Kwiz
07-28-2006, 09:14 PM
Since 'Ignore me now, I dare you' is coming along at a sluggish pace due to writer's block, I've decided to post a part of my nuclear energy research report from last year here. This particular part of the project is called the "saturation report" wherein we had to go visit a site or facility related to our topic.
Pictures at the end. Enjoy.
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I-search Saturation report:
The "Hole in the Head"
Granted that it was not one of the most exciting places to do a field report on, I still felt that this literal hole in the ground had something to offer me. Just hearing about it intrigued me; it was a large hole in the ground overlooking Bodega Bay. But to be truly and sincerely intrigued, one would have to learn some of the finer details of the site – and its history.
Back in the late 1950s, Pacific Gas and Electric Company decided to quietly build a new nuclear power plant in a remote area that could efficiently produce ample quantities of electric power. As our local utility planned out the soon-to-be Bodega Bay Nuclear Power Plant, it was already destined to be a megawatt-class power plant, THE powerhouse of the entire North Bay. PG&E even went so far as to start laying the groundwork for the nuclear plant in 1963, digging a large hole on the site to hold the reactor containment vault. Unfortunately, all of these plans were directly on top of an earthquake fault line, and when the public heard of this minor complication, PG&E had to immediately drop its plans for building the power plant. And so it was that the “Bodega Bay Nuclear Power Plant” never got built. However, one thing did stay there: the hole in the ground.
Dug right into the “head” of Bodega Bay, the big, gaping hole soon came to be known as the “hole in the head.” But as PG&E abandoned the site (and sold it to the state for a sum of $1), the hole was never going to be used for its original purpose. Instead, it sat there, water seeping into it from a nearby spring as it collected rainwater. And so, by the serene waters of Bodega Bay, the hole that was intended to play host to a nuclear reactor became a pond.
42 years after its creation, it is I that venture out to this site. As our car sped along toward the Bodega Head, my mind was busy speculating on what it might look like. More man-made looking, or turned natural in look and feel by the winds of time? Having only seen one small, undetailed picture of it beforehand, I really had no idea. When the car approached the site and the area came into view, I must admit that my initial reaction was “Really? Is that it?” Making our final approach on the hole, we crunched our way over an unpaved segment and finally parked. Just before leaving the car, I glanced at my watch; it was 8:54 am.
I got out and closed the door. Taking only a moment to look around, I was soon gripped by curiosity and decided to go see the hole up close. I walked up a short, narrow gravel walkway as the small stones crunched lightly under my feet. That crunching soon changed to a dull thumping as I went onto an old railed boardwalk. The wooden rails were covered in a senior growth of algae and plants encroached the walkway on both sides, creeping in between the wooden rails.
Along with the wind swooping by my ears, the song of birds continued rhythmically without ceasing, yet not once did I hear the cry of a seagull. Then the wooden walkway ended and the hole came into my view. As reality staunchly defied my imagination, the hole’s shape was not that of some cleanly cut rectangle, but somewhat of an oval shape, with two smaller, more shallow lobes on each end of the primary and deeper middle pond. Indeed, it did not look overtly man-made at all, but rather carved and smoothed into the patterns of nature. On the pond’s surface, the wind continuously played across the water, forming all imaginable kinds of streaks and ripples. Immediately around the pond were a healthy growth of water reeds, and beyond them, at a range of about two meters away from the pond were a mixed variety of other bushes, shrubs, and plants. Further sanctifying this intriguing little hole was a low chain-link fence closing off the water reeds and small plants and surrounding the pond on all sides. Outside the low fence, the pond area was surrounded by a horseshoe-shaped ridgeline that enclosed the area in a semicircle up against the Bodega Bay as it basked in the face of the morning sun. The slope of the ridgeline facing me was covered in more tall, large bushes and smaller shrubs along with many other coastal plant varieties that I had not yet walked amongst.
Turning around, I faced the relatively narrow bay inlet that held the soft glare of the sun in its arms. The small inlet swept out to sea, and the faint outline of hills on the other side of the bay stood silently in the background, still thinly veiled in the disappearing morning fog.
I decided I had seen enough of the ‘Hole in the Head’ from the front, and so decided to venture up to the top of the horseshoe-shaped ridge and get a much better view of the pond and its surroundings.
Not long afterward, I reached a small parking lot at one end of the top of the ridge. From the edge of the lot, I pulled my camera up to my right eye and tried to put the scene into a good and wide view, but almost immediately lowered it back down, simply not satisfied with the view yet. There was a very narrow dirt foot trail leading off down the slope of the horseshoe-ridge, so I took the path in my search for a better panoramic sweep.
After a while, I got to and area of the slope that was flattened out to form a crescent-shaped platform of earth on the slope, which I immediately recognized as unnatural. Just like the pond, it was an awkward part of the terrain, but plants and grass seem to have overcome that awkwardness, gladly thriving on the surface and surrounding areas of the platform. Clearly this was intended to be a part of the power plant facility.
Trekking further along the horseshoe-ridge through thick shrubs, succulent plants, bushes, and dead and bare plants for what seemed like hours, I finally got to the vantage point. I stopped to stare out at the ‘hole’, the wooden walkway and the dirt parking lot by it, the spit of Bodega Bay, the entire length of Doran Beach, and the Bodega Bay inlet that swept out to sea, I settled on this spot. Climbing up a few meters on the steep earthen slope, I cast my notebook aside on a nearby patch of grass and took up my camera. After shooting off several frames I began to speculate on just what kind of a power plant PG&E planned to build here.
It seemed a nice, secluded place to build and run a nuclear power plant. Far out of sight from the rest of the bay community and even not visible from other parts of the Head, it looked like a nice little nest for a facility that would produce massive quantities of electricity, yet not pollute the beautiful Bodega skies at all. Such a power plant could have been a blessing to the North Bay at large, yet it never became a reality.
Because, rumbling deep below that pond was an earthquake fault line, the Bodega Bay Nuclear Power Plant never came into being. In all their elaborate plans to build the facility, how could PG&E have just ignored the San Andreas Fault line? They had walked onto the Bodega Head ready to build a regional powerhouse for Sonoma County and beyond, but they walked away with only a public relations shame. And now, because of the folly of a few planners, the North Bay has not seen the direct benefits of nuclear power.
Still in a thoughtful trance while staring out at the wide open view in front of me, I hear my dad’s voice call my name. Looking over to my right, I saw him finally catching up to me through the brush. I got the message, and headed back toward the lot at the top of the ridge. As we started off on our way home, I glanced at my watch again. It was 10:27 am.
http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i315/Kazuo_2006/panoramagood.jpg
Here we have a panoramic view of the Hole from that vantage point I mentioned. I never really intended to make a panoramic image, but all of those frames actually fitted together rather nicely in the end. From here we can see the pond, and off in the distance is the Bodega spit, with a total view of Doran Beach. The Bay is off to the left and to the right is the Pacific Ocean.
http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i315/Kazuo_2006/then.jpg http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i315/Kazuo_2006/FH000020.jpg
Then ............................................. and now.
Judging from the panoramic (top), you can see where that main reactor vessel was going to go into and subsequently where the vacant hole is now. The other extension of the pond to the left is at first a bit mysterious, but was most likely caused by erosion wearing away the edges of the original hole, then the nearby spring filling up the area further. And today the pond has a rather smooth shape to it, but I’m sure that the deep end is still quite deep.
Pictures at the end. Enjoy.
---
I-search Saturation report:
The "Hole in the Head"
Granted that it was not one of the most exciting places to do a field report on, I still felt that this literal hole in the ground had something to offer me. Just hearing about it intrigued me; it was a large hole in the ground overlooking Bodega Bay. But to be truly and sincerely intrigued, one would have to learn some of the finer details of the site – and its history.
Back in the late 1950s, Pacific Gas and Electric Company decided to quietly build a new nuclear power plant in a remote area that could efficiently produce ample quantities of electric power. As our local utility planned out the soon-to-be Bodega Bay Nuclear Power Plant, it was already destined to be a megawatt-class power plant, THE powerhouse of the entire North Bay. PG&E even went so far as to start laying the groundwork for the nuclear plant in 1963, digging a large hole on the site to hold the reactor containment vault. Unfortunately, all of these plans were directly on top of an earthquake fault line, and when the public heard of this minor complication, PG&E had to immediately drop its plans for building the power plant. And so it was that the “Bodega Bay Nuclear Power Plant” never got built. However, one thing did stay there: the hole in the ground.
Dug right into the “head” of Bodega Bay, the big, gaping hole soon came to be known as the “hole in the head.” But as PG&E abandoned the site (and sold it to the state for a sum of $1), the hole was never going to be used for its original purpose. Instead, it sat there, water seeping into it from a nearby spring as it collected rainwater. And so, by the serene waters of Bodega Bay, the hole that was intended to play host to a nuclear reactor became a pond.
42 years after its creation, it is I that venture out to this site. As our car sped along toward the Bodega Head, my mind was busy speculating on what it might look like. More man-made looking, or turned natural in look and feel by the winds of time? Having only seen one small, undetailed picture of it beforehand, I really had no idea. When the car approached the site and the area came into view, I must admit that my initial reaction was “Really? Is that it?” Making our final approach on the hole, we crunched our way over an unpaved segment and finally parked. Just before leaving the car, I glanced at my watch; it was 8:54 am.
I got out and closed the door. Taking only a moment to look around, I was soon gripped by curiosity and decided to go see the hole up close. I walked up a short, narrow gravel walkway as the small stones crunched lightly under my feet. That crunching soon changed to a dull thumping as I went onto an old railed boardwalk. The wooden rails were covered in a senior growth of algae and plants encroached the walkway on both sides, creeping in between the wooden rails.
Along with the wind swooping by my ears, the song of birds continued rhythmically without ceasing, yet not once did I hear the cry of a seagull. Then the wooden walkway ended and the hole came into my view. As reality staunchly defied my imagination, the hole’s shape was not that of some cleanly cut rectangle, but somewhat of an oval shape, with two smaller, more shallow lobes on each end of the primary and deeper middle pond. Indeed, it did not look overtly man-made at all, but rather carved and smoothed into the patterns of nature. On the pond’s surface, the wind continuously played across the water, forming all imaginable kinds of streaks and ripples. Immediately around the pond were a healthy growth of water reeds, and beyond them, at a range of about two meters away from the pond were a mixed variety of other bushes, shrubs, and plants. Further sanctifying this intriguing little hole was a low chain-link fence closing off the water reeds and small plants and surrounding the pond on all sides. Outside the low fence, the pond area was surrounded by a horseshoe-shaped ridgeline that enclosed the area in a semicircle up against the Bodega Bay as it basked in the face of the morning sun. The slope of the ridgeline facing me was covered in more tall, large bushes and smaller shrubs along with many other coastal plant varieties that I had not yet walked amongst.
Turning around, I faced the relatively narrow bay inlet that held the soft glare of the sun in its arms. The small inlet swept out to sea, and the faint outline of hills on the other side of the bay stood silently in the background, still thinly veiled in the disappearing morning fog.
I decided I had seen enough of the ‘Hole in the Head’ from the front, and so decided to venture up to the top of the horseshoe-shaped ridge and get a much better view of the pond and its surroundings.
Not long afterward, I reached a small parking lot at one end of the top of the ridge. From the edge of the lot, I pulled my camera up to my right eye and tried to put the scene into a good and wide view, but almost immediately lowered it back down, simply not satisfied with the view yet. There was a very narrow dirt foot trail leading off down the slope of the horseshoe-ridge, so I took the path in my search for a better panoramic sweep.
After a while, I got to and area of the slope that was flattened out to form a crescent-shaped platform of earth on the slope, which I immediately recognized as unnatural. Just like the pond, it was an awkward part of the terrain, but plants and grass seem to have overcome that awkwardness, gladly thriving on the surface and surrounding areas of the platform. Clearly this was intended to be a part of the power plant facility.
Trekking further along the horseshoe-ridge through thick shrubs, succulent plants, bushes, and dead and bare plants for what seemed like hours, I finally got to the vantage point. I stopped to stare out at the ‘hole’, the wooden walkway and the dirt parking lot by it, the spit of Bodega Bay, the entire length of Doran Beach, and the Bodega Bay inlet that swept out to sea, I settled on this spot. Climbing up a few meters on the steep earthen slope, I cast my notebook aside on a nearby patch of grass and took up my camera. After shooting off several frames I began to speculate on just what kind of a power plant PG&E planned to build here.
It seemed a nice, secluded place to build and run a nuclear power plant. Far out of sight from the rest of the bay community and even not visible from other parts of the Head, it looked like a nice little nest for a facility that would produce massive quantities of electricity, yet not pollute the beautiful Bodega skies at all. Such a power plant could have been a blessing to the North Bay at large, yet it never became a reality.
Because, rumbling deep below that pond was an earthquake fault line, the Bodega Bay Nuclear Power Plant never came into being. In all their elaborate plans to build the facility, how could PG&E have just ignored the San Andreas Fault line? They had walked onto the Bodega Head ready to build a regional powerhouse for Sonoma County and beyond, but they walked away with only a public relations shame. And now, because of the folly of a few planners, the North Bay has not seen the direct benefits of nuclear power.
Still in a thoughtful trance while staring out at the wide open view in front of me, I hear my dad’s voice call my name. Looking over to my right, I saw him finally catching up to me through the brush. I got the message, and headed back toward the lot at the top of the ridge. As we started off on our way home, I glanced at my watch again. It was 10:27 am.
http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i315/Kazuo_2006/panoramagood.jpg
Here we have a panoramic view of the Hole from that vantage point I mentioned. I never really intended to make a panoramic image, but all of those frames actually fitted together rather nicely in the end. From here we can see the pond, and off in the distance is the Bodega spit, with a total view of Doran Beach. The Bay is off to the left and to the right is the Pacific Ocean.
http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i315/Kazuo_2006/then.jpg http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i315/Kazuo_2006/FH000020.jpg
Then ............................................. and now.
Judging from the panoramic (top), you can see where that main reactor vessel was going to go into and subsequently where the vacant hole is now. The other extension of the pond to the left is at first a bit mysterious, but was most likely caused by erosion wearing away the edges of the original hole, then the nearby spring filling up the area further. And today the pond has a rather smooth shape to it, but I’m sure that the deep end is still quite deep.