrete. Even blocks of granite w concrete/grout might last millennia, as rock partially protects the grout from elements. (Grout joints could be problematic for a high pressure dam tho) That's sort of the Roman success story it seems, tho not with rock as good as granite.
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@BoltRM Ppl should balk at taxes, Commifornia already runs folks out due to excessive taxation, it's the pols go to solution for everything.
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@johnportilla4978 Cool, and it shows. Wouldn't be built like that today.
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@TheAircool1 Could. So what, this one and many others simply were NOT, hypotheticals don't hold water. Hover Dam may well last 1000 yrs, this ain't Hover Dam.
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