Oroville Dam

The Oroville Dam is located on the Feather River in the Sierra Nevada northeast of the city of Oroville in Butte County of the U.S. state of California. It impounds Lake Oroville that generates electricity and supplies Central and Southern California with drinking and irrigation water. The dam also acts as a pump storage power plant and also serves the flood protection and recreational relaxation.

The dam and the reservoir are part of the "California State Water Project". The fish ladder or fishway are interesting places where you can watch the salmon run in September and October.

The Oroville Dam is still in front of the Hoover Dam, the highest dam in the United States and among the 20 largest in the world with regard to building height and dam volume. The dam is 235 meters high and 2,317 meters long zone earth dam, which holds back 4,364 cubic kilometers ( = billion cubic meters ) of water. Construction began in 1957 complete with roads and were completed in 1968 with the inauguration.

Since 1975, when an earthquake with a magnitude of 5.7 occurred in Oroville, we know that the dam was built on an active geological fault.