Wild and Scenic River Designation Will Protect the South Yuba
July 9, 1999
On January 20, 1999 the citizens of Nevada County learned for the first time that the Yuba County Water Agency (YCWA) is engaged in the study of two new dams on the South Yuba River: one at Edwards Crossing and a second at The Narrows, just below Englebright Dam. By August, the YCWA will have spent more than $750,000 on these studies – a hefty sum, to be sure, but only a fraction of the $7 million the YCWA has budgeted to justify new dams on the Yuba. The news was chilling, and raised the specter of property condemnation, lost retail and tourism dollars, and an irreplaceable river canyon buried forever beneath the waters of an unnecessary reservoir.
In response to the YCWA’s bombshell, the Nevada County Board of Supervisors voted in February to officially sponsor Senate Bill 496, which would designate the South Yuba a California Wild and Scenic River. Designation has one principle effect: it prohibits the state from licensing, funding or building new dams and reservoirs on protected rivers.
Over the years, Wild and Scenic has inspired heated disagreement and sharp words from both sides of the debate. Unfortunately, it has also spawned myth, rumor and outright misinformation. To combat all of these, this column presents the basic case for designation and provides factual citations so citizens can do their own research and answer for themselves the simple question designation presents: Should the federal government retain its authority to license new dams on the South Yuba?
Without designation, the federal government has the authority to license new dams on any river – the South Yuba included – through the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). These federal licenses carry the power to condemn private property and licensed projects can be built over the objections of local residents. Nevada County – and even the state of California – cannot stop federally-licensed projects. The state designation conveyed by SB 496 would not prohibit FERC licenses entirely, but it would make them nearly impossible to obtain.
Both of the projects being studied by the YCWA would be armed with a FERC license. According to the YCWA, the Edwards Crossing Dam would be 600 feet high and would fill a 13-mile-long reservoir all the way to Washington, inundating part of the town. The Narrows Dam would bury Englebright and the homes around it under 300 feet of water and inundate the South Yuba State Park at Bridgeport. Clearly, the impacts of these projects to our community would be profound, but we would be almost powerless to stop them. (YCWA Supplemental Flood Control Program Report)
The threat of additional dams on the South Yuba dams is an historic fact, not a scare tactic. In 1983, private developers received a federal license to dam the South Yuba at Miner’s Tunnel, about half a mile above the Highway 49 Bridge. Within a few years a second project, at Excelsior Ditch, obtained another FERC license. Had these projects been built, the South Yuba’s canyon today would be graced by dams featuring acres of concrete and miles of powerlines – all built on private and state park land condemned under the authority of the federal license. Even the opposition of Nevada County and the State of California could not strip these federal licenses. Local residents helped defeat these projects, but as the news of January 20th demonstrates, the South Yuba’s toughest battles may still be ahead of it. Once again, the people of Nevada County musty fight to save our river.
The Nevada County General Plan discourages new South Yuba dams, but it cannot stop a federally-licensed project. Indeed, the Nevada County Planning Department has processed more than thirty – thirty! – applications for private water projects on the Yuba River in the last thirty years. Few of these projects were ever built, but the county expended untold staff hours and tax dollars processing – and in some cases opposing – these projects. Wild and Scenic designation will ensure our county is never forced to incur the expense of opposing such projects again.
CABPRO and other opponents of designation contend the South Yuba might someday be dammed for water supply. However, more than forty years of expert studies have consistently concluded that a South Yuba dam is not needed for statewide water supply.
Since its initial release in 1957, the California State Water Plan (now in its 8th update) has never identified a single feasible water supply dam on the South Yuba. (State Bulletin 160-98; pg.. 8-20) More recently, the CalFed Bay-Delta Program has already rejected new South Yuba dams, but it has identified and funded programs for watershed restoration. Designation is consistent with CalFed – new dams are not. (CalFed Phase II Report; pg. 82)
Our downstream neighbors must have effective flood control – but dams are not part of that solution. Indeed, since 1990 the Army Corps of Engineers, America’s preeminent dam-building agency, has twice rejected new flood control dams on the South Yuba. The most recent report, issued in April 1998, recommended improving existing levees, and suggested that new dams could actually worsen flooding by eroding the Yuba and Feather River Channels. (Yuba River Basin Investigation, Final Feasibility Report and Final Environmental Impact Report, April 1998)
SYRCL is currently lobbying for nearly $20 million in federal funds for levee repairs in Yuba and Sutter Counties. SYRCL has also secured funding for Yuba Tools, a cooperative study to evaluate non-dam flood control strategies that have been used effectively in other watersheds. Yuba Tools has been endorsed by more than 50 local, state and federal agencies and organizations dedicated to a solution that will protect downstream residents from floods and protect the environment, property owners and the Nevada County economy. As long as our neighbors face the threat of floods we will face the threat of new dams.
The 39-mile segment protected by SB 496 starts below Spaulding Dam and ends at Kentucky Creek, just below the Bridgeport Covered Bridge. Dave Munro, owner of Skippers Cove Marina on Englebright, helped the bill’s sponsors change the legislation so that it would not harm his business or limit recreation on the reservoir. Designation has absolutely nothing to do with the CalFed studies on restoring fish habitat above Englebright Dam, although opponents of designation have consistently and cynically tried to link the two.
In conclusion, the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act was passed some thirty years ago balance our state’s and our nation’s existing policy of dam-building by protecting a few of the most beautiful rivers in their free-flowing state. The U.S. is a great dam nation, indeed: today, more than 75,000 dams over six feet tall control America’s rivers; the reservoirs behind those dams cover 3 percent of the land area of our country. Here in California, thousands of dams stop all but one of our state’s major rivers. But there is hope.
California’s Wild and Scenic Rivers System currently protects more than half a dozen of our state’s most beautiful and economically productive rivers from the threat of new dams. These rivers – which include the Klamath, the Trinity, the Eel and the North Fork American – are as much a part of California’s natural legacy as the Sierra Nevada, Yosemite, the coastlines and the redwood forests. The South Yuba deserves to be protected as a member of this noble group of waterways. Wild and Scenic designation for the South Yuba would help restore some balance to our state’s river system and protect our county’s future prosperity. SB 496 will secure this protection.
John Regan is Wild and Scenic Campaign Director for the South Yuba River Citizens League (SYRCL). Formed in 1983, SYRCL is dedicated to preserving the South Yuba River through non-dam flood protection strategies and watershed restoration programs. He can be reached through SYRCL’s offices at 265-5961.