Over 20 months after Oroville Dam almost collapsed, the Department of Water Resources has announced that the main spillway has been completely reconstructed by their November first deadline, just ahead of the rainy season. During one of the wettest winters in state history, chunks of concrete came loose from high releases, forcing closure of the spillway. Assistant Director of Public Affairs, Erin Mellon, says a year ago it had been rebuilt enough to handle releases of up to 100-thousand cubic feet per second…

click to listen to Erin Mellon

The closure of the main spillway necessitated using the emergency spillway for the first time in the dam’s history. But it was a soil-based hillside that eroded rapidly and was undermining a portion of the concrete wall of the dam, sparking last-minute evacuation orders of hundreds of thousands of people. Mellon says they’re ahead of schedule with improvements, which will continue into early next year…

click to listen to Erin Mellon

Mellon says the final cost of the main spillway reconstruction is now at one-point-one billion dollars.