California Launches Overall Safety Review At Tallest US Dam

California is launching an overall safety review of the nation’s tallest dam to pinpoint any needed upgrades in the half-century-old structure, water officials said Wednesday, launching the kind of overarching review called for by an independent national panel of experts in September following the collapse of two spillways at Oroville Dam. Experts from the national Association of State Dam Safety Officials and the U.S. Society on Dams concluded that state officials would have been able to catch the problems that led to the collapses if they had reviewed the 1960s’ design and construction of the dam using modern engineering standards.