CNN News: 加州奥罗维尔水坝应急溢洪道腐蚀

Lake Oroville is a reservoir in Northern California. It`s been in the news a lot over the past few years first because of the dramatic effects that California`s recent drought had on its water levels. You can see it here, bridges that used to be over water, at one point spanning nothing but dry land.

奥罗维尔湖是加州北部的一个水库。由于加州近几年的干旱对其水位的影响，奥罗维尔湖经常出现在时事新闻中。你可以看到，曾经满是湖水的奥罗维尔湖，现在在某些程度已经开始萎缩。

Now, Lake Oroville is having the opposite problem, tons of rain and snow in recent months have cleared up a lot of California`s drought and the lake is now near capacity.

奥罗维尔湖有着令人费解的问题，最近几个月的大量降雨以及降雪已经缓解的加州的干旱现象，同时奥罗维尔湖已经几乎注满。

Its dam, the Oroville Dam, is the tallest in America. It provides flood control for the region. It has two spillways, passageways where extra water can flow out of the reservoir.

奥罗维尔水坝,在美国最高的。具有防洪功能。它有两个溢洪道，多于的水可以从水库流出。

But there are problems with both of them. And that`s led to the evacuation of about 188,000 people who live in towns downstream.

但是，现在这两个溢洪道出现了问题。需要疏散下游城镇中大约18.8万人口。

In the main spillway, erosion has opened a hole almost the size of a football field and it`s at least 40 feet deep. Not an easy hole to fix.

主溢洪道，由于腐蚀作用出现了一个大约足球场大的缺口，深至少40英尺。但是修复此缺口也十个难题。

The reservoir also has an emergency spillway. It had never been used in the 48 years that Oroville Dam had been there, until Saturday, when water started washing down the embankment. The problem, on Sunday, inspectors found that the emergency spillway was also eroding and if it fails, it could cause flash flooding all the way to Sacramento, 75 miles away.

该水库也有一个应急溢洪道。但是自奥罗维尔水坝修建后，应急溢洪道就从未使用过。直到上周六，水开始冲下路堤。现在的问题是，周日，检查员发现，紧急通道也出现了腐蚀，如果应急通道也出了问题，就会引发骤发洪水到75英里外的萨克拉门托。