Peterson Provides Customized Support

for Oroville Dam

Oroville Dam was built to

harness the Feather River which historically flooded out the surrounding areas causing widespread damage

and loss of life.

For borrow material, the contractor used dredge tailings left over from turn-of-the-century gold mining operations, spread out over

5,500 acres just north of

the town of Oroville.

Oroville’s automated earthmoving system employed 12 stations, beginning with a giant track-mounted wheel excavator, pictured here being

assisted by a CAT D8.

The mammoth excavator produced 5700 tons per hour.

The fill was dumped on conveyor belts and transported to loading stations for transfer to

gondola-type cars pulled by

heavy diesel engines.

After the giant excavator was a series of transfer conveyors, a railcar system, Western Pacific’s Old RR spur, reclaim tunnels

and various tippers,

dumpers and loaders.

Oman bought Western Pacific's old railroad system and converted it over for the Oroville project.

The trains filed to the damsite,

40 cars at a time, where the fill

was dumped on conveyor belts and carried to the top of the dam.

At the end of the RR line was a 1,000-ton truck-loading hopper, pictured here, located 14 miles north of the old gold-mining dredging site. Giant Peterson-customized 97-ton

Athey bottom-dumps

hauled the material to the embankment.

Buster Peterson redesigned the trucks with his patented actuating hydraulic hopper doors for

easier loading and dumping.

The Athey wagons

collected the fill for dumping - 2200 to 2300 loads

in a 24-hour period.

CAT's new 660 scraper

was first used

(in Peterson territory)

on the Oroville dam project.

Oman bought 20 new CAT 660s

to pull their specially designed Athey bottom dump wagons.

They also purchased four additional CAT 660s

for traditional scraper work.

Pictured at right is a CAT 660 scraper being pushed by

Buster's new Quad D9s.

Buster Peterson's Quad D9s worked on the Oroville Dam project during their

1965-66 work season

Buster's tandem 631 compactor was the only machine that could meet the job's compaction

specs at Oroville.

Nothing else the Corp of Engineers came up with

could match it.