Each year, SYRCL releases an Impact Report that details the work we have done over the course of the previous year.
River Science
Throughout most of the year, the brilliantly colored Sierra newt (Taricha sierrae) lives on land, hunting and eating insects, earthworms, and slugs and hiding from any potential predators in the moist soil beneath rocks and logs. In the winter and spring, however, these members of the family Salamandridae become aquatic, returning to the pond or stream where they were born in search of a good time.
Join us for this year’s Scotch broom challenge March 30th to help remove this invasive species from our watershed.
Spring run chinook salmon are a threatened species on the Yuba. The restoration project at the Rose Bar project site is focused on enhancing the amount and quality of spawning habitat. Redd surveys provide quantifiable restoration results in addition to supplying an index of how the salmon population is doing.
SYRCL is beginning its 22nd River Monitoring season trainings on March 24th and April 2nd. Join our team and help us celebrate 21 years of this indispensable tradition!
The storm that swept through Nevada County between the 23rd and 25th of October dropped between seven and twelve inches of much needed precipitation. This rainfall has led to, among other things, increased flows in the Yuba River and SYRCL’s ‘first flush’ event.
We sat down with our resident hydrologist, Karl Ronning, to learn more about this ‘first flush’ event and to discuss the results of our water quality monitoring.
After a year away from the river, the South Yuba River Citizens League (SYRCL) is happy to announce a successful Salmon Expeditions season. Nearly 1,200 students from Nevada and Yuba counties joined us for a day to explore the lower Yuba, reflect on the history of the people and the space, and witness Chinook salmon spawning.
The storm that swept through Nevada County between the 23rd and 25th of October dropped between seven and twelve inches of much needed precipitation. This rainfall has led to, among other things, increased flows in the Yuba River.
We sat down with one of our SYRCL scientists to learn more about how this rain event interacted with the Hallwood Side Channel and Floodplain Restoration Project, a restoration effort that SYRCL has been working on and committed to for the past five years.
Nevada Irrigation District is re-engaging in an effort to plan for their future water needs. The resulting plan will be known as the Plan for Water and the public process kicks off on November 9th at 4PM. The final version of the plan will reassess hydrology, water supply, and demand over the next 50 years. Ultimately, the plan will help NID determine if our region needs additional water storage. Thus, this planning process will be an important inflection point in the campaign against Centennial Dam.
Earlier this month, we resumed Salmon Expeditions for grade school students from Nevada and Yuba counties after a year away from the river.
SYRCL has worked with schools to implement COVID-safety precautions so the organization can float nearly 1,200 students down the lower Yuba River on rafts to witness spawning salmon. Thanks to a generous grant from Yuba Water Agency, students from Title 1 schools in Yuba County are able to attend free of charge.