Monday August 28, 2023
South Yuba River Citizens League —
Construction at the Rose Bar Project officially kicked off on July 24th and things have been moving nonstop since.
The Rose Bar project site is located 9 river miles below Englebright Dam on land recently acquired by the Yuba Water Agency.
The purpose of this project is to create and enhance two spawning riffles for Chinook salmon and steelhead. Englebright Dam prevents gravels from moving downstream from upper portions of the watershed. In the Goldfields, the piles of hydraulic mining debris provide the gravel sizes necessary for spawning. However, because Rose Bar is so close to Englebright Dam which traps downstream movement of gravel, as the Yuba River erodes spawning gravel from this location, there is no natural source of gravel to replace it.
The main objective of this project is to add spawning sized gravels to the riverbed from locally sourced material. We will be sourcing the necessary gravel from hydraulic mine tailings in the uplands above the project and, at the same time, stabilizing the hillslope which will decrease the amount of mercury delivered to the Yuba River during rain events.