By John Shaffer Some of us may have known that the 770-foot high Oroville Dam, built in 1968, was the highest in America. We may not have known it impounds the second largest lake in California, but now everybody knows at least a little about the Oroville Dam. This winter has been uncommonly rainy, and the lake has risen to levels where officials made the decision to release water; unfortunately, a 300-foot hole formed in the main spillway, leading to serious erosion, the threat of collapse of the emergency spillway (though not the dam itself), and the potential evacuation of about 188,000 people who live or work in the path of the dam. Well, whenever there is a crisis, there are fingers pointing blame, and we learn that as long ago as 2005 people were agitating for upgrades to the dam spillway, which, eventually, federal and state authorities decided were not required. We imagine they have second thoughts over that decision, for it seems that $100 million applied at the proper time would have averted this crisis. By the way, in the high country around the dam, it has been uncommonly snowy, and when that snowpack melts, there may be even more water in the lake than now, so the crisis is not over yet. One could argue the merits of the repairs or when they should have been made, but, interestingly enough, California Gov. Brown did not include the Oroville Dam on a list of projects compiled in January after President Trump's call for infrastructure improvements, so it was not one of the Governor's highest priorities. Critics have pointed out that the Governor did ask for help for his $100 billion high-speed rail project. California also spends an estimated $25 billion annually on services for (dare we use the word?) illegal aliens. Governments assign priorities, and we contend that it should give priority to those things it must do, rather than to those things it wants to do or thinks would be good to do. This reflects the same outlook as those who stint on spare parts, readiness and training for the military, but support expensive new planes. Once resources are set aside for the standard, everyday things, and the emergency, "rainy day" things, only then should government venture into new ground. $100 million or so is a drop in the bucket of $100 billion, and shaving a hundred million from high speed rail wouldn't have damaged that boondoggle much, but it would have been more than ample to fix the Oroville Dam. We are sure there are many other highway, dam, harbor, rail and airport projects that could be made healthy if they were given priority over an unnecessary, enormously expensive prestige project, such as Governor Brown's high speed railway to financial oblivion. Government could afford to do its routine functions if it would refrain from trying to do things that are not.
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