29 



have read that we are going to lose about 400,000 acre feet with 

 the rupture of the gate. Is that, in fact, what you are expecting? 



Mr. Beard. Yes. If I could, Mr. Chairman, I would like to really 

 ask Roger Patterson, our regional director, to come up. He has been 

 on-site from the moment that the event occurred £ind can answer 

 your questions more fully than I, since I haven't been there yet. 



Mr. DOOLITTLE. That would be fine. Mr. Patterson, please come 

 up. 



Mr. Patterson. Mr. Chairman, thank you. I did provide a couple 

 of photos to the staff. They can be passed around perhaps as we 

 are talking. In direct response to your question; yes, that is pretty 

 close. There will be a reduction in storage of about 400,000 acre 

 feet over the course of the next two to three weeks. 



Mr. DOOLITTLE. And what is the capacity of that reservoir? 1.1 

 million? 



Mr. Patterson. The capacity of the reservoir is 977,000 so this 

 is a little over 40 percent of the capacity of the reservoir. 



Mr. DOOLITTLE. I am just wondering what do you believe the ef- 

 fect of that is going to be on our water supply and power genera- 

 tion and recreation? 



Mr. Patterson. Well, we are not sure of all of the details. Let 

 me take them one at a time. We think there will be no impact on 

 water deliveries for this year primarily because of the good water 

 year we have had and the availability of storage. As for power, the 

 Western Area Power Administration has estimated a loss in power 

 .generation of about $2 million. 



The California State Parks has said they believe there will not 

 be major impacts on recreation on the reservoir. As for downstream 

 recreation for rafting, it is unsafe to be on the river. And so I would 

 say until the flows sure down, we will see; maybe three weeks or 

 so of impact downstream. 



I was actually a little surprised that the state parks has said 

 publicly that they don't see major impacts on recreation primarily 

 because of how full the reservoir was. It will still be at about 60 

 percent of capacity. In fact, the lowest point will be five feet higher 

 than our peak storage last year; a contrast in water years. 



Mr. DOOLITTLE. It is just frustrating. With six years of drought, 

 we finally get the reservoir to about 90 percent of its capacity, I 

 think I read, and then this happens. We are going to get a formal 

 report from the Bureau of Reclamation about what all happened 

 here? 



Mr. Patterson. Yes. We definitely plan to do that. For those 

 that don't know the details, it was about 8 o'clock on Monday 

 morning when one of the radial floodgates on top of the dam expe- 

 rienced a partial failure. We are making plans now to barricade or 

 bulkhead above that gate. We think we can do that with perhaps 

 still about 10 feet of water over the sill which will allow us to cap- 

 ture about 100,000 acre feet. 



We are putting together a team of experts from within the Corps 

 of Engineers, the State of California and the Bureau of Reclama- 

 tion to analyze what the cause was and determine if we have simi- 

 lar problems with the other gates. We intend to have that analysis 

 peer reviewed outside of government. Early estimates are that this 



