Heads up Tennessee

[Grumpy Old Man]

Boone Dam has a sinkhole developing under it.

http://enenews.com/sinkhole-develops...ng-continuousl

dam revealed a sink hole… Six days later, an uncommon occurrence happened when seepage was found near the location of the sink hole at the base of the dam…

NRC, Oct. 30, 2014: … BOONE DAM STABILITY ISSUES… “TVA conducted a briefing for government officials… after discovery of a sink hole near the base… water and sediment [has been] found seeping from the river below the dam. TVA is continuously monitoring the dam… The dam is located upstream of all three TVA nuclear sites… The NRC Senior Resident Inspector was notified. The licensee is evaluating this event for potential impact on the design basis flooding level.”

Times Free Press, Oct. 30, 2014: Tennessee Valley Authority engineers [will] search for the source of water seepage… Water and sediment were found Sunday seeping from the river bank below the dam.

TVA, Oct. 30, 2014: A sink hole was discovered near the base… water and sediment was found seeping from the river bank below the dam…

John McCormick, VP at TVA: [We're] exercising an abundance of caution… Unless it’s a huge storm, we can do what we need… we are continuously monitoring the dam… engineers want to be sure we understand what caused the sink hole and where the water and sediment is coming from.

WCYB, Oct. 30, 2014: [A] sinkhole and seepage of clay particulates into the water at Boone dam… [is near] the bottom of structure on the river side of the dam… TVA employees are working around the clock to find the cause of the sinkhole and the source of the seepage. “The seepage into the waterway is not a common occurrence,” said McCormick… they do not have a definite timetable for finding the source of the seepage…

Boone Dam is just over the border from Virginia, where a powerful M5.9 quake struck in 2011 — Times Free Press: TVA inspects dams, nuclear plants after earthquake [and] is in the process of performing visual walk downs and inspections at… Boone

USGS: [Quakes] in the eastern U.S. can travel much farther and cause damage over larger areas than previously thought [and] damaging effects can extend over a much larger area… the farthest landslide from the 2011 Virginia earthquake was 245 km from the epicenter. This is by far the greatest landslide distance recorded from any other earthquake of similar magnitude… [This quake] occurred in an area 20 times larger than expected [and] landslide distances… are remarkable… [it's] the largest distance limit ever recorded…

Hope I did that correctly. If not, Mods, please fix it.

[bacpacker]

I haven't heard about this. The dam is up in the mtn of upper East Tn. We had a fair amount of snow overnight that most like will melt pretty quickly next week. I have heard reports of 17" and still snowing in the smokes which is south of Boone dam.
The nuke plants are all southwest of Knoxville and there are multiple dams between Boone and the plants. Most have been dropping to hold the winter rains and snow melt. Water storage shouldn't be a problem. But I wouldn't want to be right below Boone dam. I'm guessing they have already began lowering the lake there.
Thanks for the heads up Grumpy.

[Brownwater Riverrat 13]

Hell Grumps, I thought you were on your way up here to repair it! After all you are the resident concrete expert. Thanks for watching our backs brother!

[Domeguy]

Looks like I just might get some lake front property up on this ridge after all.

[bacpacker]

Here is a local report on the sinkhole and current plans to deal with it.

http://www.johnsoncitypress.com/arti...ne-lake-photos

A lot of the other stories seem kinda tin foil. OTOH, just cause it sounds strange, don't mean it's wrong. More to come as I find it.

[Stormfeather]

Domeguy always thinking positive!