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Tear down this dam? © Getty Images Oroville dam, the tallest in the nation, is currently in danger of structural failure. Thousands living downstream from its desperate cascading water releases are evacuating their homes in Hollywood disaster-film fashion. Something premodern and apocalyptic like this was not supposed to have happened in a postmodern California of Google, Hollywood, and Napa Valley wineries. California’s politicians and pundits in recent years of drought swore the state was entering a cycle of permanent drought (and thus saw no need to start construction on a single dam to store the rain and snow that supposedly...

Private contractors at the Oroville Dam have had to fire some of their workforce because of issues ranging from positive drug tests to violating the state's Department of Water Resources' social media policy. There has also been turnover because of unqualified workers. Private contractors hired to work on the dam have to vet their own employees, according to DWR spokesman Chris Orrock, who noted that no state employees have been let go because of these reasons. Crews are being brought in as needed, as space is tight, DWR Acting Director Bill Croyle said.

Officials at Lake Oroville reduced the rate of water release once again Friday as workers continued make repairs to a damaged spillway and clear debris from a hydroelectric plant. State Department of Water Resources engineers will decrease the flow of water in the Oroville Dam's main spillway from 80,000 cubic feet per second to 60,000 by Saturday morning, giving crews space to dredge debris from a pool at the bottom of the spillway, said DWR acting director Bill Croyle. Engineers had been pumping water out of the lake at 100,000 cfs for several days to make room for incoming storm...

Michigan has thousands of aging and under-maintained dams that could pose localized risks. The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality tells the Detroit Free Press that all but six of the state's 88 potential high-hazard dams are approaching 50 years old, the average engineered life span for a dam. The American Society of Civil Engineers gave Michigan a D grade on the condition of its dams in 2009, saying more than 90 percent of the state's nearly 2,600 dams would reach or exceed their design life by 2020.

Communities just downstream of California's Lake Oroville dam would not receive adequate warning or time for evacuations if the 770-foot-tall dam itself — rather than its spillways — were to abruptly fail, the state water agency that operates the nation's tallest dam repeatedly advised federal regulators a half-decade ago. The state Department of Water Resources informed federal dam regulators that local emergency officials "do not believe there is enough time to perform evacuations in the communities immediately downstream of the dam during a sudden failure," according to a Feb. 8, 2011, letter reviewed by The Associated Press. Absent "significant" advance...

A number of news outlets claim the near collapse of the Oroville dam's emergency spillway in California is a glimpse of what man-made global warming could bring. "Oroville Is a Warning for California Dams, as Climate Change Adds Stress," the New York Times reported. "Broken California Dam Is a Sign of Emergencies to Come," reads an article published in Scientific American, adding that "[c]limate change is leading to more extreme rainfalls that can overwhelm infrastructure."

Southern Californians have been drinking from the Feather River — and washing in it, flushing with it and sprinkling it over their lawns — for nearly a half century without giving it much thought, so the emergency at distant Oroville Dam provides a jolting reminder of our dependence on the wetter, northern part of the state. A disaster there could easily become a crisis here.

Roughly 50,047 single- and multi-family residential homes could be damaged with an estimated reconstruction cost value of $13.3 billion if the Oroville Dam in California were to fail completely, according to new data analysis from CoreLogic that included the six primary counties in that area. Fears of flooding from the nation’s tallest dam, which reaches 770 feet, prompted evacuation orders for nearly 200,000 people. A word from our sponsor: Sponsored by: Water Security Solutions U.S. Click here for more info.How does Western Security Surplus work to your advantage? How do we keep ahead of the competition? And what motivates us...

The damaged California dam is in the spotlight now, but it’s not alone among the facilities needing upgrades if more problems are to be avoided.How many U.S. dams are at risk of a crisis like the one currently unfolding in California, as officials work to stave off disaster at the compromised Oroville Dam? The short answer is, we don’t really know—but probably quite a few. Until this month, Oroville’s emergency spillway had never been used in its nearly 50-year history. After weeks of rain and a breach in the dam’s main spillway, officials turned to the auxiliary one to help...

Rising water filling up Santa Clara County's Anderson Reservoir, which was 99.3 percent full as of Wednesday, is expected to flow over the dam's spillway as a result of this week's impending storms. Unlike the potentially catastrophic situation with Lake Oroville's emergency spillway, the Anderson Reservoir's operational spillway is not at risk of failure, according to Santa Clara Valley Water District officials. Despite that good news, officials in Santa Clara County are warning residents living along Coyote Creek and near Kelley Park to be on the lookout for potential flooding. Water officials for the past month have been releasing water...

Millions Went To California Dam In Good Shape The Washington Free Beacon is reporting that of the $34 billion that the State of California received from Obama’s 2009 stimulus package, $0 went to the failing Oroville dam while millions went to a dam that was in ‘good shape’. From The Free Beacon: Despite more than a decade of warnings about Oroville, there is no public record of the country’s tallest dam receiving any of the more than $34 billion from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act sent to California for infrastructure projects. Over $22 million in stimulus funds did go...

It rained through most of the night in the Oroville area. A storm passed over and is currently dumping rain in the foothills and mountains to the east of the lake. It's a warm storm and can be expected to trigger some snow melt and runoff. As of 5 a.m. the reservoir level stood at 870 feet, 30 feet below the lip of the emergency berm. Inflow from the storm should begin late today and max out over the weekend. It remains to be seen whether this will cause the lake to rise dangerously as releases continue at the maximum....

The 2009 stimulus package funded millions of dollars for safety improvements for a dam in California that was in “good shape,” but not to the Oroville Dam that is now on the verge of a spillway crisis. Nearly 200,000 residents north of Sacramento were ordered to evacuate after fears that erosion would cause the emergency spillway to fail, which would lead to “catastrophic flooding“ from a 30-foot wall of water. Despite more than a decade of warnings about Oroville, there is no public record of the country’s tallest dam receiving any of the more than $34 billion from the American...

We’ve already had two big events like this so far this year, now forecasts show a clear pattern of a heavily moisture laden “atmospheric river” taking aim directly onto the Oroville Dam watershed over the next week. Accumulated precipitation forecasts show that the Lake Orovile watershed will score a direct hit with the maximum amount of precipitation over the next 10 days (see graphic near bottom of this article). Meteorologist Paul Dorian of Vencore Weather writes: There have been many occasions in the past in which floods have followed droughts in California and this recent time period is yet another...

Oroville Crews worked into the night Wednesday to shore up the emergency spillway at troubled Oroville Dam, racing to fortify the structure before the next series of storms, the first of which was forecast to hit before midnight. Three storm systems will move into Northern California during the next six days, according to the National Weather Service. The first system will drop about an inch of rain in the Oroville area between 10 p.m. Wednesday and 4 p.m. Thursday. Greater amounts of precipitation will fall in the mountains northeast of the reservoir. Forecasters are confident that the first two storm...

In Oregon, seven dams have been deemed unsatisfactory - one in Josephine County, another in Curry County. Oregon Water Resources Department and Josephine County Parks say they know the McMullen Dam in Lake Selmac has problems. They have known for years. "With the parks budget being just over $1 million, the cost of the dam itself is going to come in between {$1 million and $3 million] dollars to improve it," Josephine County Parks manager Sarah Wright said. To get an 'unsatisfactory' result means the dam cannot contain or handle a moderate sized flood. At Lake Selmac, that's rare -...

Photo series with detailed explanations.

Empty buildings, empty streets, empty businesses. It's like a Hollywood ghost town movie set in Oroville, California due to the dam overflow.

California was granted emergency funding from the Federal Emergency Management Agency Tuesday for both the situation at Lake Oroville and to help with the damage caused by the severe January storms.

Five separate videos shot by CA DWR as the emergency spillway becomes active (overtops) at 8:a.m. on Saturday morning through Sunday p.m., and work on Monday to drop rock to fill the erosion channels. Most videos are from drones and the relationship of the spillway to the main spillway on the right (direction southeast) and the parking lot on the left (direction northwest) can be easily seen. It appears that the fear of failure of the emergency spillway was two-fold with erosion moving back up to the narrow base of the spillway and possibly undercutting the concrete spillway, and the...