Butte County, CA (MPG) - On Friday, March 10^th, the Department of Water Resources (DWR) held a press conference regarding the impending release of water from the Oroville Dam.

Deputy Director of Communications at DWR, Margaret Mohr introduced Ted Craddock, Deputy Director for the State Water Projects Operations (SWP), who spoke to the planned use of the spillway.

Craddock explained that Lake Oroville is “part of the state water project, which is a system that spans the state and provides water to 27 million Californians. An important function of Lake Oroville is it also provides flood protection for the communities downstream of the lake on the Feather River”.

Recent heavy rains and storm runoff have elevated lake levels. At the time of the media briefing, Lake Oroville was at 2.7-million-acre feet of its 3.5 million acre feet capacity, up 1.7 million feet since December 1 of 2022. The elevation of lake waters has risen 180 feet since that date, equating to a total of 840 feet, and water levels then sat at 60 feet below the lake’s maximum water elevation.

After closely monitoring storms and incoming weather patterns, Craddock said that the DWR and SWP teams expect between 20-40,000 cubic feet a second to enter the reservoir depending on the severity of incoming storms.  According to Craddock, flood control operations such as this are performed in coordination with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and that “up to 830,000 feet of space available on the lake (is) reserved for flood protection.”

Friday, March 10 at noon, the 3,000-foot spillway was put into use for the second time since April of 2019. Utilizing both the spillway and the Hyatt Power Plant, 15,000 cubic feet a minute began to be released from the second largest lake in California. Craddock describes this as a “relatively small release” and expressed that adjustments in the releases may be made as the DWR and SWP Team monitor incoming water volumes. A team of dam safety engineers were also present to monitor the spillway during the initial release of water Friday afternoon.

After its failure, the spillway was rebuilt, beginning in 2017 and ending in 2018. Craddock reaffirms that the structure was “rebuilt to the highest engineering and design standards that are expected for this type of facility with oversight from both Federal and State dam safety regulators and also independent team of experts”. He stated that instrumentation was installed throughout the spillway to monitor pressure, drainage and movement. Federal and State dam safety regulators were on site during the first use in 2019 to ensure the spillway functioned properly, which they found that it did. He wanted the immediate communities affected during the dam crisis of February 2017 too know that they are “very focused on ensuring the safety of this facility.”

Speaking to the significance of the use of the spillway, Craddock said, “After 3 years of drought and low lake elevation, it’s really good to see the lake rising from the standpoint of providing water for the local community and the statewide water users as well.”

The SWP believes that the lake will remain at healthy levels as snowpack melt flows into the reservoir during the spring months.