Engineering Geology, 24 (1987) 167--172

Elsevier Science Publishers B.V., Amsterdam -- Printed in The Netherlands

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Open Discussion
THE BALDWIN HILLS RESERVOIR FAILURE

Walter Hoye, Los Angeles DWP:

Let me tell y o u about my involvement at the time of the Baldwin Hills
Reservoir failure. I was studying for my first promotional exam at the
University of Southern California library. I was an entry level engineer at the
Department of Water and Power. Well, here I am 22 years later, I am the
Engineer of Design in charge of dam safety. I was concerned then and I am
really concerned now. I am responsible for all of our dams in the city and all
of the dams we have along the 300 miles of aqueduct that bring water from
the Sierras to 3 million people in Los Angeles. I thank Dr. Leonards very
much for giving me a chance to address y o u today.
As far as Baldwin Hills Reservoir goes, we at the Department think the
stress relief fault movement triggered by the high pressure fluid injection for
secondary oil recovery was the decisive cause which led to rupturing of the
reservoir lining. The settlement in favor of the Department of $4 million
against the oil companies was reached shortly after publication of a paper
that has been mentioned earlier, " G r o u n d Rupture in the Baldwin Hills", by
Hamilton and Meehan, and it discusses the mechanism for that stress relief
fault movement triggered by fluid injection. It may be that everybody here
does n o t agree that this was the decisive cause of the failure; however, I am
sure that everyone will agree that this high pressure stress relief did accelerate
the movements along the fault. I am not going to discuss the failure any
further and will go directly into what we have learned from that event.
Firstly, there really is no substitute for people. We need an experienced
staff to design, operate, maintain and provide reservoir surveillance. We try
to do t h a t through training and I think we are quite successful at it. We also
retain consultants to help us out in areas where we need more experience or
in areas where we have lost key personnel, as happens from time to time. In
addition to people, I think modern equipment helps out. We have since that
time developed a computer-aided system to pull in the data that we get from
the field. As y o u know, surveyors and hydrographers go out in the field and
gather all this data. It's up to some poor guy in the office to tabulate it, graph
it and study it, and year after year that can be fairly routine. We are computerizing that information and it will be plotted in bright colors that will be
a mechanism to allow supervisors to look at this data and perhaps highlight
red flags more easily than the manual methods used before. It will give these
people more time to study the results. It will also enrich the job so it will be
more interesting. We have almost completed developing our computer-aided
surveillance data plotting system and are really looking forward to using it.
0013-7952/87/$03.50

1987 Elsevier Science Publishers B.V.

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A n o t h e r piece of m ode r n e q u i p m e n t is a supervisory control and data acquisition system. This will pull in data from all of our facilities t h r o u g h o u t our
460 plus square miles in the city and along that aqueduct I told y o u about.
It will supplement the t e l e m et r y system that we have right now. The key
point is that all of this data will be going into a control center 24 hours a
day. We will have people on hand day and night observing this data. There is
a lot o f activity going on in inspection and surveillance at the Department.
There is also a lot of work being done at the State and Federal levels. Things
are very different now than t h e y were in the decade 1950--1960.
I previously talked a b o u t training in-house people, now the people in the
field are also trained and I do n o t think there is a better example in the hist o r y of dams o f the value of adequately trained field personnel than that
which occurred during the Baldwin Hill failure. Those people not only knew
how to operate valves, t h e y knew how to operate water systems; t hey did
n o t have to consult maps, t hey went straight to where the problem was and
solved the problem as best t h e y could. So, training field personnel is e x t r e m e l y
i m p o r tan t, including drills to insure that training is effective.
Let me men t i on in closing t h a t I think progress in learning things about
dam safety comes about very slowly. We have failures that occur and immediately after the failures a lot of things are done, but to really obtain solutions to these very difficult problems takes time. After damage to the San
Fernando Dam in 1971 the State D e p a r t m e n t of Water Resources instigated
an evaluation program of all dams that were hydraulically filled in the State.
We have co mp l et ed most of our analyses of those dams. In 1972 the Federal
G o v e r n m e n t got involved with inspection of dams and has started a program
in our State and we have completed the safety assurance under the federal
program for Long Valley Dam, Stone Canyon Dam and Mulholland Dam. I
think what this is all a b o u t is our a t t e m p t to reduce the risks to the public.
R ed u ctio n of risks takes time, y o u have to evaluate what is reasonable, what
is economically feasible, and as we examine our past problems, we also need
to evaluate in what ways we can improve in the future. I do think it comes
a b o u t slowly, but it certainly comes about and we need to press on for that
knowledge. Perhaps in a n o t h e r 10 years we can have a conference at Purdue
and we can call it the International Conference on Dam Successes.
{Name n o t stated):
I got the impression that we knew that there were faults in the foundation.
We knew p o o r f o u n d a t i o n conditions existed, as Mr. Leps has said. We also
learned th at movements were relatively small, as Mr. Wilson has said, but nob o d y seemed to be saying t hat there was a weakness in the design. The thin
membranes, for example. If t h e y were self healing and could adjust to the
small movements, maybe we would n o t have had this failure. I was wondering why th at was n o t m e n t i o n e d at all in the discussion?
T.M. Leps:
Perhaps I should apologize for not having addressed that in m y oral presentation. It is very t h o r o u g h l y addressed in the write-up which will be printed

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as part o f the Proceedings of this conference. I think perhaps the greatest
weakness in the design of the underdrain system was t hat it was n o t flexible.
It was n o t the kind of a system which could a c c o m m o d a t e known stretching
or differential settlements over short distances. The underdrain system was
4-inch diameter tile, there was about 10,000 ft. of it, underneath all of this
clay blanket t h a t y o u have heard about. But those tiles themselves were extremely brittle, easily fractured, and t he y were resting on a small concrete
sill, or f o u n d ation, so t hat the upper half of the tile was exposed and the
lower half was supported solidly in this continuous concrete cradle which
crossed all of these faults. The drain and its support were brittle, rigid, and
any kind o f differential m o v e m e n t was going to crack the saddle and immediately crack the tile and in doing so, in cracking and separating, it was
going to tear the asphalt seal which passed underneath the cradle. That
probably is where water almost immediately got into the underground starting in year one. To me t hat is t he fatal flaw in the design. It did n o t provide
an underdrain system which was as flexible and forgiving as the clay blanket
which was set on t o p of it.
H o m e r Willis, U.S.A.:
We could see, I believe, t hat the ordinary civil engineer w i t h o u t t o o much
knowledge o f the geotechnical background of this area might n o t have appreciated the kind of a pr obl e m that we have f o u n d at Baldwin Hills. In the
past, in man y major cases, we have n o t e d that a lot of benefit has been obtained in engaging geotechnical consultants. I w ondered if any were on this
particular project or w ha t the policy of the agency is now in regard to consultants on major projects.
W. Hoye:
The D e p a r t m e n t o f Water and Power, especially with regard to structures
such as dams which are so i m p o r t a n t to public safety, has always retained
outside consulting help. We have always, in addition, had in-house staff t hat
was very experienced in dam design. At the time of the Baldwin Hills design
we had a Board of Consultants. I am n o t sure exactly who the board members
were at th at time, but I know t hat Mr. Marliave was one of the consultants
who came o u t and worked with us. Can someone name the others?
R.F. Scott:
At the time when it was decided to e m p l o y a group of consultants there
were actually three different boards r e c o m m e n d e d : there was a first choice,
second choice, and a third choice. To give y o u some idea of the flavor of it,
the first choice included Dr. Terzaghi. The actual group chosen by DWP was
neither th e first, second, nor the third choice, but included Mr. Marliave who
was the geologist. Mr. V a nN or m an who was a f o r m e r chief engineer of DWP,
a man whose name I think does n o t have very good connotations to us now.
He h ap p en ed to be the Assistant Chief Engineer when the Saint Francis Dam
failed in 1928. He gave his name t o the VanNorman Reservoir which is re-

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tained b y the San Fernando Dam, which failed in 1971. He was on the Board
o f Consultants for Baldwin Hills. The Board of Consultants actually m et only
three times before construction began. Fr om the memos and notes in DWP
files one does n o t feel t h e y were really very strongly involved in it. That is,
t hey were used, Mr. Marliave made a geological report, but there is not the
indication of a detailed day-to-day, week-to-week, or even m o n t h - t o - m o n t h
involvement in what was going on.
W. Hoye:
The question also asks about what we were doing then and what we are
doing today. In those years, our Board of Consultants typically consisted of
people th at were very well qualified, but t h e y did n o t work 8 hours a day on
our dam design. As I mentioned, we did have in-house people who had spent
decades designing dams and doing geology. I think in the intervening 22 years
we have gone mor e t o outside consultants. Also, the time spent by our consultants in recent history has been greater in terms of looking at our dam
designs.
T.M. Leps:
May I insert a very small vignette? Halfway through the life of Baldwin Hill
Reservoir the main designer, Ralph Proctor (R.R. Proctor), invited Dr. Terzaghi
to come and take a look at his m o n u m e n t . Dr. Terzaghi was consulting for
my c o m p a n y (Southern California Edison at that time) and we found, surprisingly enough, t hat the only time available to him would be on a Sunday
morning. So Dr. Terzaghi and I m e t with Proctor and w ent out to Baldwin
Hills and we were taken over the whole site and we were shown this marvelous reservoir and all the instrumentation and given a complete lecture a b o u t
the underdrain system, and so forth. When it was all over, Mr. Proct or fixed
his eyes on Dr. Terzaghi and said: "Well, what do y o u think of m y prize
reservoir?" Dr. Terzaghi looked down at the ground and shook his head and
said: " N o c o m m e n t ! "
G.A. Leonards:
Three quick points a b o u t Baldwin Hills. First, as has been described earlier,
leakage f r o m th e east t o e and fault drains reached 75 gallons per minute on
first partial filling of the reservoir and continued to increase at constant
reservoir level while all ot her drains showed no flow. This means that, at the
very least, the clay liner was locally damaged solely as a result of reservoir
loading. The reservoir was emptied quickly. Among ot her observations of
m o v e m e n t was a 3A-inch differential settlement between the channel inlet
structure and the gate tower. The difficulty of maintaining an asphalt seal
around the gate t o w e r and ot he r structures is self-evident. A t t em pt s were
made to seal the leaks, but in my opinion the measures could not have been
fully effective. Therefore, I affirm t ha t seepage into the erodible f o u n d a t i o n
silts in the vicinity of the gate tower very likely began at first filling of the
reservoir and continued t h r o u g h o u t its useful life.

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Second point. The crack width in the drainage inspection chamber,

although it fluctuated, as Stan said, on average increased more or less linearly from first filling of the reservoir. The rate of this increase in crack width
increased sharply after pressure injections were started in the oil field. Therefore, the measurements clearly show that pressure injections accelerated the
failure of the reservoir, but did not initiate it.
Third point. Underdrains were installed to monitor the a m o u n t and location of seepage through the clay liner. The function of the underlying asphalt
membrane was to prevent water collected in the drains from entering the
erodible foundation soils. In my opinion, the fatal flaw in the design was not
the brittle underdrains, although they certainly aggravated the situation, but
the fact that there was no way to ascertain whether the underlying asphalt
membrane was intact -- and if the membrane was ruptured, the reservoir
would be lost, sooner or later. A dam should not be designed so that its
security is entirely dependent upon a single feature whose integrity cannot
be ascertained positively by the monitoring system, in time to avert failure.
I believe t h a t this is the most important lesson to be learned from the Baldwin
Hills Reservoir failure.
Juan Muria, Venezuela Oil Co.:
We do have a very serious subsidence problem in the eastern coast of Lake
Maracaibo and we have records going back to 1928. As far as we are concerned subsidence is caused by oil extraction. As I understood from Prof.
Scott, here in the States oil extraction is not considered a legal cause for subsidence. What is a legal cause for subsidence?
R.F. Scott:
I perhaps should clarify that. By that statement, I meant there has been
no case which has gone to completion in the courts in which the legal testim o n y attributed subsidence to oil, water, or gas withdrawal, and then the
judge or jury f o u n d that t h a t was the case, or made it the legal statement. I
did not mean that people do not accept it, I just mean that I think that many
cases have been settled out of court on this issue. In Houston, Long Beach,
Baldwin Hills, and so on, but without actually completing a case with a legal
determination.
T.M. Leps:
May I suggest one thing? Jerry Leonards has pointed out the vital role of
the 1/~-inch asphalt underseal below the drainage. The fact is, as pointed out
by Mr. Jansen in his presentation, that during the very initial performance of
the reservoir astounding quantities of asphalt came out through the underdrain system. In trying to assess what its significance was, I have taken the
crude figures quoted in his paper and tried to relate them to how much area
of the underseal actually disappeared through the drainage system. It is something in the order of 50--100 ft. 2 of asphalt underseal that was discharged
through the drainage system. Now that was known at year one, and the

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question t h a t one must ask oneself is how did the DWP assess that loss of
asphalt when it was the primary seal against the f o u n d a t i o n ? I do n o t know,
I do n o t k n o w t hat Mr. H oye knows, but in any event it should have been
the trigger f r o m the very outset that something very serious was wrong. The
question is, what would y o u do a bout it? I do not have an answer for that now.
Blake(?), Australia:
Question to Prof. Scott. In the observations of the plots of crack width in
the inspection chamber, after 1957 there seems to be evidence of stick slip
m o v e m e n t in the plots. Were t h e y ever correlated with the public observation
o f the so-called " m i n o r " earthquakes?
R.F. Scott:
No, I do n o t think t hat what y o u are seeing is stick slip. You have to
r e m e m b e r th at there were m a n y years of observation in a rather small-scale
plot. Observations were made m o n t h l y or bi-monthly of the crack width and
so if y o u expand the scale and look at t hem it does n o t look quite so m uch
like a stick slip. Usually, in the winter to spring, there was a steady increase
in the crack width over that period, and then usually in the summer to fall
m o n th s the crack width remained more or less stationary, only to increase
again the following winter--spring. Mr. Wilson has referred to t hat as temperature variations. I have the feeling myself t hat t hey might be more interesting than that. It is quite possible t ha t the actual crust of the earth was having
an effect on the movements too. It is very hard to get those events only from
t e mp er atu r e variations. In any case, t hey are not stick slip. There is an overall trend which, as Jerry Leonards was saying, the rate increased with time
and superimposed on t hat there are individual jumps, some of which are seasonal that we do n o t understand. Some of the movements are larger than
others and we do n o t understand that either -- perhaps t h e y were individual
fault movements. We have tried to correlate t h e m with earthquakes as well,
and there are jumps when there are no earthquakes and there are no jumps
when there are earthquakes. There is no correlation between earthquakes
and those individual little jumps.