On Feb. 12, 2017, the Butte County, California, sheriff ordered the evacuation of more than 180,000 people in the communities surrounding California’s Oroville Dam after officials spotted severe erosion in the dam’s emergency spillway.
Although the evacuation mandate has since been lifted and downgraded to an evacuation warning, residents of the Oroville area are still concerned about the dam’s safety. Another storm is currently headed to that region and additional rainfall is expected.
The Oroville Dam facilities are managed on the federal level by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which licenses the project to California’s Department of Water Resources (DWR). In 2002, the DWR applied for relicensing with FERC and eventually submitted a draft environmental impact report (DEIR).
Originally published in Law360.
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