The Lower Yuba River Accord From Controversy To Consensus The Yuba River 2 • The Lower Yuba River Accord Contents Introduction 4 Background 5 From Controversy to Consensus 10 The Lower Yuba River Accord: From Controversy To Consensus The Fisheries Agreement 13 was prepared and published by the Water Education Foundation The Water Purchase Agreement 17 as a public information tool. The Conjunctive Use Agreements 22 Summary 23 Credits President: William R. Mills Executive Director: Rita Schmidt Sudman Authors: Susan Lauer and Sue McClurg The mission of the Water Education Editorial Assistance: Robin Richie Foundation, an impartial, nonprofit Design: Curtis Leipold organization, is to create a better Photography: Kathy Bishop understanding of water issues and Peter Grigsby, Office of the Governor help resolve water resource problems Jones and Stokes through educational programs. Dale Kolke, California Department of Water Resources MWH Gary W. Rose ISBN: 1-893246-88-4 Thomas Taylor Three Rivers Levee Improvement U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Published 2009 Yuba County Library Yuba County Water Agency ©Water Education Foundation Graphics: Courtesy of Yuba County Water Agency The Lower Yuba River Accord • 3 Introduction Cutting through the Sierra Nevada had reached a unique agreement on throughout the state. And on an Gold Rush countryside, the Yuba River managing the river. The State Water annual basis, 60,000 acre-feet will be has played a vital role in the state’s Resources Control Board (State Water dedicated to environmental flows for history. How its water should be used Board) adopted the Lower Yuba River the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. has been a focal point of controversy. Accord (Yuba Accord) in 2008. The Yuba The seven Conjunctive Use In the last 20 years, the river was the Accord agreements will be in effect at Agreements establish a new compre- epicenter of a classic water struggle as least through 2016, possibly longer. hensive groundwater program in Yuba environ mentalists and fish organiza- The Yuba Accord comprises three County to improve overall water supply tions fought to gain more water for important agreements governing the reliability for local farmers. threatened fish, such as spring-run stretch of the lower Yuba River below In a state such as California where Chinook salmon and steelhead, and Englebright Dam to its confluence with stakeholders often live up to the saying the Yuba County Water Agency (YCWA) the Feather River near Marysville. With attributed to Mark Twain – “whiskey is fought to preserve its rights to oper- no hatcheries on the Yuba River, this for drinking; water is for fighting over” ate New Bullards Bar Dam, part of its section of the river is home to some of – the Yuba Accord is an example of Yuba River Development Project (Yuba the Central Valley’s last wild Chinook how a collaborative process can yield Project). The Yuba Project provides salmon and steelhead runs. real water management solutions. hydropower and irrigation water, helps The Fisheries Agreement estab- “The Accord should serve as a control floods, maintains recreation lishes new variable instream flow levels model for building unique alliances to areas and fisheries habitat, and supplies to benefit wild salmon and steelhead find and implement integrated solu- water for transfer to other areas of on the lower Yuba River, increasing fish tions to California’s water challenges. California. flows by as much as 170,000 acre-feet The most short-sighted definition of Conflicts over all these water uses annually. success in California’s water wars is led to a series of lawsuits over the The Water Purchase Agreement ‘beating the other side,’” said Chuck course of nearly two decades before creates a new long-term water trans- Bonham, director of Trout Unlimited, a these legal disputes ultimately moved fer program under which Yuba River signatory of the Accord. “The operative from the courtroom to the negotiating water will be transferred to other users spirit of the Yuba Accord is collective table. Three years later, a diverse group in California. In 2009, about 180,000 problem-solving by unlikely partners; of 18 agencies and nongovernmental acre-feet of water will be transferred the result is a lasting outcome.” organizations announced that they to drought-stricken farms and cities The Yuba River 4 • The Lower Yuba River Accord Background The Yuba River begins as three stream to the Sacramento-San Joaquin Daguerre Point Dam, built in 1906 separate forks – the north, south Delta located south of Sacramento. by the California Debris Commission. and middle – in the Sierra Nevada In the Delta, water flows out to San Another debris dam, Englebright Dam, Mountains northeast of Sacramento. Francisco Bay, is diverted for use on was built in 1941 by the U.S. Army The Yuba River is an important water local Delta farms or is exported by the Corps of Engineers (Corps). supply far beyond local cities and farms State Water Project or federal Central But downstream levees were not because the Yuba is a major tributary Valley Project. enough to stop the flooding and in the to the Feather River, which, in turn is Twenty percent of the Yuba River’s 1960s, New Bullards Bar Dam was built the major tributary to the Sacramento water is diverted out of the upper Yuba on the North Yuba to provide upstream River – a vital source of water for the River watershed to other watersheds flood protection. The dam is part of Bay Area, Central Valley and Southern for water supply and hydropower YCWA’s Yuba Project and it also gener- California. The Yuba River also provides production. Sixteen percent is diverted ates hydro power and provides water valuable habitat and water for three by YCWA and other local districts for for local farmers. runs of Chinook salmon, steelhead irrigation. Primary crops raised in Yuba Some water from the Yuba Project trout, other fish species, birds and County include rice, peaches and also is transferred to cities and farms mammals. plums. throughout California, generating During an average year, the annual But runoff into the Yuba River can revenue that YCWA has used to finance snow and water runoff to the Yuba be substantially higher – reaching a regional flood protection projects such River is about 2.4 million acre-feet. record high 4.9 million acre-feet in as strengthening levees. Since the late That’s enough water to meet the annual 1982. Compounding these high flows is 1980s, YCWA has sold water to various indoor and outdoor water needs of a Gold Rush legacy – millions of cubic Northern California cities, the California 2.4 million to 4.8 million people. (One yards of dirt and rocks washed into the Department of Water Resources (DWR), acre-foot equals about 326,000 gallons, Yuba River from hydraulic mining. This the Environmental Water Account or enough water to cover an acre of debris raised some stretches of the (EWA) program, other water districts, land – about the size of a football field Yuba’s riverbed by as much as 30 feet. and multiple state-managed drought – one foot deep. The typical California To protect themselves from floods, water banks and dry-year purchase household uses one-half to one acre- settlers in the valley began building programs. foot of water each year.) levees in the late 1800s. Upstream, “Reducing our flood risk is a priority About 64 percent of the runoff debris dams were constructed to for YCWA, and it’s why the Yuba Accord stays in the Yuba River and flows down- capture mining debris; including is so important,” said Mary Jane Griego, Rice is Yuba County’s No. 1 crop The Lower Yuba River Accord • 5 With so many diverse interests depending on water from this river, the balancing act to serve all the stake- holders through the years frequently erupted into controversy and lawsuits prior to the interest-based negotiations that led to the Yuba Accord. The Yuba Accord’s three interconnected agree- ments offer a cumulative benefit for the Yuba watershed and other areas of California. The Yuba Accord also provides for a $6 million long-term lower Yuba River fisheries monitoring, Chinook salmon studies and enhancement program and required no federal or state legislation. a Yuba County supervisor and YCWA water to spawn. Historically these fish “The Yuba Accord is a precedent- director. “The Yuba Accord allows YCWA spawned high up in the Yuba water- setting solution to the imperative of to improve fishery conditions and raise shed but the construction of federal improving environmental flows in hard revenue for our desperately needed Englebright Dam, which does not working rivers of the Central Valley in a flood control measures.” have fish ladders, cut off their passage. manner that also sustains – indeed, The Yuba River hosts a number of Although New Bullards Bar Dam is enhances – water supplies,” said Gregory fish species, but the focus of the Yuba located upstream of Englebright, state Thomas, president of the Natural Heri- Accord is on anadromous salmonids fishery managers and environmental- tage Institute (NHI). “It was also a pro- – Chinook salmon and steelhead ists always sought more water for the cess model in its collaborative, consen- that migrate from the ocean to fresh- benefit of fish. sus-building, science-based approach.” History of the Yuba River Long before California gained and flumes – to sluice out the elusive mined 100,000 tons of gravel per day statehood in 1850, the Yuba watershed shining metal. In the 1850s, water and used 16 billion gallons (32,000 supported a number of Native American was harnessed and blasted into acre-feet) of water each year. By the tribes. In 1820, Spanish Captain Luis hillsides to dislodge gold in a prac- mid-1880s, an estimated 11 million Arguello explored the upper parts of the tice called hydraulic mining.