Water Levels At Lake Behind Oroville Dam Keep Dropping

OROVILLE (CBS13/AP) - The latest on the work at the Oroville Dam spillway:

1:22 p.m.

Officials monitoring the stricken Oroville Dam in Northern California say they're confident the damaged spillway and eroded hillside can withstand approaching storms.

Department of Water Resources Acting Director Bill Croyle said Thursday that officials identified three areas where erosion caused the most concern about potential flooding.

He says one area has been 100 percent repaired, while the others were 25 percent and 69 percent fixed.

Croyle says officials are reducing the amount of water released from the lake, but he still expects the level to continue falling through the duration of storms forecast in the coming days.

With less water flowing down the dam's spillway, officials hope to clear debris that threatens a hydroelectric power plant at the base of the dam.

10:16 a.m.

California officials say the water level at Lake Oroville is 32 feet below its dam's damaged emergency spillway.

For a third day, the state Department of Water Resources says dump trucks and helicopters are dropping thousands of tons of rocks and sandbags to shore up the spillway at the Oroville Dam, the nation's tallest.

It says barges and cranes are being mobilized to remove debris and sediment from a diversion pool.

The department says about 100,000 cubic feet of water was flowing from the reservoir each second, enough to fill an Olympic-size swimming pool.

DWR said Thursday they are beginning to reduce the outflow so that they can more easily remove debris from the diversion poll near the spillway.

Weather forecasts call for 2 to 4 inches of rain and snow in the foothills and mountains near the dam. But the storm was expected to drop less rain and create less runoff than drenching storms from last week.

Copyright 2017 The Associated Press.