Local oversight committee set for Oroville Dam

Gallagher and Nielsen will head group after lobbying for more involvement

OROVILLE – A local oversight committee will get to have a say as long-term changes are considered for Oroville Dam, after Sen. Jim Nielsen and Assemblyman James Gallagher recently came to an agreement with the Department of Water Resources.

Working with an independent review board, DWR is just beginning its comprehensive needs assessment for the dam, said Erin Mellon, the department’s assistant director of public affairs. The assessment will cover possible additions to the dam such as a fully-lined emergency spillway and improvements, for instance, to the river valve system and refurbishment of the radial gates, Mellon said.

Nielsen, R-tehama, and Gallagher, R-yuba City, have been lobbying for local involvement in the assessment for months. The oversight group will meet with DWR and the board for the first time next week and the dam evaluation will complete in December 2019.

“We are solidly at the table,” Nielsen said.

Gallagher credited DWR Director Karla Nemeth and Joel Ledesma, deputy director of the State Water Project, for establishing the local oversight group.

“It’s a good step in the right direction,” he said. “At the end of the day, I just want this facility to be operated safely.”

The committee will be headed by Gallagher, Nielsen and a DWR representative. One or several members of the board are expected to attend the meetings, which will be held quarterly.

Other committee members include: Larry Grundmann, who serves on the Oroville Recreation Advisory Committee; Sean Early with the Butte County Farm Bureau; Mike Inamine with the Sutter Butte Flood Control Agency; Friends of the River’s Ron Stork; Matt Mentink, Rune Storesund with the UC Berkeley Center for Catastrophic Risk Management; a Workers from Kiewit Infrastructure remove a plastic cover Wednesday used to help cure the structural concrete recently placed on the middle chute of the Lake Oroville main spillway. representative of Rep. Doug Lamalfa, R-richvale; Butte County Supervisor Bill Connelly; Paul Schweiger, vice president of Gannett Fleming, Inc. and a member of the board of consultants for DWR; Lelio Mejia, a senior principal with Geosyntec Consultants, and Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea. During the spillway crisis, Honea ordered the downstream evacuations in February 2017.

Mellon said one takeaway from the incident was the department’s need to improve its relationship with the community, including by fostering more open communication.