Oroville Dam Spillway Recovery Engineering and Construction Management

During a period of heavy and record-setting rainfall in 2017, the gated spillway at California’s 770-foot Oroville Dam—the tallest dam in the US—sustained damage while releasing water to the Feather River below. With significant precipitation over the next few days, the auxiliary (emergency) spillway was used for the first time in the history of the dam, ultimately leading to the evacuation of more than 180,000 people living downstream.

Our teams have been supporting the Department of Water Resources at the facility for nearly 20 years, and in the first few days after the failure, Stantec teams from offices in California, Portland, Seattle, and Chicago were on site to provide strategic and engineering support. Later, with a multiple-service contract in place, our teams worked on dam safety, hydraulic analysis modeling, geotechnical surveying, high voltage transmission line relocation, environmental surveys and permitting, and civil design. 

The engineering and construction management services for the Oroville Spillway Recovery Project will bring the facility back into service, shoring up local resilience, and preparing for heavy weather events on into the future.