MSNBC Hysterics Over Mosul Dam

MSNBC has a video report and accompanying story on the situation with the Mosul Dam, which is located in Northern Iraq. The dam was built in the early 1980s by Saddam Hussein.

Even in a country gripped by daily bloodshed, the possibility of a catastrophic failure of the Mosul Dam has alarmed American officials, who have concluded that it could lead to as many as 500,000 civilian deaths by drowning Mosul under 65 feet of water and parts of Baghdad under 15 feet, said Abdulkhalik Thanoon Ayoub, the dam manager. "The Mosul dam is judged to have an unacceptable annual failure probability," in the dry wording of an Army Corps of Engineers draft report.

At the same time, a U.S. reconstruction project to help shore up the dam in northern Iraq has been marred by incompetence and mismanagement, according to Iraqi officials and a report by a U.S. oversight agency to be released Tuesday. The reconstruction project, worth at least $27 million, was not intended to be a permanent solution to the dam's deficiencies.

The video report by Tom Aspell notes that the Army Corps of Engineers states that a catastrophic collapse of the dam could result in the deaths of more than 500,000 people downstream from a wall of water that might reach all the way to Baghdad - hundreds of miles to the South.

Here's where Aspell's report falls short.

The dam has been deficient from day one. Iraqi engineers have been trying to fix the instability of the dam from the outset, using grout and other measures to stabilize the dam. They have been working on the problem for two decades.

Almost immediately after the dam was completed in the early 1980s, engineers began injecting the dam with grout, a liquefied mixture of cement and other additives. More than 50,000 tons of material have been pumped into the dam since then in a continual effort to prevent the structure, which can hold up to 3 trillion gallons of water, from collapsing.

After the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, American officials began to study risks posed by the dam, which they said were underestimated by Iraqis.

This isn't a new problem, but one that now gains prominence because the daily death toll has receded because of the Surge and Iraqis taking on the insurgency/terrorists and denying them safe havens.

The Iraqis have been working this problem for years, and the Army Corps of Engineers - the same organization that failed the people of New Orleans when their levees failed after Katrina hit, ran a study that found that the problem with the dam was more severe than the Iraqis considered it to be. The disagreement is over what to do with the structure, and reducing the level of the reservoir behind it is the most logical one, along with constant monitoring and upgrades to the structure.

UPDATE:
Kenneth at LGF tipped me off to this story this morning, although he pointed to the BBC story on the same subject. It looks like the media is grasping at straws because there isn't the bevy of bad news coming from Iraq these days, so they're looking at future doomsday scenarios. A dam bursting killing 500,000 fits the bill nicely because it's a nice round number and if it happens while the US is still involved in Iraq, the US could take the blame, even though the situation has been present since the dam was completed in 1984.

The latest bunch of articles is revolving around a September 2006 Army Corps report.

So, not only is the media hyping this story, but it is one based on a report that is more than a year old.

More to the point, this dam was built on gypsum, which is a very poor choice for siting a dam, because the gypsum dissolves on contact with water.

The earthen embankment dam is located on top of gypsum, a soft mineral that dissolves in contact with water. The creation of new leaks necessitates continuous maintenance to plug, or "grout".[2] More than 50,000 tons of material have been injected into the dam since leaks began forming shortly after the dam was completed.

Saddam's thugs didn't care about the science and engineering of this dam, and now the Iraqis have to deal with a persistent threat resulting from the poor engineering behind the dam, which requires constant vigilance to maintain it.

UPDATE:
Since we're talking about media gaffes, Gateway Pundit notes that the latest claim of barbarism from Iraq - the claim of 20 bodies found decapitated - doesn't hold water. Via LGF.

UPDATE:
Allah thinks that I'm misreading the situation.

The contractors working on it have apparently done next to nothing to fix it. Lawhawk points to the fact that the ACE assessments were completed last September as evidence that this really isn’t “news,” that the media’s just rolling it out now to dim the recently brightening narrative. What’ll dim the narrative is if that thing cracks and a trillion gallons of proof of the Iraqi and U.S. governments’ incompetence comes bearing down on half a million people. The WaPo story explicitly says that the ACE assessments weren’t released until today.

While I agree that a catastrophic collapse would be ruinous, I think Allah overlooks the fact that these reports reflect what the Corps was publicly stating on its website for more than two years now. As I wrote on Hot Air:

It’s been known for years that this thing was a ticking time bomb, the ACoE report and the leak to the WaPo notwithstanding. Engineers have been pumping thousands of tons of grout to keep the thing stabilized and the Iraqis knew that the dam was a problem from the outset.

The Corps own website had this to say about the project - and that apparently dates from September 2005 (more here). Note that it mentions the possibility of a catastrophic collapse if the work isn’t done. I’d say that they knew the seriousness of the situation even then. This report from May 2004 also points to the Corps working to keep the dam from failing.

This information was public knowledge going back to 2005, which is why I found it odd that they’re running this story again.

Meanwhile, back in 2005, there were Democrats who pointed out the Mosul dam project in the course of demanding parity for domestic funding on infrastructure with foreign aid (in relation to Katrina and the levees).

Repairs and band aids will not fix this dam. It needs replacement with a structure that is sound. In the meantime, slowly dropping the level of the reservoir to relieve pressure on the dam [would be prudent].

If anything, the WaPo report shows ongoing problems with the Corps in getting key projects completed and ongoing problems with Iraqi reconstruction, despite publicly acknowledging the risks of doing nothing for years.

If you want your hysterics and a story - there it is. Then again - knowing that the Corps has serious problems with its core mission of maintaining infrastructure in its care isn't a new one either.