Kiewit Infrastructure West was awarded a multimillion dollar contract to repair, replace and strengthen both spillways at the troubled Oroville Dam late Monday.
The Fairfield-based arm of the Omaha Nebraska construction behemoth submitted a $275 million bid for the job, the lowest submitted.
The Department of Water Resources increased its own cost estimate for the job to $231 million. DWR is refusing to make the bids public, claiming that information could be used by terrorists to plan an attack.
Repair and reconstruction work is scheduled to begin immediately. DWR Deputy Director Bill Croyle has vowed to deliver an operational spillway by Nov. 1, the official start of the rainy season.
Kiewit has been involved in many major projects, including the Yucca Mountain atomic waste dump in Nevada, rail lines in Spain and Denver, the Los Vaqueros dam in Contra Costa County and the Devil’s Slide Tunnel in San Mateo County.