Oroville Dam water flow to resume Friday

Water will resume flowing down the damaged Oroville Dam spillway into the Feather River beginning Friday morning and continuing for up to two weeks while water managers try to anticipate what coming storms will do to the reservoir.

“We’ve got some weather coming, and we’re ramping up,” said William Croyle, acting director of the California Department of Water Resources. He said the spillway release will begin at 9 a.m.

The initial flow will be a modest 35,000 cubic feet per second, about a third of what was spilling out of the reservoir in February when an emergency backup spillway began to fail, prompting the evacuation of nearly 200,000 people downstream.

Boaters and anglers are being advised to avoid the Feather River while the spillway is operating. For the past several weeks, workers have been reinforcing the damaged spillway in anticipation of its reopening.

Weather, lake inflow and other factors will determine how long and at what rate the spillway operates, the department said.

The crisis at the 770-foothigh dam, the tallest in the United States, began Feb. 7 when a large hole opened on the dam spillway, a half-milelong concrete ramp the width of a 15-lane freeway. Four days later, operators were forced to begin using the emergency spillway for the first time.

On Feb. 12, erosion of the emergency spillway threatened to result in an uncontrolled release of water, prompting authorities to order the mass evacuation.

On April 6, Croyle announced a $100 million to $200 million plan to rebuild and expand the main spillway in time for next winter’s storms.