New and odd happenings at Oroville Dam...Unless you can find some pronouncemnt from DWR I haven't seen...

The California Department of Water Resources (DWR) had been running the newly repaired main spillway at the nation's tallest dam all the way up to 25,000 cubic feet per second (CFS) ...i.e. about a third of the average volume of the American and Canadian combined flowage over Niagara Falls.

In order to ramp up the main spillway that high, they say, for "testing purposes," they shut down the Hyatt Power Plant to a trickle the past three days.

Now, today, the overall flow has been cut back to around 15,000 CFS-- total, out of the dam-- with no public announcement or explanation. We do not know if they started up the Hyatt Power plant again (and it's 12,000 CFS) and are only running the main spillway today at 3,000 CFS, or some other combination of flows. But, as usual the DWR is leaving the public completely in the dark as to what is going on.

From the look of this new webcam at the top of the spillway it does look like the levels have been cut all the way back to a very low flow down the main spillway, although it's still dark there at this time and hard to assess for sure:

https://www.parks.ca.gov/live/lakeorovillesra_spillway

The worst case scenario would be that the main spillway failed the test and can not even handle 25,000 CFS (when DWR says it can handle up to 150,000 CFS or more) and that it has begun to fail. I don't think that is likely and we can probably check that out on one of their new "appeasement cams" when daylight comes. I think it is more likely that they are letting the dam fill up ON PURPOSE again, now, to their previous stated water elevation of 870' for the Month of April.

(Courtesy of actionnewsnow.com.)

We shall see.

Here is a link to the recent water inflow/outflow and current storage levels:

http://cdec.water.ca.gov/dynamicapp/QueryF?s=ORO

The water levels had been dropping the past few days but are currently RISING RAPIDLY due to this year's highest recorded inflows, to date, and the reduction back to 15,000-CFS in outflows.

Keep an eye on those numbers, but better yet, see if you can get a hold of someone living above the dam and find out what the local scuttlebutt is.

My best guess is they are back to simply gambling that they can keep the water at manageable levels (for future sale) at whatever rate of flow over the main spillway they may decide to use during the upcoming melt season. AND, of course, I pray that they are right...

EDITED TO ADD: If you look closely at the live webcam link (above) there is a dark spot just to the left of the center of the spillway just before the water cascades over that steeper drop to the Feather River. In front (downhill) of that odd dark spot, there is a light spot that could be indicative of lesser water flow over that area. I hope this is NOT what it looks like it might be...i.e. a hole in the new spillway......i.e. a collapsed cement panel at that dark spot. I don't think so, bit it sure looks odd.

P.S. I don't think it is a collapsed panel or there would be lots of spray and water "kick back" obvious on camera at that location, and I don't see any of that. It's probably just some kind of odd shadow, followed by some other type of lighting anomaly where the lighter stretch is located.

LATE UPDATE: In the full light of daylight, now (6:40 AM PT) we can clearly see those were just odd shadows with no immediately apparent source, and not any type of obvious flaw in the main spillway. Phew!