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Oroville – Water is flowing down the damaged main Oroville Dam spillway again.

At 9 a.m. Friday the Department of Water Resources began releasing water into the concrete chute, the bottom part of which is largely destroyed after breaking up beginning Feb. 7.

The discharges were to be ramped up to 35,000 cubic feet per second, while the flow through the Hyatt Powerhouse underneath the dam was to be shut off.

Use of the spillway was necessary because enough water can’t be released through the powerhouse to keep up with the inflow to the lake from the current series of storms.

About 13,000 cfs can be released from Lake Oroville into the Feather River through the powerhouse, while inflow has been as high as 51,000 cfs in the last 24 hours.

At 10 a.m., the lake level was 866 feet above sea level, which is a rise of almost 3 feet in 24 hours. Since then it has stabilized, and is down about an inch and a half.

The lip of the problematic emergency spillway is 901 feet.

DWR has indicated it will run the spillway for 10-14 days. Powerhouse flows will be off until work on the power lines connecting it to the electrical grid can be completed. One of the towers supporting the line was threatened with erosion during the spillway emergency, and the lines were moved temporarily to a new location.

Even after that work is complete, half of the powerhouse will remain offline, and the flow through one of the two penstocks from the lake will be shut down. That will be done partly to make preparations for replacing a turbine that has been out of service for a couple of years.

WATER DELIVERIES

Friday DWR also announced it was increasing State Water Project deliveries to 100 percent for contractors north of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and 85 percent for those south of the delta.

That’s an increase from the 60 percent announced Jan. 18, and the highest allocation since 2006.

“We’re hopeful we’ll be able to increase deliveries even more as we monitor conditions,” said DWR acting Director Bill Croyle in a press release.

DWR initially estimated it would only be able to deliver 20 percent of the 4.1 million acre-feet of SWP water requested this year.