The approximately $900 million auxiliary spillway for Folsom Dam, which will increase the dam’s release capacity and reduce flood risk downstream, is “on time and on budget” for its scheduled October 2017 completion.

 Also on schedule are the first phase of the project’s control structure, scheduled to wrap up in the summer of 2015, and the second phase, set for completion in May 2017, said Katie Huff, a senior project manager with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
“Site restoration will begin in 2016-17,” she said.

The auxiliary spillway’s completion target is four years sooner than the original planned completion date of 2021 — and nearly $416 million below original cost projections.

Construction on the new dam, the control structure, began in May 2012. Crews have been working nearly around the clock, six days a week, to meet the completion deadline of mid-2015.

The third year of California drought hasn’t had an impact on construction of the auxiliary spillway. It’s essentially a second dam that will allow water to be released earlier and more safely from Folsom Lake during large storms.

Rather, with the extended dry conditions, “We’ve been able to do work in the ‘dry,’ instead of the ‘wet,’” said Huff, who lives in El Dorado Hills.

The Army Corps of Engineers, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, California’s Central Valley Flood Protection Board and the Sacramento Flood Control Agency are working together to build the auxiliary spillway to increase its release capacity and reduce flood risk downstream.

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