©Jeffrey S. Juel 2013

The Chinook River Bridge Tide Gates and

The Indisputable and Inconvenient Truth about Sea Level Rise By Jeffrey S. Juel, PE (Civil Engineer)

Abstract: This paper discusses the bridge and the tide gates located where Highway 101 crosses over the Chinook River

in SW Washington State. The bridge and the approaches to the bridge were designed to be just a few feet higher than

the highest tides. The designer signed the final drawings in March of 1926. This was a more than a half century before

anyone in the state of Washington started thinking about Global Warming and Sea Level Rise.

The Chinook River’s estuary has been severely degraded by the operation of these tide gates. The State of Washington

has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars tinkering with a fundamentally-flawed tide gate design that was installed

there (regrettably with my help) in 2008.

Everyone knows that Global Warming is causing the polar ice caps to melt. The science is settled. If sea level rise is

really happening, the bridge and the approaches at the Chinook River will have to be raised in the near future. Why not

simply deny permits to the Department of Transportation and wait for the rising sea level to wash-out the bridge and

the approaches? When the lowlands of the estuary are flooded by sea level rise, the state will not need to do anything

or buy any property. The estuary will be restored to full tidal exchange for free. Due to sea level rise, the Chinook River

estuary and the surrounding wetlands will be bigger and better than ever! (… or not.)

Keywords: Chinook River; Tide Gate; Global Warming; Al Gore; Charlatan; Sea Level Rise; Hoax;

The Highway 101 Bridge over the Chinook River

The Chinook River and its 12 square mile watershed are located in SW Washington State. The mouth of

the river is 3.5 miles east of the town of Ilwaco on the north shore of the Columbia River Estuary.

©Jeffrey S. Juel 2013 JUEL 2 of 39

The Chinook River is less than 6 miles from the mouth of the Columbia River; hence the reach of the

Chinook River located downstream from the Highway 101 Bridge experiences a tidal range that is

virtually identical to the tides on the Pacific Ocean at the mouth of the Columbia River. If the global sea

level is rising, the water levels at the mouth of the Columbia River and the Chinook River are also rising.

The Chinook River and Highway 101

Highway 1011 crosses over the Chinook River on a concrete structure which was constructed prior to

1930. The river’s flow passes beneath the roadway in three concrete box culverts. Each box culvert is

8’-3” wide by 8’-0” high. There are 6.5 feet of earth fill above the box culverts and beneath the roadway.

1 Per the as-built drawings, the roadway was originally called “State Road No. 12”. For those born after 1990: “Climate Change” was originally called “Global Warming and Sea Level Rise”.

©Jeffrey S. Juel 2013 JUEL 3 of 39

Three timber flap gates hung from chains are shown on the original drawings. These remarkably simple

flap gates seated against the western (downstream) 3:12 battered ends of the box culverts and allowed

river flow to flow out during ebb tides while preventing the rising tide from back-flowing during flood

tides.

The roadway approaches to the bridge are on fill and the finish grade of the roadway is roughly at the

same elevation as the bridge itself for several hundred yards to the north and south of the bridge. The

structure has been functioning for over 80 years, so it’s safe to assume that the designer knew what he

was doing. The original flap gates worked surprisingly well in spite of their simplicity and the fact that,

from our perspective, they were an environmental disaster. In the 1920’s, converting what was then

considered “useless mosquito-infested swampland” and floodplains into productive farmland or

pastures was considered to be a good thing.2

Back in 1926, a sensible designer would have considered the tidal records for the Columbia River Estuary

and used the data to estimate the water level for a 100-year flood. He would then add a few feet of

freeboard to this elevation and use this for the minimum viable finish grade for the roadway. The

freeboard accommodates waves that could conceivably occur during an extreme high tide. For this site,

about three feet of freeboard would be reasonable. The ground would be expected to consolidate and

subside by some amount due to the weight of the structure and the fill placed upon the native soil. The

designer accounted for this by adding a foot or two of “overbuild” to the finish grade.

In 2007, I observed flotsam that had been deposited by previous high water events near the site. Based

on the proximity of the deposited material, the above approach appears to be what the designer did

when he established the finish grade for the roadway. The roadway was about as high as it needs to be

so that the bridge and approaches will not be washed away if a strong southwesterly wind occurs during

an extreme high tide.

Sea Level Rise

The person who designed the Chinook River Bridge had no reason to concern himself with Global

Warming and Sea Level Rise. The drawings are dated March 1926, and Al Gore , Jr. was not born until

1948. The earliest use of the expression “Global Warming” was in an article published in 1975 by

geochemist Wallace Broecker of Columbia University's3 Lamont-Doherty Geological Observatory. The

article was titled: "Climatic Change: Are We on the Brink of a Pronounced Global Warming?"4

Since the Chinook River Bridge was obviously not designed to accommodate sea level rise due to global

warming, it will only be a matter of time before the bridge and its approaches will be overtopped and

washed-out during a storm concurrent with an unusually high tide. It’s remarkable that it hasn’t washed

2 There is good and bad in everything. 3 The fact that in the 1970’s, Columbia University was a hotbed of socialist & communist subversion led by SDS

leader and Weather Under-Grounder Mark Rudd is no cause for concern. 4 This is a question - not a statement. The answer in 1975 was “Who knows?”

©Jeffrey S. Juel 2013 JUEL 4 of 39

away already considering all of the CO2 we’ve pumped into the atmosphere over the 87 years that have

transpired since the bridge was designed in 1926.

Everyone has heard about the shrinking polar ice caps and the pathetic frantically dog-paddling and

drowning polar bears. We’ve all seen the videos of advancing glaciers5 crumbling into the ocean. All of

the melting ice must be raising the sea level. It’s only a matter of time before the melting ice makes its

way from Greenland and Antarctica to the West Coast of the U.S…. right?

Why am I even asking?! – The science is settled!

Or is it?

Significant Restoration of the Chinook River Will Take More Than a Century?

According to T.C. Dewberry of EcoTrust and Sea Resources:6

”Restoration is a long-term process. The working hypothesis of this plan is

that human activities have significantly degraded the productive capacity of

the Chinook watershed for over 150 years, and that significant restoration

will take more than a century (emphasis added). The plan assumes that no

short-term technological fixes will reverse the degradation. Rather, critical

areas of the watershed must be allowed to recover naturally, thereby

providing high quality salmon habitat.”

If the restoration of the Chinook River will take more than a century, what’s the rush? There was/is a

wonderful, extremely low-cost option for restoring the Chinook River to its previous untide-gated glory…

Back in 1997 (when the above plan was written), any sensible-minded person should have known that

within just a few decades, sea level rise caused by global warming would eventually wash-out the

Chinook River bridge and its approaches. The estuary would be routinely flooded and the land could

simply be abandoned and left to revert to its natural state.

5 Advancing glaciers normally suggests a cooling trend. Glaciers retreat during warming periods. 6 http://www.ecotrust.org/publications/chinook.html

©Jeffrey S. Juel 2013 JUEL 5 of 39

EcoTrust should have trusted then Vice President Albert A. Gore, and Sea Resources should have saved

the state’s limited resources. The Department of Fish and Wildlife should be patient, wait for Global

Warming and Sea Level Rise to happen, and then applaud when the bridge and its approaches are

washed away. The Chinook River watershed would recover naturally! For free!7

Why has the state spent years and tens (or hundreds?) of thousands of dollars doing studies? Why have

they spent hundreds of thousands of dollars replacing two of the three original timber tide gates with

expensive complicated aluminum GH-50 Combination Gates?

The Indisputable Truth About Global Warming and Sea Level Rise

I have followed the stories about Global Warming and Sea Level Rise very closely for over 25 years. From

1989 thru June of 19958 I worked on (and eventually became the lead designer for) the largest flood

control project constructed by the Seattle District US Army Corps of Engineers in the past 50 years: The

Chehalis River at South Aberdeen and Cosmopolis.9

The General Design Memorandum and the Plans and Specs for this project were developed just a few

years after the point in time when stories about Global Warming and Sea Level Rise first began to

appear in the main-stream media.10

Stories suggesting global sea level rise of ten feet or more within the next century were fairly common.

Former Senator/VP Al Gore, Jr.’s widely-distributed Oscar-winning video: An Inconvenient Truth,11 shows

maps of Florida, New York City and San Francisco with 20 feet of sea level rise.

When designing a levee, global warming-induced sea level rise complicates things – to say the least.

Determining how high the levee for the Aberdeen flood control project should be was already a very

interesting engineering problem. The peak elevation of a design flood with a specific return period for

the Chehalis River at Aberdeen is a combination of an extreme astronomic high tide concurrent with a

storm surge. Storm surge is caused by a low barometric pressure and high wind. Then there’s wave set

7 I am being facetious. I do not actually believe this. (I have been a staunch Global Warming and Sea Level Rise heretic for about 25 years.) 8 Construction began in June of 1995. I was the project engineer overseeing construction of the flood control project from June 1995 through October 1996. 9 I have a plaque with my name on it that says: “Seattle District USACE Engineer of the Year” because of this project. 10 NASA scientist James E. Hansen had testified to Congress about climate - specifically referring to “global warming” in June of 1988. 11 An Inconvenient Truth was released in 2006. I strongly recommend: The definitive response to the errors and omissions of An Inconvenient Truth by a mechanical engineer - Charles S. Opalek, PE

©Jeffrey S. Juel 2013 JUEL 6 of 39

up. Add a few tenths of a foot due to the backwater curve caused by concurrent high flow of the

Chehalis River and you have a design flood profile for a flood having a given return period.12

The Project Manager and designers considered the prognostications for Global Warming and Sea Level

Rise, consulted with the Corps’ best and brightest, and they determined (correctly) that it was unlikely

that the actual sea level rise would be more than a few inches over the next century.

The subgrade in South Aberdeen consists of a very thick layer of soft silty soil. This soil was expected to

consolidate over time, so the levee was constructed with an additional foot of height, or “over-build”.

The levee could settle a bit and still protect property from the design flood. The levee crest would be

monitored over time and raised as needed to address settlement. It could also be raised a few inches in

the unlikely event that the sea level became higher. As it turned out, we wisely ignored the over-blown

predictions of sea level rise due to Global Warming.

In the following years, I distinctly remember hearing and reading dire predictions of the coastal flooding

that would result from 20 feet of sea level rise due to melting of the ice on Greenland and/or Antarctica.

I smiled and imagined what would happen to these charlatans when time ultimately exposed them as

frauds – or at least as fourth-rate scientists.

I distinctly remember seeing an insane number of copies of An Inconvenient Truth on the shelves of the

local Blockbuster Video Store. It made me furious!13 What will people think when the predicted sea level

rise fails to materialize?14

That day has come … and gone. Global Warming became the more nebulous “Climate Change”. The

latest IPCC predictions for sea level rise (published in 2007) are nowhere near the 20 feet that Al Gore

suggested was possible:

Sea Level Rise (m at 2090-2099 relative to 1980-1999)

Case Model-based range excluding future rapid dynamical changes in ice flow

B1 scenario 0.18 – 0.38

A1T scenario 0.20 – 0.45

B2 scenario 0.20 – 0.43

A1B scenario 0.21 – 0.48

A2 scenario 0.23 – 0.51

A1FI scenario 0.26 – 0.59

(from the IPCC Summary for Policy Makers, February 2007)

12 It is actually a bit more complicated than this. What return periods for the tide, wave height, river flow, and barometric pressure should be combined to produce a flood with a 100-year return period? (Deep Thought, where are you?) 13 I think of this and smile every time I drive past another boarded-up Blockbuster Video Store. (Karma!) 14 Schadenfreude - Pleasure derived from the misfortunes of others.

©Jeffrey S. Juel 2013 JUEL 7 of 39

Two tenths of a meter is about 8 inches. 0.59 meters is less than two feet. Given the rate that the

predicted sea level rise has been decreasing since Al Gore released his movie (in 2006), by 2020 the IPCC

will be predicting no sea level rise at all.

In my humble opinion, sea level rise due to Global Warming will continue to be a major

disappointment… for some – BUT NOT ME!!! We could wait centuries before the existing bridge at the

Chinook River is washed-out due to sea level rise. Or maybe the IPCC’s models circa 2007 are wrong and

Al Gore is right! The threat of sea level rise could be real. (And maybe, just maybe, Big Oil has infiltrated

the IPCC!)15

I have actually worked with a few computer models. For my Master’s Degree in Civil Engineering, I wrote

dozens and dozens of pages of FORTRAN code to solve two-dimensional groundwater flow problems.

People who work with computer models will tell you that a person can make a complicated computer

model tell you whatever you want to hear. This is a bit of an exaggeration, but I’m sure that it applies to

complicated climate models.

Climate models are not definitive proof of anything, so I thought of an acid test for this quandary: In

March of 2013, I found the Washington State Department of Ecology’s “find ecology staff by subject”

web page. I searched for “Global Warming/Climate Change”, and sent the following e-mail to the

appropriate person at the DOE:

15

This confusing conundrum is what happens when the scientific method is perverted by politicians and journalists; when Big Oil and capitalism are fighting for their survival against non-profit NGO’s, Neo-Communists, and government bureaucrats; and when untold billions of dollars are at stake. Who cares about the truth?

©Jeffrey S. Juel 2013 JUEL 8 of 39

Mr. Clark was very helpful and responsive. He did some research, spoke with others at DOE and

reported back:

“We are unaware of any levees in design for managing coastal flooding

from Sea Level Rise.” … “We have also sent your request to WA Dept of Fish

and Wildlife to see if they have any info.”

The Aberdeen levees I designed and built in 1995/1996 are a mere 4.2 miles long. I believe that as of

2013, this remains the largest levee construction project in the state within the past 50 years.

It appears that no one in Washington State is taking the threat of future sea level rise very seriously.

They didn’t raise levees or build any significant new levees (other than the one I designed) since the

fear-mongering began around 1990.

Maybe Al Gore’s theory requires a bit more scrutiny…

The Senator has No Clues (and the Emperor has No Clothes)

A historic and fascinating opinion piece written by Senator Al Gore , Jr. was published in the NY Times on

22 April 1990:

This article is included in its entirety in Appendix A.

(See http://www.nytimes.com/1990/04/22/opinion/to-skeptics-on-global-warming.html for the

archived NY Times story.)

The opinion piece included nine typical “skeptic’s questions” followed by Al Gore’s answers. As I write

this, the year is 2013. It’s been 23 years since the NY Times published Al Gore’s opinion / hypothetical

Q & A session.

Should we raise levees to protect Washingtonians from sea level rise caused by global warming? Not

yet! It’s too soon.

It would appear that President Bush’s wholehearted endorsement of delay and inaction on sea level rise

caused by Global Warming was right!

©Jeffrey S. Juel 2013 JUEL 9 of 39

Many of Al Gore’s “facts” contained within the questions and answers are easily discredited:

from answer 1: “carbon dioxide and temperature have gone up and down in lockstep

for as far back as scientists can measure.”

The above is a fact; however this statement is very misleading. A close examination of the data sets

shows that the temperature has always gone up before the atmospheric CO2 levels increased.

“Our analyses of ice cores from the ice sheet in Antarctica shows that

the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere follows the rise in Antarctic

temperatures very closely and is staggered by a few hundred years at

most,”16

In real science, cause always precedes effect. If there is a cause and effect relationship between

atmospheric CO2 levels and warming, then warming caused the increased CO2 - not the other way

around!

How a scientist can accurately date the bubbles of gas trapped in the layers of ancient ice is intriguing.

For Al’s sake (and for the sake of the argument), I’ll assume that the dating of ice layers is an inexact

science and The Centre for Ice and Climate at the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen is

no match for the IPCC.

What Came First: The Warming or the CO2?

Science is never 100% settled. (Sorry Al.) It’s possible that we’ll never know with 100 percent certainty

what came first: The Warming or the CO2. But which is more plausible? A or B:

A: For any number of reasons17, the earth has experienced periods of warming and cooling

over the past tens of millions of years. During warmer periods, biological activity increased.

Using photosynthesis, plants take in CO2 and release O2. With respiration, animals do the

opposite. Decaying matter releases C02. This is what is known as the Carbon Cycle.

Some biological processes are capable of using carbon that is not already in the active

atmospheric carbon cycle. For example, limestone is used by gardeners as a soil supplement. It

breaks down and is taken up by plants. Nature undoubtedly does this as well when limestone

weathers.

16

Sune Olander Rasmussen, Associate Professor and centre coordinator at the Centre for Ice and Climate at the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen. 17 That had nothing to do with human activities.

©Jeffrey S. Juel 2013 JUEL 10 of 39

During periods of increased biological activity, the total amount of carbon in the active

atmospheric carbon cycle increases and thus atmospheric CO2 levels increase. When the climate

is cooler, biological activity decreases considerably - especially when much of the earth is

covered in ice sheets. The suppressed carbon cycle during cold periods results in less carbon in

the form of atmospheric CO2.18

B: CO2 in the atmosphere causes the earth to reflect less energy from the sun back into space.

Nothing else that could affect earth’s climate matters very much: increases or decrease in the

output of the sun, ice sheets, water vapor, volcanic activity, meteor impacts, etc. Over the past

millions of years, with uncanny reliability, whenever the CO2 level increased, the Earth’s climate

always warmed; and when the CO2 level fell, the planet always cooled.

CO2 is an amazing substance. At a concentration of only 600 parts per million it will change life

as we know it!

I personally think that A makes much more sense than B… but I am not a climatologist - and neither is Al

Gore.

Unlike Al, I do not accept the contention that the science of Global Warming Climate Change is settled.19

And unlike Al, I believe in science and the proper application of the scientific method. I also believe that

the proper application of the scientific method should be free from political manipulation and coercion.

Getting back to Al’s letter…..

from question 2: “Do we know enough to act?”

and from answer 2: “… A draft of the scientists' long-awaited report, leaked to the press

this week, concludes that we must act now. The scientists say there's still a chance

that the problem won't be as bad as they fear, but there's an equal chance that it will

be much worse than predicted.20

If “we must act now” (in 1990), Global Warming and Sea Level Rise must be well under way by “now” in

2013. Why are we not raising our existing levees and building new ones to protect America’s coastal

communities from flooding?

Maybe I missed it and we really did act! We markedly reduced the global CO2 emissions and we saved

the planet! (I’m joking.)

18 There is also a marine carbon cycle. During warmer periods, the net effect may be that oceans give up dissolved CO2 - which would increase the concentration in the atmosphere. 19

They can’t even decide what to call it. (Global Warming? Or Climate Change?) 20 “The Scientists”?!! Not “my favorite scientists” or “some scientists”. A few scientists leaking a report to the press is not how science is settled. There’s this thing called “peer review”…

©Jeffrey S. Juel 2013 JUEL 11 of 39

And then there’s this gem:

from answer 1: “Even the skeptics agree that concentrations of carbon dioxide will be

pushed to levels of 600 parts per million within the next 35 to 45 years.”

The graph below was taken from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) website for

their Fourth Assessment Report (2007). The different colored lines are for the various models and

different assumptions. “… the next 35 to 45 years” that Al Gore referred to (in 1990) would be 2025 to

2035.

It is obvious that Al Gore and his supposedly agreeing skeptics were mistaken about the projected CO2

level reaching 600 ppm in 35 to 45 years. The current atmospheric CO2 concentration is only 396.80.21

Per the above plot from the 2007 IPCC report, it won’t even break 500 ppm by 2035.

None of the latest models22 used by the IPCC predict a level of CO2 approaching 600 ppm before 2035. Is

it possible that the climate models that were used by the IPCC in 2007 are wrong?

Answer #3 is particularly disconcerting:

from answer 3: “While the Earth is indeed vast in size, the atmosphere surrounding it

is less than one one-thousandth the thickness of the Earth's diameter.”

Everything is relative; the earth is tiny compared to the Sun, Jupiter and Saturn. On the other hand, “the

Earth is indeed vast in size” compared to Al Gore’s intellect - but it is not vast in size compared to his ego

or his carbon foot-print.

The earth’s diameter is 7,918 miles. Divide 7,918 miles by 1,000 and you get 7.9 miles. Here’s the

problem: The earth’s atmosphere does not suddenly end at some specific elevation. The gasses that 21 http://co2now.org/ on 3/29/2013 22

Maybe Al is right about Global Warming and the skeptics are right about the computer models. The computer models are unreliable after all! (We’ll find out in another 12 to 22 years.) I believe that that Al Gore will continue to be dead wrong.

©Jeffrey S. Juel 2013 JUEL 12 of 39

make up the atmosphere become less concentrated and the pressure decreases with increasing

elevation.

Real scientists describe the earth’s atmosphere as a sequence of layers: The lowest layer of the earth’s

atmosphere is the Troposphere. The Stratosphere lies above the Troposphere and the thin Ozone Layer

lies between the Troposphere and the Stratosphere. Above the Stratosphere is the Mesosphere and

then the Thermosphere. Beyond the Thermosphere is what is known as the Exosphere – which is not

part of the atmosphere. (The prefix “exo” means “outside”.)

The approximate thickness of earth’s atmosphere as defined by atmospheric scientists is about 500

kilometers. Converting 500 km to miles gives 310 miles23 - not 7.9 miles. The Earth’s Atmosphere is not

the Troposphere.

Al Gore never did get this straight. In his movie An Inconvenient Truth (released in 2007) Al said:

“My friend the late Carl Sagan used to say if you had a big globe with a coat

of varnish on it, the thickness of that varnish relative to that globe would be

pretty much the same as the thickness of the earth’s atmosphere compared

to the earth itself.”

Imagine an 18-inch diameter globe. The atmosphere would scale to be 0.7 inches thick. It would take

3.36 gallons of varnish to model the atmosphere. It would take 13 coats of varnish (at 1 mil per coat)

just to model the troposphere.

Here’s the math:

where T is the thickness of the varnish atmosphere surrounding the globe.

The volume of varnish required to model the atmosphere is the difference between the volumes of the

two spheres:

⁄ (

)

⁄ (

)

Converting cubic inches to gallons:

(

)

23 The exact thickness of the earth’s atmosphere is indeterminate; however it is effectively the same today as it was in 1990.

©Jeffrey S. Juel 2013 JUEL 13 of 39

Either Carl Sagan wasn’t as brilliant as people thought, or he was misquoted.

Below is a more credible quote that has been attributed to Carl Sagan:

We've arranged a civilization in which most crucial

elements profoundly depend on science and technology.

We have also arranged things so that almost no one

understands science and technology. This is a

prescription for disaster. We might get away with it for a

while, but sooner or later this combustible mixture of

ignorance and power is going to blow up in our faces.24

Al Gore clearly contributed to Sagan’s belief that “almost no one understands science”. The last

sentence in the above quote may be the most prescient thing ever uttered!

And then there’s this irrelevant point:

from answer 3: “… air now contains 600 percent more chlorine atoms than it did 40

years ago.”

Considering the source, this factoid is probably incorrect – but I cannot prove it. Chlorine (Cl) is an

element - an atom with 17 protons - and it makes up a very minor fraction of the atoms composing the

molecules of the earth’s atmosphere. The concentration of chlorine 40 years ago was effectively zero. A

6-fold increase is still… effectively zero.

No scientist has ever postulated that any of the molecules in the atmosphere that contains chlorine are

significant Greenhouse Gases. This alleged factoid is immaterial to the subject of Al Gore’s opinion piece.

On the other hand… it is interesting to note that just a few years after this was published, some of Al’s

followers and like-minded useful idiots pushed for a ban on Chlorine.25

Chlorine is used in the manufacture of chlorofluorocarbons (CFC’s) and plastics – among other unsavory

things. Bleach and many detergents contain chlorine. Chlorine is also used to disinfect drinking water

and kill infectious organisms in swimming pools. Your stomach acids include chlorine. Table salt is NaCl –

sodium chloride.

24 It would be a delicious irony if Mr. Sagan was speaking directly to Mr. Gore when he made this observation/prediction. 25

“The International Joint Commission says chlorine should be banned because a majority of the problem pollutants in the Great Lakes are chlorine-based. Industry says the ban would hurt the economy.” USA TODAY, Rae Tyson, Oct 21, 1993. (Beware of international commissions!)

If we were to use India Ink

to model the

concentration of CO2 in

the 3.35 gallons of

varnish/atmosphere, we’d

need about one half

tablespoon to simulate

600 ppm of CO2. To model

600 ppm of CO2 in the

troposphere would

require less than three

drops.

©Jeffrey S. Juel 2013 JUEL 14 of 39

Regulate the use and manufacturing of some chlorine-containing substances… but ban Chlorine???!!!

Every penny of George Soros’ vast fortune, every environmentalist in the world, and a 100-percent

obedient and insane media would not be enough to pull-off a drive to ban chlorine. How do you ban an

element? A better question is: Who in their right mind would even publish this story?

And why stop with science when you can butcher your history too?:

from answer 4: “Five hundred years ago, most scientists said the world was flat.”

Five hundred years prior to 1990 was 1490. This was just two years before Columbus sailed the ocean

blue looking for China and discovered the new world. The controversy that Columbus sailed into was not

whether the earth was flat, but how large of a sphere it was; How far would a person have to sail to

reach the orient by sailing west?

Clausius Ptolemy (90 A.D until 168 A.D.) was a mathematician, astrologer (mixed astronomy with

astrology), and a geographer. He believed that the earth was a sphere. His theories dominated the

world’s understanding of astronomy for over a thousand years. (There was never a period in the past

2,000 years when most scientists believed that the earth was flat.)

Al Gore does not know history and he is not even a fourth-rate scientist (but he is an idiot of the first

order). How he came to within a hair’s breadth26 of being our president is amazing… and disturbing. The

fact that he submitted his letter to the New York Times without having a real scientist27 fact-check it is

troubling. This Senator’s son was born with a silver spoon in his mouth.28 He could have easily paid an

actual scientist to write this for him – or at least to read it and correct the most blatant errors before he

sealed the envelope and sent his pathetic letter off to the NY Times.

Time was of the essence! Al’s letter had to go out ASAP:

from answer 7: The changes could occur so swiftly that effective adaptation might

become virtually impossible. The longer we wait, the more unpleasant our choices

become.

So… if the changes could occur so swiftly, how can it be that in the past 23 years we haven’t raised the

existing levees somewhere – anywhere - in the hopelessly blue and very green State of Washington?29

Adding a half a foot of height to any levee would be fairly easy.

But we can’t wait! … or can we?

26 17 more votes for Clinton’s impeachment in the US senate in 1999, or a few hundred more votes from people in the state of Florida in 2000, and Al Gore would have been sworn in as president of the United States of America. 27 Or a person with a 5th grade education level. 28

Courtesy of a close family friend named Armand Hammer, also known as “Comrade Armand Hammer” as inscribed on a photo given to him by Vladimir Ilyich Lenin - but that’s no cause for concern. 29 Washington State’s nickname is: “The Evergreen State”.

©Jeffrey S. Juel 2013 JUEL 15 of 39

From question 8.: Isn't the cost of preventing this problem too high?

and from answer 8.: Many of the solutions, such as eliminating subsidies for clear-

cutting forests, actually save money. In any event, the costs of inaction are much

higher, even if the skeptics refuse to measure them.

It is probably safe to assume that back in 1990, the subsidies for clear-cutting forests in the US

amounted to less than 0.01% of the total federal budget. Clear-cutting a forest, turning the wood into

chips, and then burying the forest’s carbon-rich biomass along with the region’s trash in a nearby landfill

would actually be a low-tech and comparatively inexpensive way to sequester carbon. Biomass decays

very slowly given the anaerobic conditions that exist in garbage dumps. If the forest is immediately

replanted and the landfill is capped and turned into green open space (or a new forest), what would be

wrong with that?30

America is on the brink of bankruptcy. Vast amounts of our nation’s capital have been used to subsidize

green energy alternatives and inefficient carbon sequestration schemes that require massive subsidies

and do not make any economic sense. When America goes bankrupt, that will be very inconvenient and

fatal proof that the cost of preventing this imagined problem was too high.

Question and Answer Number Nine

Al’s hypothetical question number nine deserves special attention:

Q.: The changes you say are needed are too sweeping to be politically possible.

A.: What if I had asked you six months ago to assess the possibility that people in

every country in Eastern Europe would abandon Communism, sing ''We Shall

Overcome'' and embrace democracy within 90 days? Would you have called that

''unlikely?'' We all would have. But it happened because people changed their way of

thinking about Communism.

The politics of Global Warming and Sea Level Rise has something to do with communism?

Very interesting…

30 Again, I’m being facetious. There is absoultely nothing to be gained by the sequestration of carbon.

©Jeffrey S. Juel 2013 JUEL 16 of 39

A number of remarkable events happened in the months just before Al Gore’s letter was published. A

timeline is helpful to sort through Al’s very convoluted question:

“What if I had asked you six months ago to assess the possibility that people

in every country in Eastern Europe would abandon Communism…”

“Abandon” is a pretty innocuous word to describe what the People in Eastern Europe did to their

communist dictators. The Romanians tried and executed Nicolae Ceauşescu and his wife on Christmas

Day of 1989.31

It is deeply disturbing and beyond the Pale that Senator Albert Gore thought that communism collapsed

simply because “people changed their way of thinking about communism”. In 1990, he couldn’t

comprehend that for decades the Soviet Union’s empire in Eastern Europe was ruled by dysfunctional

repressive tyrannical dictatorships that needed to be overthrown.

“We all would have called it unlikely that people in every country in Eastern

Europe would abandon Communism.”

I have to wonder who was the “We” that Al was referring to. If the statement above was used in a letter

from the chairman of the CPUSA to the CPUSA members, it would have made complete sense.

31 Being commies, they probably didn’t have any plans for their Christmas Day anyway.

Dictator Nicolae Ceauşescu and his wife are executed in Romania

Germans are free to cross from East to West Berlin

Six months prior to April 22 1990

(The date of Al’s hypothetical question to “you”.)

Lithuania declares independence from the USSR

The date that Al Gore’s letter is published in the NY Times

Reunification of Germany

Armand Hammer dies of bone cancer

©Jeffrey S. Juel 2013 JUEL 17 of 39

If Al Gore imagined that he was speaking for all Americans when he wrote the above sentiment, this is

absolute rubbish! Ronald Reagan was not dead yet. Does anyone think the collapse of the Soviet Empire

caught Regan by surprise?

Given Al’s position as the US Senator representing the State of Tennessee, “We all”32 could theoretically

be interpreted to mean all of the people of Tennessee. When Regan was re-elected in 1984 he carried

the state of Tennessee. This was only one year after Regan’s famous Evil Empire speech. Regan was well-

known for his contempt for Communism.33 I doubt that by 1990 a majority of Tennesseans believed that

the collapse of the Soviet Empire was unlikely - or unnecessary.

Granted, the implosion did happen remarkably quickly - and prophetically. After the door was finally

kicked in, the whole rotten structure came crashing down. Ever since the Soviet Union was dissolved on

the day after Christmas in 1991, I’ve been trying to figure out how communism survived as long as it did.

A key factor in the Soviet Union’s much delayed demise was Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s decision to

align America with Stalin in the contest34 for world domination under way between Stalin’s International

Socialism and Hitler’s German National Socialism. The Gore family’s cozy relationship35 with Soviet Agent

Armand Hammer before and after WWII undoubtedly delayed the demise of the Soviet Empire and

prolonged the dictatorships of Eastern Europe.

Note that I included Armand Hammer dying of bone cancer in my timeline. Hammer kept Gore, as he

liked to say, ‘in my back pocket.’ When he said this, Hammer would touch his wallet and chuckle. He was

referring to Senator Al Gore Sr., but it’s likely that he also had considerable influence on his son as well.

People could speculate that in April of 1990, while they were witnessing the collapse of Communism, Al

Gore, Jr. and Armand Hammer jointly concocted a scheme to sabotage American hegemony by

bankrupting capitalism and vilifying Big Business with a contrived theory of an imminent ecological

catastrophe. I do not subscribe to this conspiracy theory. Al Gore’s letter is so incredibly flawed that it

could not have been part of a conspiracy. This letter is a simple case of a useful idiot writing a letter and

failing to have his handlers review it before he sent it to the NY Times.

It’s unfortunate that Armand Hammer died just 381 days before his beloved Soviet Union formally

dissolved on December 26, 1991. I would have liked for him to see it. It would have been a wonderful

parting gift for Armand and a joyful Christmas present for the world!

32 “We all” is the plural form of “You all” - which in Tennessee either means “you” (singular), or “you and the people around you”. 33 Communists typically refer to this as “Fascism”. 34 Both Stalin and Hitler invaded Poland in September of 1941, marking the beginning of WWII. 35 Al Gore, Jr. rarely uses his middle name - or even middle initial. On his Nobel Peace Prize, his name is “Albert Arnold (Al) Gore, Jr”. “Arnold” is suspiciously close to “Armand”. I’d love to see definitive proof of what Al’s middle name actually is. When Al was born in the spring of 1948, naming him after a Soviet agent would not have been unthinkable. The Soviets were our allies when Germany was defeated less than three years before Al was born.

©Jeffrey S. Juel 2013 JUEL 18 of 39

A Convenient Hoax

“Global Warming and Sea Level Rise” will go down as one of the greatest hoaxes the greatest hoax of all

time.36 This swindle is actually much more complicated than a simple hoax. It is/was a hysteria fed by a

biased and unaccountable media; climate researchers competing for attention and government funds;

the subversion of the scientific method; useful idiots; subversives; and a gaggle of political hacks.

Global Warming and/or Climate Change are politicized science. Many if not most of the conclusions

reached are fatally flawed. “Garbage In - Garbage Out.”

But I digress…

It’s fortuitous that the people responsible for flood protection in the state of Washington had the good

sense to wait and see rather than waste money raising existing levees and constructing new levees

along our developed shorelines in response to Al Gore’s Global Warming and Sea Level Rise propaganda.

It would be great for my business if more levees were constructed since I could potentially sell more

environmentally-friendly tide gates. Unfortunately for me, I have standards and I refuse to look the

other way and allow bad science and bad engineering to happen in the interest of me Harvesting Gold.

Back to the Chinook River…

It would seem that in 2006, the Department of Fish and Wildlife, the Department of Ecology, EcoTrust,

Sea Resources (and others?) agreed with me. They determined that Al Gore, Jr. was nothing more than a

conniving politician and a fourth-rate scientist. Waiting for Al’s rising sea level to effortlessly restore the

Chinook River was not a viable strategy.37

Since Sea Level Rise due to man-caused Global Warming was no longer a dire threat; something had to

be done with those darn tide gates on the Chinook River Bridge. EcoTrust et al stepped up to the plate

and contributed money and manpower for a plan to Restore the River.38

It makes no sense, but just one year later, in 2007, Al Gore won the Nobel Peace Prize!!!

The Nobel Peace Prize 2007 was awarded jointly to Intergovernmental

Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and Albert Arnold (Al) Gore, Jr. "for their

efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made

climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are

needed to counteract such change"

36 The Great Global Warming Swindle, Martin Durkin (2007) 37

I am being facetious... 38 Again - I am being facetious. I suspect that EcoTrust and Sea Resources received a good-sized grant from the state for their efforts to Restore the River.

©Jeffrey S. Juel 2013 JUEL 19 of 39

“Curiouser and curiouser…” - Alice

My involvement with the GH-50 Combination Gates at the Chinook River

In July of 2006, I was working for a company

named INCA Engineers. I received a call from

the owner of the general contracting firm

that had constructed my Aberdeen and

Cosmopolis levees and tide gates – Mr. John

Quigg. His firm was preparing a bid for the

Chinook River Wetland Reserve Program

(WRP) Tide Gate Maintenance project.

This was a design-build project; however the

contract actually didn’t entail much design.

The contract required that we remove two of

the three timber flap gates and that we

replace them with two GH-50 Combination

Gates - which would be provided by a

company named Golden Harvest.39

The design work that I did for the project

involved a tapered stainless steel box that

would be attached to the 3:12 batter ends of

two of the existing concrete box culverts.

The steel boxes provided plumb flanges onto

which each of the GH-50 Combination Gates

would be bolted.

39 I knew nothing about Golden Harvest at this time. I also had not yet conceived of my Variable Back-flow Flap Gate.

©Jeffrey S. Juel 2013 JUEL 20 of 39

The tapered box that I designed looked like this:

©Jeffrey S. Juel 2013 JUEL 21 of 39

I also designed a drilling template and I composed a document describing in detail how the template

would be used to drill and set threaded anchors in the concrete that the tapered boxes would be

installed against.

While working on this design, I corresponded with Golden Harvest to assure that I had the proper bolt

pattern for their combination gate. I also needed to quantify the forces that would act on the tapered

box so that I could assure that the bolts securing the box to the existing structure had sufficient

resistance to pull-out and shear. The people at Golden Harvest must have thought that it was absolutely

delicious that I was working with them while, unbeknownst to me, they were simultaneously taking over

my brain-child: the Aberdeen tide gate design. They were doing this with the help the Portland District

USACE40 for the Julia Butler Hansen tide gate project.

I was on site for the installation of the tapered boxes and tide gates and the work went without a hitch.

Quigg Brothers Inc (Eric Chilson, Matt Zepeda, et al) and the diver that they hired did a great job. My

drilling template worked as designed and the tapered boxes fit perfectly.

Quigg Brothers Inc sent a letter of appreciation (attached) to my boss thanking him for my efforts.

…“I can assure you, without Mr. Juel’s participation in this project this

project would not be the success it ended up being.”

The Trouble with the GH-50 Combination Gate

While I was working on this project, I could not imagine how Golden Harvest’s combination gate could

possibly work well - but I didn’t dwell on it. I did what I was asked to do. There was no time to redesign

the tide gate and it would be pointless to propose some other tide gate design this late in the game.41

The GH-50 Combination Gate is simply a top-hinged flap gate with the hinge attached to a carriage on a

pair of vertical rails. The carriage allows the flap gate to be raised so that water can back-flow beneath

the gate when the water is higher downstream than it is upstream. When the carriage is fully lowered,

the GH-50 is like a normal flap gate. When it is fully raised, the culvert is unobstructed and water can

flow in and out with the tides.

40 Katia Chambers and Blaine Ebberts et al. 41 I would not dream-up by VBFG control mechanism until a year later – in July of 2008.

©Jeffrey S. Juel 2013 JUEL 22 of 39

The main problem with the GH-50 is that the cumulative volume of water that will pass beneath the

partially-raised flap gate during a given flood tide is complicated. It is an integration of the varying flow

rate which is a function of the amount of driving head42 in effect at any moment as the flood tide rises

and then falls.

∑ ( )

Where Q(t) is the flow rate as a function of time and Δt is a time step. “flood tide” is the time period

during which the tidal water level downstream is higher than the water level on the protected side of

the combination gate.

Runoff from the watershed during the flood tide reduces the back-flow volume for a given tide and

results in a remarkably complicated stochastic flow routing model. Both the timing and the scale of the

runoff hydrograph come into play.

To simplify things, assume that there is no significant runoff. When there is no runoff, the total volume

of water that back-flows beneath the combination gate during a flood tide will vary from one tide to the

next. The combination gate can be raised or lowered to increase or decrease the volume of water for a

given amount of driving head. A proper gate setting would presumably be determined over time by trial

and error.

Typical (well behaved) tides look something like this:

If the high tide is unusually high, the driving head will be greater and more water will back-flow beneath

the combination gate during a flood tide than if the high tide is lower than average. For higher than

average high tides, the total duration of the back-flow event will also be a bit longer.

42 Driving head is the difference between the water level at the mouth of the Chinook River and the water level to the east of the tide gate.

©Jeffrey S. Juel 2013 JUEL 23 of 39

And then there are the “problem tides”. What I refer to as a “problem tide” looks something like this:

Since every other low tide is relatively high, there may not be much (if any) outflow during the brief and

not particularly low low tide between the high tides of the problem tide. If there is a low barometric

pressure or high flow on the Columbia River (and a resulting backwater curve), then the water levels

downstream from the tide gate will be as much as a foot higher than the predicted astronomical tides.

During a problem tide (and/or low barometric pressure etc.), with the increased back-flow and reduced

outflow, the resulting high water level within the estuary on the protected side of the tide gates could

be significantly higher than the high water level on an average day with a typical well behaved tide.

I assume that the burden of adjusting and then resetting the GH-50’s before and after unusually high

tides, problem tides, high Columbia River flows, low barometric pressures, predicted high rainfall events,

etc. is a major nuisance - especially since the GH-50 can only be adjusted during outflow. The person

responsible for setting the gates may have to go to the site in the middle of the night and/or on short

notice.

The consequence of failing to adjust the GH-50’s prior to a series of problem tides etc. could be

significant. The erratic and variable depth of the water upstream from the gates would frustrate the

restoration efforts for the estuary. No one wants to see salmon stranded in pastures. If the property

owner(s) upstream had their property flooded, they might be irate.

I imagine that the combination gates are fully lowered and back-flow is simply disabled during the Fall

and Winter months. This is when the highest tides of the year occur and when particularly unfavorable

problem tides occur. There is also a higher probability of unusually low barometric pressure and high

runoff. This state of affairs is less than ideal for the restoration of the Chinook River Estuary.

©Jeffrey S. Juel 2013 JUEL 24 of 39

Hazardous Flow Conditions at the Combination Gate

Another problem I envisioned with the proposed Combination Gates at the Chinook River Bridge is

related to the flow field beneath the partially-open gates during high tides. If the gates are only raised

by a foot or two, when there is a large driving head in effect, the resulting high velocity back-flow and

turbulence will be hazardous to passing juvenile salmon. The turbulence could cause the salmon to be

dashed against the floor or walls of the box culverts. The salmon could also be scraped and descaled as

they pass beneath the edge of the partially raised gate.

Side view of the Chinook River Bridge combination gates during high tide.

Salmon can lose scales fairly easily. The loss of a few scales can be a life-and-death incident for a

juvenile salmon.

Juvenile salmon may

also become disoriented

and/or stunned by the

turbulence. They would

then be easy prey for

herons, gulls, and other

predators lurking just

east of the bridge.

©Jeffrey S. Juel 2013 JUEL 25 of 39

The flow field through the box culverts would be much better for juvenile and adult salmon if the

combination gates were fully lowered and were then held relatively wide open (swung from their

hinges) by stainless steel wire rope and a “tension regulator”. This is what I refer to as a “Variable Back-

flow Flap Gate”. During flood tides, the back-flow and the rising water level on the tidal side of the tide

gate would cause open gate to close within 30 minutes of when the water reached and submerged the

leading edge of the open flap gate.

The position/angle of the open flap gate would determine at what tidal water level the gate would close.

At some point, the “draft force” caused by the flowing water acting on the now submerged bottom edge

of the open flap gate would over-power the tension regulator. The tide gates would then close and

remain closed while the tide crested. At some point during the following ebb tide, the water level

upstream and the falling water level downstream from the closed tide gate would be equal. The seating

head would be near zero and the gate would swing / spring wide open.

Side view of the Chinook River Bridge combination gates retrofitted with a VBFG control mechanism. (Tension Regulator not shown.)

The graphic above shows the top-hinged aluminum flap gate a moment before the draft force is

sufficient to overcome the resistance in the tension regulator. Note that the flow field is not significantly

affected by the wide-open flap gate. The flow field is very uniform, and there will be very little

turbulence within the box culverts.

©Jeffrey S. Juel 2013 JUEL 26 of 39

Good intentions are no replacement for good engineering. The Chinook River tide gates are not an

anomaly. Good intentions along with poor engineering are the norm for tide gate projects in the State of

Washington.43 This will continue as long as there is no consequence for failure.

An Unfortunate Series of Events at Edison Slough

Erratic nuisance flooding happened at Edison Slough in Skagit County in 2003 after a Waterman Self

Regulating Tide Gate (SRT) was installed there. This tide gate design is less than ideal. Setting the floats

so that the gate closes at a given water level during the flood tide is difficult and it is done by trial and

error. The height of the connection point; the length of the arms; the size of the spherical floats; and the

angle at the connection point are variables that can be tinkered with to affect how the gate operates

and when it closes during the flood tide.

Due to its complexity, the Waterman SRT

at Edison Slough operated very

erratically. On more than one occasion,

the SRT allowed too much water to pass

upstream before it finally closed during

the flood tide.

43 Edison Slough (2003 & 2006), Port Stanley (2005), Fornsby Creek (2005-2008), Wiley Slough (2008-2009), Fisher Slough (2011-2012)

©Jeffrey S. Juel 2013 JUEL 27 of 39

After the property upstream was flooded on multiple occasions, the owner went on the war path. His

crusade culminated in House Bill 1418, which exempted agricultural drainage in Washington State from

certain environmental requirements:

This bill passed easily and was signed into law by then Governor Gary Locke in 2003. Governor Locke and

the majority of the state’s legislators are Democrats. So much for the party of clean air and clean water;

the party of protecting endangered species; and the party of Saving the Planet.

I passionately believe that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Good intentions cannot

overcome poor design. Edison Slough is a classic example.

Edison Slough is just one of a number of disastrous fish-friendly tide gate projects that have been

attempted in the past two decades in Washington State. There were actually two unsuccessful attempts

to replace the tide gate at Edison Slough with a tide gate that allows some tidal exchange. The first was

in 2003, and the second was in 2006.

To be fair, designing a viable fish-friendly tide gate is one of the most challenging things I have ever done

as an engineer.

©Jeffrey S. Juel 2013 JUEL 28 of 39

A photograph of the hapless SRT at Edison Slough (manufactured by Waterman Industries of Exeter CA)

was shown on page three of an earlier version of Golden Harvest’s on-line tide gate catalog. I cut and

pasted the model number and photo from their catalog:

This is comical since Golden Harvest had nothing to do with this particular tide gate.44

Golden Harvest did, however,

manufacture the top-hinged flap gate

that replaced the Waterman SRT at a

culvert at Edison Slough. The

photograph to the right shows me

standing on the culvert in 2012. Note

that the flap gate is half-buried in

sediment. It serves no purpose.

Golden Harvest is responsible for not

one but two failed tide gates at Edison

Slough.

Why would they want to take credit

for the disastrous Waterman SRT that

was installed there as well?45

44 They have no ethical standards. Only after I publicized this fraud did Golden Harvest replace the photo shown here with a photograph showing three carbon-copies of Waterman’s SRT (that they may have actually manufactured). 45 The truth doesn’t matter. The ends justify the means.

©Jeffrey S. Juel 2013 JUEL 29 of 39

The Edison Slough SRT Replacement Project

While I was out of commission

recovering from a severe Traumatic

Brain Injury (TBI) that I suffered on

April 23, 2005, a hydrologist who

knew of my Aberdeen tide gates

(Edwin T. Zapel of nhc) decided to

try his hand at doing real

engineering - rather than number-

crunching hydrological analysis.

It didn’t go very well at all. In his

second attempt46 at this, he

assisted Golden Harvest with their

attempt to produce a knock-off of

my Aberdeen tide gate for the

Edison Slough SRT Replacement

project.

Their knock-off (they call it a GH-850) was installed in 2006 and it closed on the first flood tide and then

never opened again. Skagit County wasted $191,000 on this project.

On January 14, 2009, I retrofitted the “stuck shut” GH-850 tide gate at Edison Slough with my VBFG

control mechanism. After a few months of operation, the upstream property owner – Mr. Duane

Eitreim47 - conceded that the retrofitted tide gate worked flawlessly. He sat down and happily let me

film him giving an enthusiastic endorsement / testimonial about the retrofitted tide gate at Edison

Slough.

46 His first attempted tide gate project eventually failed catastrophically in the Spring of 2011. 47 Mr. Eitreim is the fellow who instigated HB 1418,

©Jeffrey S. Juel 2013 JUEL 30 of 39

Click on the image below for a link to this video.

The Edison Slough tide gate closes like clockwork and it has been opening and closing on every tide,

year-round, unattended, with no intervention or adjustments and no failures for four years (as of

January 2013).

The salt-tolerant vegetation along the slough upstream from the tide gate is truly spectacular! Click on

the image below for a video shot at Edison Slough in the summer of 2012.

An amazing thing about Edison Slough is that absolutely NOTHING was done to restore the vegetation

along the slough upstream from the tide gate. Reintroducing year-round limited tidal exchange with

brackish water was all that was required. Nature did the slough restoration on its own.

If House Bill 1418 wasn’t enough of a disaster, my ultimate triumph at Edison Slough has truly tragic

implications for the wetland restoration industry in Washington State. The tide gate there operates

without anyone punching a time clock. The salt-tolerant plants somehow found the site and they are

©Jeffrey S. Juel 2013 JUEL 31 of 39

thriving without any make-work for anyone. This is a horrible precedent for the Environmental-Industrial

Complex.48

I have witnessed the Environmental-Industrial Complex in operation first hand on multiple occasions. I

believe that it has as much or more unwarranted influence than the dreaded military-industrial complex.

“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of

unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-

industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power

exists and will persist.” – Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1961

Planned Obsolescence (or Outright Failure)

If you think about it, every successful environmental restoration project reduces the urgency for “Saving

the Planet”. This reality may explain the Nature Conservancy’s seemingly inexplicable $7.7 million Fisher

Slough make-work Project.

“… at some point during the two year endeavor, 225 positions from 16

organizations were in contact with it.” - Project Manager Jenny Baker

The photograph below shows one of the main features of the Fisher Slough project – “The Big Ditch

Siphon”.

48 Beware the Environmental-Industrial Complex, New Europe Online, Dr. David Zaruk, December 14, 2009

©Jeffrey S. Juel 2013 JUEL 32 of 39

It’s hard to believe, but there are fish in this waterway. I’ve seen them.

$7.7 million dollars and 225 positions from 16 organizations could not have produced this big of a mess

by accident.49

Greedy capitalist corporations theoretically have a vested interest in planned obsolescence. Likewise,

the bloated and unregulated environmental-industrial complex (awash in state and federal money) has a

vested interest in expensive detailed planning for long term restoration projects with labor-intensive

make work. Ironically, the projects also have detailed, pain-staking (but pointless) long-term monitoring

plans. Anything to make another buck! And most of these organizations are all Not-For-Profit – What a

great cover!

There is no accountability and the failure of their restoration projects assures that the urgency to save

the planet will never go away. This is far worse than planned obsolescence!

The Plan for the Chinook River

In a 1997 document titled: The Plan for the Chinook River, T.C. Dewberry of EcoTrust stated:

“Restoration is a long-term process.”

“The plan assumes that no short-term technological fixes will reverse the

degradation (at the Chinook River).”

Based on what I have observed at Edison Slough, I emphatically disagree with the above. After tidal

exchange was reintroduced there, the water quality was immediately improved. Only two or three years

after tidal exchange was restored, the vegetation along the slough had changed and improved

dramatically.

A well-engineered “technological fix” (a VBFG) would have been very effective at reversing 150 years of

degradation at the Chinook River watershed. A fully-restored salmon run and stands of old growth trees

will obviously take a few decades - but his will happen spontaneously if functional, reliable, low-

maintenance and fail-safe tide gates are operating year-round at the Chinook River Bridge – rather than

the poorly-engineered GH-50 Combination Gates produced by a shady company named Golden Harvest.

The Chinook River Estuary deserves better.

49 I believe that this was intentional make-work. The project received $5.2 million in Recovery Act funds.

©Jeffrey S. Juel 2013 JUEL 33 of 39

Conclusions

The fact that the Chinook River Bridge has not been washed out by a rising sea level - and that no one

expects that this will happen any time in the next few decades - is indisputable proof that, figuratively

speaking, the Emperor has no clothes.

The levees and floodwalls for the Aberdeen and Cosmopolis Flood Control Project are satisfactory and

they were built without additional height to accommodate Global Warming and Sea Level Rise. The fact

that they have not been overtopped and that there are no plans to raise these levees – or any levees in

Western Washington - is proof that the former Senator50 had no clues.

It has been 23 years since Al Gore declared that the time to respond to Global Warming and Sea Level

Rise was now (“now” = 1990). The fact that there are no plans to raise coastal levees or construct new

levees proves that this was, and is, a farce – and everyone in the state who was in a position to begin

planning or constructing coastal flood protection apparently knew it!

It is time to face the naked truth.

Politicized science is a serious threat to the environment. Incorrect theories (or hoaxes – like Global

Warming and Sea Level Rise) have resulted in flawed decision-making and wasted resources. In time,

bad science is always exposed for what it is. Like Carl Sagan Said: “… sooner or later this combustible

mixture of ignorance and power is going to blow up in our faces.” As a result, people lose respect for

the political machinery as well as for the organizations and scientists that previously endorsed the bad

science and thus advocated wasteful policies.

The fact that I am exposing Al Gore , Jr. as a

charlatan and that I can conclusively

demonstrate that his global warming and sea

level rise theory was political propaganda…

does not mean that I do not care about

the environment!

I am on a personal crusade to revolutionize drainage systems that have tide gates & flap gates so that

wetlands, fish, fowl and fauna benefit from amazing and innovative engineering.

50 He eventually became the Vice President of the United States of America. Unbelievable!!!

©Jeffrey S. Juel 2013 JUEL 34 of 39

I respect and admire the scientific method. I want scientists to propose, research, debate, and defend

competing theories without fear of de-funding or fearing for their careers or their personal safety.

Science has been subverted and politicized and the press has been complicit.

I think that I have the greenest job in the world and I am 100% confident that great engineering will be

instrumental in helping to save the planet if the political machine will allow it.

This could easily be demonstrated at the Chinook River Bridge. One or both of the GH-50 Combination

Gates there can be easily retrofitted with my VBFG control mechanism. This can be done without

damaging or compromising the existing gates. The retrofit would be simple, reliable, and fail-safe.

Golden Harvest would be happy to copy my VBFG control mechanism that I fabricated and installed at

Edison Slough. They are very experienced and capable of stealing other people’s ideas. They would do

this in a heartbeat to make a few bucks.51

If I must be punished for exposing one of the greatest frauds in the history of hucksterism; for objecting

to Golden Harvest’s (and others’) gross incompetence and lack of ethics; and for being a conservative

with the gall to think that I can actually help Save the Planet…

… so be it! This is IMPORTANT!!!!

Help keep endangered Chinook salmon from going extinct! Throw

another bucket-full of money at Golden Harvest if you must!

But Save the Chinook River!!!!

This is Actually Much Bigger than the Chinook River

It is becoming more and more obvious that CO2- caused global warming and sea level rise was a tragic

political hoax. The biggest loser in this debacle was the environment:

Government, environmental groups, and science have been thoroughly discredited. We need

good government, effective and efficient environmental advocacy groups, and proper science to

truly Save the Planet.

Incredible amounts of time, money, and lives have been wasted on deeply flawed science. These

resources could have been used to do something that really matters.

Resources have been wasted that could otherwise have been used to actually improve the

environment, help endangered species, and simultaneously help humanity.

51 They like nothing better than to harvest gold.

©Jeffrey S. Juel 2013 JUEL 35 of 39

There are a number of very serious environmental problems that, unlike CO2-caused Global Warming

and Sea Level Rise, are not fictional.

Many serious environmental problems can be addressed using my ingenious and simple Variable Back-

flow Flap Gate:

Fish gain access to the watercourses and wetlands behind dikes and levees52

Tidal flushing can happen without sacrificing flood protection

Wetlands are improved and enhanced

Invasive non-native aquatic and wetland plants are suppressed

Fish, fowl, and amphibians benefit

Aquatic pests and vectors for disease (including mosquito larvae and snails) living in drainage

systems behind flap gates can be diluted to oblivion with tidal flushing

For more information, see my website: www.jueltide.com and watch my You Tube Channel: JuelTide.

52 It is estimated that there are 100,000 miles of levees in the United States.

©Jeffrey S. Juel 2013 JUEL 36 of 39

Appendix A

When environmental and financial experts from around the world gathered in Washington this week

for a White House-sponsored conference on global warming, they expected a serious discussion.

Instead, they were surprised and angered to hear President Bush wholeheartedly endorse delay and

inaction.

Global climate change is real. It is the single most serious manifestation of a larger problem: the

collision course between industrial civilization and the ecological system that supports life as we

know it.

The purpose of Earth Day is to alert people around the world to that impending collision. And yet the

Bush Administration, according to a leaked memo, is advising its policymakers that ''a better

approach is to raise the many uncertainties,'' and argue with other skeptics that nothing should be

done until unresolved questions are definitively answered.

What are the skeptics' questions? Here are several of the most prominent. None of them stands up

under scrutiny.

Q 1.: Aren't the dire predictions about global warming based on unreliable computer models? How

do we know that there is any correlation between increased levels of carbon dioxide in the

atmosphere and changes in temperature?

A.: The most compelling evidence comes from careful studies of tiny air bubbles in Antarctic ice.

These show what has actually happened to the Earth's climate during the last 160,000 years. As

illustrated by the accompanying graph, carbon dioxide and temperature have gone up and down in

lockstep for as far back as scientists can measure.

Through the last two ice ages and the period of great warming in between, levels of carbon dioxide

have fluctuated between 200 and 300 parts per million. Even the skeptics agree that concentrations of

carbon dioxide will be pushed to levels of 600 parts per million within the next 35 to 45 years. It is

irresponsible to assume that after moving in tandem with carbon dioxide for 160,000 years,

temperatures will not be affected by those dramatic increases.

Q 2.: Do we know enough to act? Shouldn't we study the problem until we eliminate the

uncertainties?

©Jeffrey S. Juel 2013 JUEL 37 of 39

A.: That was the Administration's excuse last year, when it asked a distinguished United Nations-

sponsored group of scientists to answer that question. A draft of the scientists' long-awaited report,

leaked to the press this week, concludes that we must act now. The scientists say there's still a chance

that the problem won't be as bad as they fear, but there's an equal chance that it will be much worse

than predicted.

Q 3.: Come on, isn't this really a little far-fetched? After all, the Earth is a big place and probably has

some kind of natural ''thermostat'' to maintain the present climate. Don't some scientists say that

clouds or the oceans or sunspots will offset any effect caused by human activity?

A.: While the Earth is indeed vast in size, the atmosphere surrounding it is less than one one-

thousandth the thickness of the Earth's diameter, a thin blue line around the crust of the Earth.

Unprecedented population growth and new technologies for burning fuels, clearing forests and

manufacturing chemicals have given humankind the ability to alter the composition of the

atmosphere.

Everywhere on Earth, for example, each lungful of air now contains 600 percent more chlorine atoms

than it did 40 years ago - or 3 billion years ago, for that matter. That chlorine is responsible for

burning a hole in the stratospheric ozone layer. Similar increases in methane, nitrous oxide and other

polluting gases add to the seriousness of global warming.

Q 4.: But how can we trust scientists on this issue when some of them say global climate change is

real and some of them say it's not?

A.: Five hundred years ago, most scientists said the world was flat. Most people believed them

because the Earth did indeed look flat. The new ''model'' of a round Earth was based on mathematical

calculations that they could neither touch nor understand. Similarly, Galileo was punished for his

then-novel view that the Earth orbited the sun, instead of the other way around.

In the last 20 years, eminent scientists continued to ridicule the theory of continental drift. The theory

of global climate change used to be ridiculed, too. But in the last few years, the overwhelming

majority of scientists who have examined the evidence have agreed that the problem is real.

Q 5.: Didn't NASA just report that new measurements of the Earth's temperature in the last 10 years

showed no evidence of warming?

A.: That was the impression some people got. What NASA actually reported was that ''nothing could

be said'' about a warming trend one way or another ''due to the relatively short satellite data record.''

Temperatures naturally fluctuate so much from year to year that a single decade is not a long enough

yardstick for a long-term trend. The decade as a whole, according to several other studies, was the

hottest since temperatures have been recorded. The six hottest years on record occurred in the 1980's.

Q 6.: O.K., suppose temperatures do rise by a few degrees. So what?

©Jeffrey S. Juel 2013 JUEL 38 of 39

A.: Even small changes in the average global temperature can have dramatic consequences. The last

time there was a change as big as the one some now predict, temperatures dropped several degrees

and what is now New York City was covered by ice one kilometer thick.

But this isn't about temperatures alone. It's about drastically changing climatic patterns that affect the

distribution of rainfall, the intensity of storms and droughts and the directions of prevailing winds

and ocean currents, which in turn dramatically affect our weather and climate. Some scientists say

the first effects will be erratic weather patterns with extremes of heat and cold.

Q 7.: Isn't it easier to adapt to these changes than to prevent them?

A.: The changes could occur so swiftly that effective adaptation might become virtually impossible.

The longer we wait, the more unpleasant our choices become.

We are in fact conducting a massive, unprecedented - some say unethical - experiment with

consequences for all future generations. As you make your choice, bear in mind that you're choosing

not only for your own generation but for your grandchildren as well. And remember too that our

abuse of the environment could lead to the extinction of more than half of all species within the

lifetimes of our children.

Q 8.: Isn't the cost of preventing this problem too high?

A.: Many of the solutions, such as eliminating subsidies for clear-cutting forests, actually save

money. In any event, the costs of inaction are much higher, even if the skeptics refuse to measure

them.

Q 9.: The changes you say are needed are too sweeping to be politically possible.

A.: What if I had asked you six months ago to assess the possibility that people in every country in

Eastern Europe would abandon Communism, sing ''We Shall Overcome'' and embrace democracy

within 90 days? Would you have called that ''unlikely?'' We all would have. But it happened because

people changed their way of thinking about Communism.

People are changing their thinking about the importance of protecting the global environment. We

too are showing our willingness to act. The obstacles may seem immovable, but so did the Berlin

wall. With bold leadership and a new political ''ecolibrium,'' we too shall overcome.

©Jeffrey S. Juel 2013