The Oroville Dam spillway failure in February proved to be the first major infrastructure crisis of the Trump Administration, a presidency that has vowed to make infrastructure a priority, though so far with little to show for the promise. A new report from the Sacramento Bee shows what the likely costs will be if such efforts stall: hundreds of millions dollars on contractors in crisis situations, over and over again.

The Bee estimates that over $400 million will be spent on efforts related to the fracturing of the 770 foot tall dam's main flood-control spillway, which forced the evacuation of 200,000 people. The economic boomlet shows how far infrastructure stretches. Everything from gravel contractors, trucking firms, drone operators, engineering consultants, and food for the all of the above come into the equation.

The biggest contract went out of state, $275 million to the giant of Omaha, Kiewit Construction, to repair the battered spillway over the next two years. But the smaller costs of the repairs added up as well.

$217,000 for a wood recycling company to grind trees.

$129,483 to a helicopter company for airlifting rock and concrete.

$3,902 worth of breakfasts and lunches from a local grocery the day after the evacuation, paid for by the state.

$167,000 for a mapping company to produce aerial images of the dam site from helicopters and drones.

$312 on safety glasses.

$146 for protective earmuffs.

Water rushing down the Oroville Dam spillway. Rich Pedroncelli AP

Some of these costs might have applied whether the project was maintenance or disaster, but other expenses were exclusive to the project's emergency nature. As the river channel beneath the spillway clogged with debris, a local company, the Dutra Group, was called in for an emergency dredging. It was an urgent technical problem: the river had to be flowing so the dam's power plant, a crucial portal for releasing water, could start again. There was no time to figure out any details beyond clearing the river.

"What were the depths? How many large rocks were there that would impede barge and boat traffic?" Harry Stewart, Dutra's chief operating officer, tells the Bee. "These were essentially uncharted waters." Dutra came away with $22.1 million through the end of April.

The state of California spent the money but expects to have major parts reimbursed through President Trump's approval of $274 million for repairs on the project. Work on the dam created around 200 jobs in the local area, although it's predicted that it was also hinder local tourism to Lake Oroville in the meantime. That's to say nothing of the emergency expenses which could have theoretically been spent elsewhere, the danger to the people around the dam, and the worse disaster that this could have been if any one of a number of variables had been a little bit different.

Maintenance is by far the better option, and we've assembled a list of projects state-by-state if you're looking for a place to start.

Source: Sacramento Bee

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