California Waives Some Permits To Speed Oroville Dam Spillway Repairs
OROVILLE, Calif. (AP) - Gov. Jerry Brown waived some permitting and review requirements Thursday for Oroville Dam as California rushes to repair a main spillway that partially washed away under heavy winter runoff.
Brown signed an executive order directing state agencies to make repairs at the dam, the nation's tallest, a priority. The order waives some of the environmental reviews and other requirements that could slow the push to have the concrete spillway operational by November, when the next rainy season starts.
Huge sections of both the main and emergency spillways failed in February as rain and melted snow poured into the reservoir behind the dam.
As water spilled over the dam's emergency spillway Feb. 12, ripping away part of the hillside, authorities ordered the evacuation of 188,000 people downstream. Residents were allowed to return home later that week. Authorities said the dam itself suffered no damage.
Even with one storm hitting Thursday and another on the way, state and local authorities said the dam's managers have released enough water from the dam to avoid trouble for now.
"We are in a much, much better position today than we were Feb. 12," Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea told reporters at a news conference near the dam.
William Croyle, acting director at the Department of Water Resources, which manages the dam, said the state expects to finish laying new concrete, or bolting down stretches of existing concrete, on the key, upper stretch of the main spillway by the Nov. 1 target date.
State water officials say designs for the redone main spillway are about 60 percent complete. Croyle declined to release an estimated price for the rush repairs, which state officials said earlier would cost in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Contracts should be awarded on April 17, water officials said.
Oroville reservoir is the state's second-largest, and anchors the system of aqueducts, canals and pumps that moves water from Northern California to more arid Central and Southern California.
Copyright 2017 The Associated Press.
