Oroville Dam Faces Lawsuit, Relicensing Threat

Controversy is swelling over the February 2017 spillway collapse at the Oroville Dam in Northern California, after local officials last week filed a scathing lawsuit alleging corruption at the state’s main water agency and lawmakers called for FERC to delay the facility’s relicensing. “Decades of mismanagement and intentional lack of maintenance” by the California Department of Water Resources led to the federally declared disaster, according to allegations in the Jan. 17 lawsuit filed by the City of Oroville against the department.