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After a massive construction effort, the main flood control spillway at Oroville Dam is up and running in time for the rainy season and on point for its Nov. 1 target for repair, officials with the California Department of Water Resources announced today. DWR set Nov. 1 as its goal for repairing and reconstructing more than 2,270 feet of the 3,000-foot-long main, gated flood control spillway at Lake Oroville so it could handle flows of 100,000 cubic-feet per second this winter.

Crews are laying the last layer of concrete on the Oroville Dam spillway with one day until the state Department of Water Resources’ deadline to have the structure ready to pass flows of 100,000 cubic-feet per second, or cfs. Over the last week, Kiewit Corp. construction workers connected the lower and upper chutes and erected the walls. Now all that is left is to place a coating of roller-compacted concrete in the middle chute “that will provide a stronger wearing surface,” said Erin Mellon, the department’s assistant director of public affairs.

California’s ambitious plan to build two giant water tunnels under the West’s largest estuary has been deemed too expensive by some of the water utilities that would have to pay for it. As a result, attention is turning back to a cheaper option: One tunnel instead of two. On October 17, the board of directors of the Santa Clara Valley Water District unanimously rejected the $17 billion twin-tunnel project, known as WaterFix, and instead expressed support for a smaller, single-tunnel alternative. The district serves more than 1 million people in Silicon Valley.

Picture a beach next to a blue lake under the bright California skies, its water twinkling as the sun catches gentle waves, and birds cruising on the thermals above. As you walk towards the lake, you see that the water levels are low, leaving behind cracked and dry brown mud below the white beach. When you reach what looks like sand from afar, your feet make a crunching sound. You realize it’s thousands—no, millions—of bones snapping beneath your sneakers, from fish that were washed ashore, too many for even the birds or wild animals to consume.