LETTER: Oroville Dam issue had nothing to do with salmon

Your March 27 editorial about management of Lake Oroville during the spillway emergency last month is based on incorrect speculation. It is wrong to suggest that anything other than public safety drove decisions after the main spillway eroded on Feb. 7.

In fact, all fish at the hatchery downstream of the dam were relocated Feb. 9 and 10 before the lake flowed into the emergency spillway on Feb. 11. Decisions about how much water to release from the damaged spillway were based on several factors, none of them related to fish.

Instead, the factors at play included forecasting of storm conditions and resulting inflows, uncertainty about how the damaged spillway would perform, and the need to preserve the spillway for the remainder of the rainy season.