And it’s exactly where it needs to be right now to allow time to rebuild the main spillway, improve the emergency spillway, repair the powerhouse and lines.
They should look at an alternate means to lower dam level even if it requires blasting elsewhere or a drainage tunnel.
An interesting suggestion. In fact, it looks like there is an "out" near the town of Oroville East, where a pair of dams prevents flow into Miners Ranch Resevoir. Something that, if I were Overlord of the Situation, I think I would have to look at.
BTW, this from Google Earth, which gives elevation, but is nevertheless being deprecated in favor of Google Maps, which does not, unless someone wants to tell me otherwise.
Well, they would have been fine if global warming had not caused an abrupt end to the global warming induced drought
There is a pond near my home that was created with an earthen dam, probably in the mid-1800s, and at one time had a mill at the outflow. About twenty years ago a storm overtopped and breached the dam and most of the water was lost, affecting several properties downstream. When the dam was rebuilt they installed concrete culverts under it, attached to a concrete box in the lake topping out few feet lower than the top of the dam. So when the water level rises too high it overtops the box and bypasses under the dam to the creek below. It has cured the problem so far, and we’ve seen some substantial storms since those days.
It starts draining as soon as water reaches the edge so it precludes overtopping the dam so a spillway would seldom if ever be used. Something the size of Oroville would need larger ones, and probably several of them