Natural appeal
Music and fun
Local jewelry designer creates one-of-a-kind pieces.
Sierra Vista event to benefit Caldor Fire Fund.
News, etc., B1
News, etc., B1
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C a l i f o r n i a ’ s O l d e s t N e w s pa p e r – E s t. 18 51
Volume 170 • Issue 124 | 75¢
mtdemocrat.com
Friday, October 22, 2021
Photo courtesy of U.S. Forest Service
Firefighters are at work across the Eldorado National Forest as they continue to repair damage from firefighting efforts on the Caldor Fire.
Caldor Fire contained Mountain Democrat staff Photo courtesy of EID
El Dorado Irrigation District crews work to reinforce the face and buttresses of the Outingdale Dam in south county, which was leaking and deteriorating.
Outingdale Dam done in one month
Michael Raffety Mountain Democrat correspondent
I
t took 30 days for a crew of seven El Dorado Irrigation District employees and the district’s dam safety engineer to totally rebuild key elements of the Outingdale Dam. The community of Outingdale gets its water from the dam, a diversion dam on the Middle Fork of the Cosumnes River. Water had to be trucked in when the leaking and deteriorating dam stopped spilling this summer. District Engineer John Kessler reviewed the work on the 100-year-old, south county diversion dam Oct. 12 for the EID Board of Directors. Two elements of the dam were rebuilt and reinforced. First the top of the dam needed to be built up. Second, and especially important, was rebuilding the buttresses and the dam face between the four buttresses. The existing dam
buttresses were barely hanging on and the dam face was leaking like a sieve. The work began Aug. 30 when a coffer dam and temporary water bypass was set up and power was brought to the construction site. Kessler said he had already designed the rebar for the dam rehabilitation and had the fabrication shop at EID headquarters build it to specifications. Crews got right to work power washing the dam and rock faces, drilling holes for rebar reinforcement, installing reinforcing steel and eventually bringing in a concrete pumper truck to build up the dam. By Sept. 30 wooden forms for the concrete and workers’ scaffolding were removed to reveal the steel-reinforced dam face and buttresses. EID staff could also see the new dam height and slot for n
Word came down from incident command Thursday morning that firefighters have 100% containment of the Caldor Fire. Recent rain and snowfall at higher elevations helped finish the 60-day firefight. Firefighters will remain in the area to repair more than 400 miles of containment lines that were constructed. Some 51% of those repairs had been made as of Thursday morning. “Repair efforts set the immediate stage for our resources and community to recover from this devastating wildfire,” said Jeff Knudson, incident commander with the agency leading the last of the battle against the Caldor Fire, Great Basin Incident Management Team 7. Fire officials pointed out that although the blaze is 100% contained, it is not extinguished or fully controlled. Large diameter trees and stump holes will continue to smolder well into winter months. The Caldor Fire will be controlled when fire managers are confident the fire is not likely to get outside the containment line. Fire officials say fires can linger under control until winter rains or snow arrive to bury smoldering logs, embers or ash. While rare, fires called “zombie fires” have reemerged from under the snowmelt come spring. The Swan Lake Fire, which burned 100,000 acres in 2019 in Alaska’s Kenai National Wildlife Refuge Wilderness, was still smoldering in spring 2020. A closure remains in place around the Caldor Fire burn area in the Eldorado National Forest
See outingdale dam, page A6
n
See Caldor fire, page A3
McClintock, Kiley talk politics in El Dorado County visit Sel Richard Staff writer The mood in the room was festive at the annual El Dorado West Republican Women PLACE ADDRESS LABEL HERE
Federated luncheon, canceled last year due to COVID-19 restrictions. Cinda Walton, treasurer of the group, echoed the sentiments of fellow attendees of the in-person event. “It’s just great to see everybody come out and be in a community again,” she said. “When you watch the news, you just get a sense of despair, but when you actually talk to people in person, you get a sense of hope.” Elected officials rallied the crowd, which was made up of several area Republican Women Federated chapters as well as special guests. “This is half again as many as I have ever seen at one of these luncheons,” said
Mountain Democrat photo by Sel Richard
Congressman Tom McClintock speaks to attendees of Monday’s El Dorado West Republican Women Federated luncheon at Cameron Park’s Light of the Hills Lutheran Church. Congressman Tom McClintock as he began his address Monday at Cameron Park’s Light of the Hills Lutheran
E OAKS SENIOR CARE VILLAG
Church. “That speaks a lot to what’s happening across the country.” McClintock briefly outlined some
Brand New!
Our There’s No Place Like Home
triumphs of the previous presidential administration. “We produced the biggest regulatory
rollback in American history, four times greater than what Ronald Reagan was able to achieve in eight years, we achieved in those first two years,” he said, also mentioning control over a secure border, immigration enforcement and stoppage of fraudulent asylum claims. McClintock railed against current policies such as the cessation of border wall construction and illegal immigration. “This mass migration is moving through our border — the numbers are absolutely staggering,” he said. “In July more than 200,000 illegal immigrants were encountered by customs and border patrol. n
See visit, page A7
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