Oroville Dam
A State Asset, A Local Burden
The Oroville Dam is overdue for a proper relicensing from FERC. Before a new license is issued, there must be accountability for fulfilling the conditions of the original license: promised recreation development, safety assurances, and fair compensation.
The History
Rome had aqueducts. Manhattan has the Erie Canal. And California, arguably the most audacious economic experiment in human history, has the Oroville Dam.
Rising 770 feet above the Feather River, Oroville Dam is not just the tallest dam in the United States. It is the linchpin. The keystone fueling the 4th-largest economy in the world. Strip it away, and the Central Valley, which feeds a nation, goes dry. Southern California's 20+ million people scramble for water. 2.2 billion kilowatt-hours of annual electricity, enough to power every home in Butte County for two years, goes away.
This is what infrastructure actually means. The invisible skeleton inside the body of civilization that the average person only notices when it breaks.
Authorized by the California Legislature in 1951, completed in 1968, and operated by the Department of Water Resources (DWR) ever since, Oroville Dam is the cornerstone of the California State Water Project, a vast machine that captures the snowmelt of the Sierra Nevada and sends it hundreds of miles south, turning desert ambition into agricultural reality.
That water didn't just sustain California. It fueled the rapid growth of California into the largest economy and most populous state in the nation. Agriculture flourished in what should have been scrubland. Entire regions invented themselves on the assumption that the water would always come, and it did, because of one dam, in one county, on one river.
The county is Butte. The river is the Feather. And what happened there is a masterclass in how a society can be simultaneously magnificent and cruel.
The State Water Project (SWP) is one of the largest water management systems in the nation. The SWP captures water from the Feather River, stores it in Lake Oroville, and delivers it south to supply water to over 27 million residents and irrigate 750,000 acres of farmland.
The 750,000 acres of farmland irrigated by water from Lake Oroville produce $19 billion in crops and agricultural products each year.
The water from Lake Oroville supplies 27 million individuals, over two-thirds of the State’s population. This service area is the largest economy supported by a major water conveyance system in the United States, and the second-largest in the world.
The Oroville hydroelectric facilities produce electricity worth a wholesale value of ~$110 million/year and a retail value of ~$682 million/year.
While the water from Lake Oroville facilitates a trillion-dollar economy, Butte County, the host of Lake Oroville, incurs an annual loss of $20 million due to dam-related impacts.
Key Issues.
DWR’s failure to deliver on the original recreational promises continues to negatively impact the local community. While the State continues to reap the benefits of the dam, Butte County is left empty-handed while continuing to shoulder the enormous cost of hosting the facility. The annual financial loss, combined with DWR’s failure to fulfill its recreation development responsibilities, underscores the significance of DWR’s neglect and operational failures regarding the dam.
Undeveloped Recreation Facilities
Safety Failures
Strained County Services and Financial Impact
RESOURCES
Find links to historical reports, correspondence, and more.