New Analysis reveals: Oroville dam may have been doomed from the very beginning

The California Department of Water Resources has suspended flows from the Oroville Dam spillway after a concrete section eroded on the middle section of the spillway. There is no anticipated threat to the dam or the public. DWR engineers are assessing the options to repair the spillway and control the reservoir water level. The Butte County facility is the tallest dam in the United States at 770 feet and is a key part of the State Water Project. Photo taken February 7, 2017.

Kelly M. Grow/ California Department of Water
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The Center of Catastrophic risk management at UC Berkeley has released the first major assessment of what went wrong with the Oroville dam spillway.

To the troubled Oroville Dam in Northern California and the assessment out this week that’s bringing some troubling news to light:

“The evidence shows there were pervasive design flaws and those defects and flaws were propagated during construction. We have enough photographic detail to provide some very interesting insight into how they actually constructed the spillway versus what the design drawings showed."

Pervasive design flaws and shotty construction... that according to Robert Bea, author of the first major independent assessment into the Oroville dam, highlighting some key findings in his analysis.

Ralph Vartabedian wrote about this for the L.A. Times. He spoke to A Martinez to break it all down.

The Center of Catastrophic risk management at UC Berkeley has released the first major assessment of what went wrong with the Oroville dam spillway.

To listen to the full segment, click the blue play button below.