California Coast & Ocean

We are on the south bank of the Yuba River, standing atop a gigantic pile of gravel in the midst of a landscape so strange and devoid of life that it calls up images of the moon. The water below us seems to bear no relationship to any real river. It';s oddly blue, very clear, and is confined to a channel between near-vertical gravel walls that, in some places, rise as high as 100 feet on both banks. So eerie is this scene that I can';t actually see the river flowing; it seems frozen in place. Turning to look downstream in the direction of Marysville, I see a vast gray stony field with odd-shaped mounds extending to the horizon, with only here and there a bush or a tree.

This alien yet oddly beautiful place is called the Goldfields. It';s a 10,000-acre wasteland left behind by the Gold Rush in the middle reach of the Lower Yuba River, about 20 miles west of Nevada City. I';m with Derek Hitchcock, an ecologist working with the South Yuba River Citizens League (SYRCL) to restore salmon habitat here. "Ironically,; he says, "the magnitude of the destruction wreaked upon the Yuba watershed in the 19th and 20th centuries has created a unique river system that presents unique restoration opportunities in the 21st century.;

After gold was discovered in the American River in 1848 and before a court largely stopped the practice in 1884, hydraulic mining blasted away entire hillsides and sluiced 1.5 billion cubic feet of debris down the tributaries of major Sierra rivers flowing into the Central Valley. Almost half of that came out of the Yuba watershed. Vast amounts of gravel, mud, uprooted plants, and other debris traveled down into the Feather River, on into the Sacramento River, and as far as San Francisco Bay--which helps to explain why the Bay is so shallow; its average depth is only eight feet.

Much of the heavier debris landed along a six-mile stretch of the Lower Yuba, where it slows as it enters the flat Central Valley, and where, in the past, it used to spread, becoming a braided valley river. Piling up, the debris raised the riverbed, causing floods that drowned hundreds of square miles of farmland in a mixture of mud and gravel. In 1893, the State set up the California Debris Commission to build dams that would capture mining debris that was still coming down rivers, to keep it out of the Valley.

On the Yuba, Daguerre Point Dam was constructed at the downstream end of the enormous gravel deposit, and about 16 miles of "training walls; were erected to channelize the river by piling gravel on both the north and south banks, as well as down the center of the river in some places to create two channels. The effect was to keep the river from spreading in its floodplain and to turn this stretch of the Yuba into a conveyance channel that speeds water downstream to serve agricultural and municipal users.

By the turn of the century, a switch from mercury to cyanide for gold extraction made it profitable to mine the Lower Yuba again, for gold that came down with the debris. In cooperation with State water supply engineers, miners used bucketline dredges, and piled gravel still higher on the banks. They gouged into the riverbed and flood basin, leaving steep ravines and deep holes that filled with water and became ponds. They turned over earth and gravel again and again and threw it onto piles, building odd-shaped mounds. Today gravel mining is the major extractive industry in the Goldfields. The aggregate here has high commercial value for construction.

A Promising River
The Yuba River, one of 14 major rivers flowing into the Central Valley, begins in the Sierra as three forks. The North, Middle, and South Yuba cascade over granite boulders and meander down through forests, and support fish, wildlife, and people who come from near and far to enjoy small sandy beaches, water-polished rocks, and quiet pools; to camp, swim, sunbathe, fish, and cool off under trees that arch over clear water. These forks merge near a steep gorge 24 miles east of Marysville, where Englebright Dam was built in 1941.

There';s good habitat for salmon upstream, but salmon can';t get to it. Many perish downstream at the 24-foot-high Daguerre Point Dam; none can get past 260-foot Englebright Dam, 12 miles upstream from Daguerre Point. If these two dams were removed, over 100 miles of upstream salmon habitat would reopen, according to the Upper Yuba River Studies Program, a study commissioned by the Department of Water Resources, completed in 2005. Even in its current dammed state, however, the Yuba meets the basic requirements for habitat restoration, says Hitchcock. It still has a spring run of about 260 Chinook--endangered--and a fall run of about 2,300. In 2007, a total of 2,600 Chinook were counted, with similar counts for 2008, he says. A big plus for the Yuba is the absence of hatcheries that could reduce the genetic integrity of native fish. Water quality is exceptional, water temperatures are suitably cold, and the vast supply of loose gravel in the riverbed is suitable for spawning habitat, as well as being commercially valuable. What';s badly missing are the shaded backwaters and streamside vegetation that juvenile salmon need to grow.

One such haven does exist, though, and we now start hiking downriver toward it. On the opposite bank, the gravel piles are smaller and rounder, and some brush grows at the waterline, backed by summer-gold grassland and, farther on, a dense stand of trees. The ridge we';re walking rises and dips and turns. We come to a sign that says we are entering Bureau of Land Management (BLM) land, climb a small peak to admire an oak growing there--a lone pioneer--then look down at a wider river in which shrubs grow on a midstream gravel bar laced with meandering channels. Across the river is Hammon Grove County Park, with lots of trees, while directly below is that one salmon-friendly spot, the Hammon Backwater.

It';s a quiet off-stream pool shaded by willows and cottonwoods, protected by the wide midstream gravel bar and a curve in the river just downstream. Each year, a few lucky salmon fry are washed into this pool while they are not yet strong enough to negotiate the river current. Here they can grow into six-to-eight-inch fish ready for the precarious journey to the sea.

SYRCL is studying this backwater, with the help of $165,000 from the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, with the goal of replicating it elsewhere in the Goldfields. Hitchcock says restoration project costs here need not be unreasonable, because it';s likely that "the river itself will do most of the work if it';s allowed to. Finding the absolute minimum that must be done, and the right spot, is key. Once hydrological studies are complete, maybe all we need to do is cut a channel into a training wall. Because the restoration would be done on BLM land, we can sell the valuable gravel that';s removed, and let riparian vegetation recolonize the site over time.; Among the useful natural forces the river provides are beavers. "Beavers are instrumental in backwater habitat creation and maintenance,; he says. "Juvenile fish can swim through beaver dams to a pleasant, cool, insect-rich environment, safe from predators.; Beavers helped to create the Hammon Backwater.

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.

	Restoring Life to the Yuba River Goldfields Rasa Gustaitis
	We are on the south bank of the Yuba River, standing atop a gigantic pile of gravel in the midst of a landscape so strange and devoid of life that it calls up images of the moon. The water below us seems to bear no relationship to any real river. It';s oddly blue, very clear, and is confined to a channel between near-vertical gravel walls that, in some places, rise as high as 100 feet on both banks. So eerie is this scene that I can';t actually see the river flowing; it seems frozen in place. Turning to look downstream in the direction of Marysville, I see a vast gray stony field with odd-shaped mounds extending to the horizon, with only here and there a bush or a tree. This alien yet oddly beautiful place is called the Goldfields. It';s a 10,000-acre wasteland left behind by the Gold Rush in the middle reach of the Lower Yuba River, about 20 miles west of Nevada City. I';m with Derek Hitchcock, an ecologist working with the South Yuba River Citizens League (SYRCL) to restore salmon habitat here. "Ironically,; he says, "the magnitude of the destruction wreaked upon the Yuba watershed in the 19th and 20th centuries has created a unique river system that presents unique restoration opportunities in the 21st century.; After gold was discovered in the American River in 1848 and before a court largely stopped the practice in 1884, hydraulic mining blasted away entire hillsides and sluiced 1.5 billion cubic feet of debris down the tributaries of major Sierra rivers flowing into the Central Valley. Almost half of that came out of the Yuba watershed. Vast amounts of gravel, mud, uprooted plants, and other debris traveled down into the Feather River, on into the Sacramento River, and as far as San Francisco Bay--which helps to explain why the Bay is so shallow; its average depth is only eight feet. Much of the heavier debris landed along a six-mile stretch of the Lower Yuba, where it slows as it enters the flat Central Valley, and where, in the past, it used to spread, becoming a braided valley river. Piling up, the debris raised the riverbed, causing floods that drowned hundreds of square miles of farmland in a mixture of mud and gravel. In 1893, the State set up the California Debris Commission to build dams that would capture mining debris that was still coming down rivers, to keep it out of the Valley. On the Yuba, Daguerre Point Dam was constructed at the downstream end of the enormous gravel deposit, and about 16 miles of "training walls; were erected to channelize the river by piling gravel on both the north and south banks, as well as down the center of the river in some places to create two channels. The effect was to keep the river from spreading in its floodplain and to turn this stretch of the Yuba into a conveyance channel that speeds water downstream to serve agricultural and municipal users. By the turn of the century, a switch from mercury to cyanide for gold extraction made it profitable to mine the Lower Yuba again, for gold that came down with the debris. In cooperation with State water supply engineers, miners used bucketline dredges, and piled gravel still higher on the banks. They gouged into the riverbed and flood basin, leaving steep ravines and deep holes that filled with water and became ponds. They turned over earth and gravel again and again and threw it onto piles, building odd-shaped mounds. Today gravel mining is the major extractive industry in the Goldfields. The aggregate here has high commercial value for construction. A Promising River The Yuba River, one of 14 major rivers flowing into the Central Valley, begins in the Sierra as three forks. The North, Middle, and South Yuba cascade over granite boulders and meander down through forests, and support fish, wildlife, and people who come from near and far to enjoy small sandy beaches, water-polished rocks, and quiet pools; to camp, swim, sunbathe, fish, and cool off under trees that arch over clear water. These forks merge near a steep gorge 24 miles east of Marysville, where Englebright Dam was built in 1941. There';s good habitat for salmon upstream, but salmon can';t get to it. Many perish downstream at the 24-foot-high Daguerre Point Dam; none can get past 260-foot Englebright Dam, 12 miles upstream from Daguerre Point. If these two dams were removed, over 100 miles of upstream salmon habitat would reopen, according to the Upper Yuba River Studies Program, a study commissioned by the Department of Water Resources, completed in 2005. Even in its current dammed state, however, the Yuba meets the basic requirements for habitat restoration, says Hitchcock. It still has a spring run of about 260 Chinook--endangered--and a fall run of about 2,300. In 2007, a total of 2,600 Chinook were counted, with similar counts for 2008, he says. A big plus for the Yuba is the absence of hatcheries that could reduce the genetic integrity of native fish. Water quality is exceptional, water temperatures are suitably cold, and the vast supply of loose gravel in the riverbed is suitable for spawning habitat, as well as being commercially valuable. What';s badly missing are the shaded backwaters and streamside vegetation that juvenile salmon need to grow. One such haven does exist, though, and we now start hiking downriver toward it. On the opposite bank, the gravel piles are smaller and rounder, and some brush grows at the waterline, backed by summer-gold grassland and, farther on, a dense stand of trees. The ridge we';re walking rises and dips and turns. We come to a sign that says we are entering Bureau of Land Management (BLM) land, climb a small peak to admire an oak growing there--a lone pioneer--then look down at a wider river in which shrubs grow on a midstream gravel bar laced with meandering channels. Across the river is Hammon Grove County Park, with lots of trees, while directly below is that one salmon-friendly spot, the Hammon Backwater. It';s a quiet off-stream pool shaded by willows and cottonwoods, protected by the wide midstream gravel bar and a curve in the river just downstream. Each year, a few lucky salmon fry are washed into this pool while they are not yet strong enough to negotiate the river current. Here they can grow into six-to-eight-inch fish ready for the precarious journey to the sea. SYRCL is studying this backwater, with the help of $165,000 from the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, with the goal of replicating it elsewhere in the Goldfields. Hitchcock says restoration project costs here need not be unreasonable, because it';s likely that "the river itself will do most of the work if it';s allowed to. Finding the absolute minimum that must be done, and the right spot, is key. Once hydrological studies are complete, maybe all we need to do is cut a channel into a training wall. Because the restoration would be done on BLM land, we can sell the valuable gravel that';s removed, and let riparian vegetation recolonize the site over time.; Among the useful natural forces the river provides are beavers. "Beavers are instrumental in backwater habitat creation and maintenance,; he says. "Juvenile fish can swim through beaver dams to a pleasant, cool, insect-rich environment, safe from predators.; Beavers helped to create the Hammon Backwater. 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.