The Conservation Community Speaks: Army Corps Should Study Dams

SYRCL, our members, and our partners asked the Army Corps to consider fish passage alternatives at Englebright Dam and Daguerre Point Dam as part of the Ecosystem Restoration Feasibility Study. This study, meant to identify restoration options that would benefit the entire Yuba River watershed, only focused on floodplain restoration work in the Lower Yuba River.

We agree that restoring the Lower Yuba River is necessary to save Chinook salmon and steelhead (for more information on SYRCL’s restoration work click here). However, the benefit of altering or removing dams in the Yuba watershed to allow for fish passage will provide salmon and steelhead with more habitat than they have had in nearly 80 years. The Army Corps is the only entity with the authority to address their infrastructure – namely Englebright Dam and Daguerre Point Dam – which are the two most obvious impediments to fish and volitional passage in the entire Yuba River watershed. Not addressing this in their feasibility study is unacceptable.

SYRCL was joined by Friends of the River, Gold Country Fly Fishers, Nevada City Rancheria, Trout Unlimited, Cal Trout, Native Fish Society, Patagonia, Stoecker Ecological, and many of our members to ask that the Army Corps study fish passage over these dams.

Read the Letters and learn more here.