Small Steps toward the Vision
In the bigger picture, restoring West Coast salmon runs will require a "four-four-two solution," Hitchcock says: removal of four dams on the Snake River, which feeds the Columbia, four on the Klamath, and two on the Yuba. "With the Yuba you get the biggest bang for the buck. Both of these dams [Daguerre Point and Englebright] are federal property, so [Secretary of the Interior] Ken Salazar could do it with a stroke of the pen." Daguerre Point Dam is the first candidate for removal, being much smaller and farther downstream.

SYRCL formed 25 years ago to fight against dams proposed in the idyllic upper South Yuba, and has continued as watchdog and steward of the river. Its volunteers have been monitoring water quality at 38 sites on the Yuba for eight years. They offer rafting tours to view salmon spawning in October and November (see www.yubariver.net), lead field trips for schoolchildren, visit classrooms, and participate in community events, including traditional Native American salmon ceremonies.

Early in 2008 SYRCL entered into a conservation partnership with Western Aggregates, the Texas-based owner of most of the Goldfields, and the YOA Hunting and Fishing Club. Their goal is to resolve user conflicts and improve conditions for salmon on a three-mile-long, 180-acre stretch of the river in the Goldfields. Each partner had reasons to collaborate with the others. Western Aggregates has long been embroiled in legal battles about public access across its property to otherwise unreachable public lands. Fishermen want more access to the river and better conditions for salmon. All the partners want to restrict off-road vehicle access to the river and the steep slopes of the training walls. To the property owner they are a liability hazard, to salmon they are a death threat. "We have documentation of off-road vehicles driving across salmon nests," says Hitchcock. The partners have agreed that a fence will be erected to steer OHV romping farther away from the south side of the river. An access road will stay open to the public.

When Hitchcock first started talking about salmon restoration in the Goldfields I was skeptical, but I'm beginning to see the potential. Surely the smaller dam can be dispensed with, or at least equipped with an adequate fish ladder. Studies and plans for removing obsolete dams from the Carmel River, the Ventura River, and elsewhere are under way, so why not here? There's not much time left for saving these salmon.

Later, as we sit atop Englebright Dam watching a thin stream of water pouring out through a pipe into a mostly dry riverbed far below, it's clear that this massive concrete barrier is not likely to come down anytime soon. There's a nine-mile recreational lake behind it. Yet as in many difficult undertakings, it's the big vision that inspires people to take the first steps. For salmon advocates on the Yuba, each step has made the next one possible, while also helping watershed inhabitants to know and appreciate the river and landscape. Eventually, Hitchcock says, he and other Yuba allies hope to see "the return of this Sierra Nevada watershed to a free-flowing, ecologically healthy, salmon-rich place of abundance, connecting the Sierra with the urban shores of San Francisco Bay."

Thanks to Derek Hitchcock for his considerable contribution to this article.

Click here to see a recent paper about historical changes in the lower stretches of the Yuba and Feather Rivers, based on a wide variety of historic maps
and other data.