Two years ago the city of Oroville stood in awe as millions of gallons of water eroded the main spillway of the nation’s largest dam, sending a deluge of water cascading down a hillside and forcing thousands of residents to evacuate.
Now that the bulk of the repairs on Oroville Dam have been completed, its concrete spillway could face its first major test as early as next week. Officials predict they might need to open the gates to move water that accumulated during the wet winter season from the reservoir down into the Feather River.
The reservoir, a key stockpile of California’s water supply, has risen significantly following several storms in the past month and is currently at 845 feet. That is still more than 50 feet below the top of the lake, but it is near the level where some water should be released to maintain capacity for future runoff from storms and, eventually, melting snow from the Sierra Nevada.
“You want to keep the lake rising slowly,” said Erin Mellon, a spokeswoman for the California Department of Water Resources. “What you’re balancing is water supply with flood protection. What you don’t want to do is have the lake totally full and then have a really wet system come through. California’s weather is so variable and so unpredictable that we have to plan for all of these different scenarios.”
Read the full story at LATimes.com.