Free Republic

OROVILLE — The cost of repairing the crippling damage to Oroville Dam’s spillways caused by last winter’s fierce storms has almost doubled, state water officials said Thursday. Kiewit, the Nebraska-based construction firm that has the main contract to rebuild the main spillway and emergency spillway at Oroville, the nation’s tallest dam, estimated in its winning bid in April that the work would cost at least $275 million. But the price tag has now grown to at least $500 million, said Erin Mellon, a spokeswoman for the Department of Water Resources.

OROVILLE, Calif. (KCRA) — Crews are beginning to make repairs to the spillways at Lake Oroville, the California Department of Water Resources said. “Efforts are underway to make repairs to both the primary and auxiliary spillways at Lake Oroville,” officials tweeted. Military-grade helicopters are picking up 1-ton containers of rocks from a parking lot near Lake Oroville, flying them to the erosion scar at the emergency spillway and dropping the containers into the hole.