Crack leads to potential failure at Wenatchee-area dam

BEVERLY, Wash. – Grant County PUD has alerted emergency officials, state agencies, other dam operators and downstream property owners that a potential failure situation is developing at Wanapum Dam.

PUD spokesman Tom Stredwick said the “Emergency Action Plan B” was declared at approximately 3 p.m. Friday. That level of alert means that a potential failure situation is developing, he said.

“Catastrophic failure is very unlikely,” PUD Assistant General Manager Chuck Berry said late Friday. “We’re generating now. We’re not anticipating a huge amount of water coming. In a worst-case scenario and that piece of the spillway would fail, the flows that would move into the river below would not exceed the regular flow of the Columbia River. There is plenty of room to handle it.”

PUD General Manager Tony Webb said it’s too soon to tell what caused the crack, but they’re investigating and focused on safety. “We have good people on it,” he said. “We’ve got the right mission: public safety and health and protection of the dam. We’re trying not to get distracted to see how we stabilize it, how to fix it and move on. I want my staff focused.”

The heightened alert at the dam comes after divers Thursday discovered a fissure in one of the dam’s concrete support piers that measures 2 inches wide by 65 feet long.

The PUD will draw down the reservoir to reduce pressure on the dam and help ensure the vulnerable area remains stable.

The fissure runs horizontally along the down-river face of the spillgate pier, Stredwick said. It’s about 75 feet below the water surface. It runs the entire width of the 65-foot-wide pier, which is 126 feet tall and 92 feet thick.

PUD officials have not said what could have caused the crack, Stredwick said.

Wanapum Dam is the PUD’s largest power plant, capable of generating 1,092 megawatts of electricity, enough to supply nearly 900,000 Northwest homes. It’s just south of Vantage where Interstate 90 crosses the Columbia River.

News Source: www.spokesman.com

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China's Manufacturing Growth Hit Eight-Month Low

China's manufacturing growth retreated to an eight-month low in February and slowed for the third month running, official data showed on Saturday.

China's purchasing managers' index (PMI) for the manufacturing sector dropped to 50.2 percent in February, said a statement jointly released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) and the China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing.

The index showed the manufacturing sector was expanding, but the growth rate was slowing down, said Zhao Qinghe, a senior analyst with the NBS.

A reading below 50 indicates contraction, while a reading above 50 signals expansion.

"The 50.2 reading is above the market consensus of 50.1," said Lu Ting, chief China economist with Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

Zhao attributed the decline to the Spring Festival holiday, when most companies suspended production and workers went back home for the week-long holiday.

Lu echoed this view. The impact the holiday had is further evidenced by the drop in the employment sub-index to 48.0 percent in February from 48.2 percent in January, despite employers arguing of a labor shortage after the Spring Festival holiday, Lu said.

In February, the sub-index for production stood at 52.6 percent, down 0.4 percentage points from January, while the sub-index for new orders lost 0.4 percentage points to 50.5 percent, said the statement.

Two sub-indexes on foreign trade both declined. The sub-index for new export orders edged down to 48.2 percent and the import sub-index dropped to 46.5 percent.

In contrast, the sub-index for production and business expectation climbed to 61.8 percent, indicating strengthening confidence for future economic growth among enterprises.

Markets are likely to respond negatively to the reading but the impact could be limited and policies are unlikely to be changed by these distorted PMI readings, Lu said.

The news comes after the depressing HSBC flash manufacturing PMI earlier this month.

The HSBC/Markit China flash manufacturing PMI for February dipped to 48.3 from a final reading of 49.5 in January, indicating deteriorated manufacturing contraction.

The HSBC flash PMI's drop could also be attributed to the impact of the holiday in early February as the index mainly covers smaller enterprises which are influenced more by the holiday, Lu said.

The months with the Spring Festival holiday have seen PMI decreases in the past five years, except in 2012 when the monthly PMI went up from a "periodical" low in the previous month, according to the NBS statement.

The manufacturing PMI in the months with the Spring Festival holiday was 52 in 2010, down 3.8 percentage points month on month; 52.2 in 2011, down 0.7 percentage points month on month; 50.5 in 2012, up 0.2 percentage points month on month; 50.1 in 2013, down 0.3 percentage points month on month; and 50.2 this year down 0.3 percentage points month on month, according to the statement.

Zhang Liqun, a researcher with the Development Research Center of the State Council, said China's economy will remain steady but macro economic policies should be upgraded to guard against risks.

China's economy expanded 7.7 percent year on year in 2013, above the official target of 7.5 percent.

The government has yet to announce its 2014 growth target, which analysts widely expect to be set between 7 percent and 7.5 percent.

Analysts expect further moderation as the focus of the authorities has now turned to forming a more sustainable model and pushing ahead with various reforms.

News Source: english.cri.cn

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Bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox files for bankruptcy, hit with lawsuit

Mt Gox, once the world's biggest bitcoin exchange, filed for bankruptcy protection in Japan on Friday, saying it may have lost nearly half a billion dollars worth of the virtual coins due to hacking into its faulty computer system.

The collapse caps a tumultuous few weeks in which the company has remained virtually silent after halting trades of the crypto-currency, shaking the nascent but burgeoning bitcoin community.

Wearing a suit instead of his customary T-shirt, Mt. Gox's French CEO Mark Karpeles bowed in contrition and apologised in Japanese at a news conference at the Tokyo District Court, blaming his firm's collapse on a "weakness in our system", but predicting that bitcoin would continue to grow.

"First of all, I'm very sorry," he said. "The bitcoin industry is healthy and it is growing. It will continue, and reducing the impact is the most important point."

Angry investors have been seeking answers for what happened to their holdings of cash and bitcoins on the unregulated Tokyo-based exchange.

Gregory Greene, who estimated his bitcoin stake at $25,000, filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court in Chicago late on Thursday, saying Mt. Gox had failed "to provide its users with the level of security protection for which they paid.

Baker & McKenzie, a Chicago-based law firm that represents Mt. Gox, declined to comment. It is not yet clear if the firm is representing the exchange in this lawsuit.

Mt. Gox said the exchange, used overwhelmingly by foreigners, had lost 750,000 of its users' bitcoins and 100,000 of its own. At the current bitcoin price of about $565, that would total some $480 million - representing about 7 percent of the estimated global total of bitcoins.

"This may be telling for the level of traceability of the transactions. Bitcoin has been telling us that it is more traceable than cash. The question is, how much more and is there the potential for real recourse in the case of theft," said Moshe Cohen, assistant professor at Columbia Business School in New York.

Mt. Gox said there was a discrepancy of 2.8 billion yen in its bank accounts when it checked on Monday. Junko Suetomi,

News Source: www.financialexpress.com

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