FourWinds10.com - Delivering Truth Around the World
Custom Search

ORVILLE UPDATE: LAKE CONTINUES TO FALL AS STORMS ROLL THROUGH

Dan Brekke

Smaller Font Larger Font RSS 2.0

2/20/17

Update, 1:45 p.m. Sunday: The significant weekend news at Oroville Dam: The Department of Water Resources decreased flows down the damaged main spillway to 55,000 cubic feet per second on Saturday, then announced it would ramp them up again, to 60,000 cfs, on Sunday afternoon.

Those levels are far lower than the 100,000 cfs released down the spillway starting a week ago amid fears that the dam’s emergency spillway system was about to fail. Those very high flows, maintained for four straight days, helped lower the lake from a foot above the 1,700-foot emergency weir last Sunday afternoon to 50 feet below it.

The flow reductions over the last couple of days were intended to help crews assess how much rubble, rock and sediment has been swept into the 80-foot-deep channel beneath the main spillway and begin the process of removing it. The debris has dammed the channel and made it impossible to use the hydropower plant at the base of Oroville Dam.

Incoming weather will no doubt play a part in releases over the next several days, with a storm expected to drop 8 inches or more of water by early Wednesday on the Feather River watershed above Lake Oroville. Snow levels are forecast to remain low, however, which will help slow down runoff into the reservoir.

Below: DWR drone video showing the state of work to reinforce the badly eroded slope beneath the emergency weir as well as the condition of the main spillway as of Saturday afternoon.

 

Update, 3:25 p.m. Friday: To start with the numbers: Department of Water Resources data show that despite cutting back releases down Oroville Dam’s shattered spillway and the return of storms to the Feather River basin, Lake Oroville continues to empty.

CONTINUE READING, VIEW PHOTOS AND VIDEOS

https://ww2.kqed.org/news/2017/02/07/engineers-assess-spillway-problem-at-oroville-dam/