Inmates Take Part in Emergency Response to Crisis at Oroville Dam

State prison inmates have been among the workers rushed to help deal with the crisis at Oroville Dam.

Last weekend, as many as 250 inmates were at the site, and Wednesday, 24 inmates in two work crews were still helping clear loose material from the dam's badly eroded emergency spillway to prevent debris from being washed into the waterway below. In addition to receiving training for their work outside prison walls, inmates are paid $2 a day.

“Even though they do predominantly firefighting duty in the summer months, most of the time these are crews out doing conservation work at other times of the year, and they respond whenever Cal Fire or, in this case, the Department of Water Resources, ask for our help," California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation spokesman Bill Sessa said.

Sessa said inmates trained to work on fire lines have experience needed at Oroville, like clearing out dead tree limbs and brush.

“We go day by day, based on whether or not Cal Fire asks for help," Sessa said. "If we’re asked for help, we do, and if they do not need us, the crews go off and work on other projects.”

On Tuesday, Feb. 7, a crater opened on the dam's main spillway, forcing dam managers first to shut it down for assessment and then allow only limited releases down the damaged concrete chute. Meantime, Lake Oroville, the giant reservoir behind the dam, rose rapidly as runoff from last week's major storm flowed in.

Early last Saturday, the lake level crested more than a foot above a never-before-used emergency spillway structure, and the resulting erosion on the hillside below prompted officials to issue an emergency evacuation order for those living downstream. At the same time, managers increase flows down the damaged main spillway. That strategy has proved successful in lowering the lake, which on Friday afternoon was 42 feet below the emergency spillway.

KQED's Don Clyde contributed to this post.