The Yuba River is a major tributary to the Feather River and the larger Sacramento River watershed with an average annual runoff of about 2.4 million acre-feet. The river originates high in the snow-capped Sierra Nevada and flows through granitic canyons and rolling foothills before joining the Feather River at Yuba City. The river is an important source of hydroelectric power, water supply for Sacramento Valley farms and a spawning ground for salmon. It is also notoriously flood-prone, with at least 10 significant floods since California statehood in 1850.

BACKGROUND

The Yuba River is the fourth-largest river in the Sacramento River watershed. The Yuba River is comprised of three river forks cutting their way down through the northern Sierra Nevada. The North Fork begins near the eastern border of Tahoe National Forest; the Middle Fork starts in Moscove Meadow; and the South Fork originates near Donner Pass. A portion of the South Fork is listed as a state Wild and Scenic River.

Native American tribes lived in the watershed and made use of its resources before the discovery of gold in 1848. The gold discovery drew thousands of miners to the Yuba River watershed and many soon started digging ditches to divert water from the river for their mining operations. Eventually, large-scale hydraulic mining took hold, blasting the hillsides with pressurized streams of water to unearth the gold. Much of the resulting mud and rocks filled downstream river channels, raising water levels and flooding farms and communities. Legal challenges finally ended hydraulic mining, but the flood risk remained.

As farming eclipsed mining, the Yuba River began being dammed in the late 1800s and early 1900s for agricultural irrigation and hydroelectricity. Some of California’s earliest hydroelectric power plants were developed in the 1,339-square-mile Yuba River watershed.

Even with dams upstream, dangerous flooding downstream remained a threat. In 1955 the Yuba River came within feet of flooding Marysville, forcing 30,000 people to evacuate. Forty people lost their lives. Then in 1986, a section of levee along the Yuba River near Marysville gave way, flooding about 30 square miles and forcing more than 26,000 people to evacuate.

Mining’s legacy has continued to be felt long after the last hydraulic nozzle shut down. Mercury from hydraulic mining is present in streambeds and reservoirs. In 1941, the Army Corps of Engineers completed Englebright Dam to capture debris from hydraulic mining that threatened to cause downstream flooding. New Bullards Bar Dam, California’s second-tallest dam at 645-feet-tall, was completed in 1970 on the North Yuba River in part to improve flood control.

CHALLENGES AND CONTROVERSIES

New Bullards Bar Dam was built by the Yuba County Water Agency (later renamed Yuba Water Agency) to generate hydropower and provide water to local growers in addition to improving flood control. However, it also put native chinook salmon and steelhead at risk.

In response, environmental groups started filing lawsuits in the 1980s. The Yuba Water Agency and its water users, along with state and federal water agencies, reached a landmark multi-agency agreement known as the Lower Yuba River Accord. It took effect in 2008 after two years as a pilot project.

The Yuba Accord balances the interests of environmental groups, agriculture, water agencies and hydroelectric operators relying on water from the Yuba River.

Pieced together after two decades of lawsuits, the Yuba Accord allows for freshwater flows to support native fish while also providing water for hydropower, transfers and irrigation.

The accord has three separate but related agreements:

The Fisheries Agreement set significantly higher minimum instream flow requirements during certain times of the year to benefit wild fish in the lower Yuba, the 24-mile stretch between Englebright Dam and the Feather River near Marysville.

The Water Purchases Agreement established a long-term water transfer program in which Yuba Water Agency sells water it already released from New Bullards Bar Reservoir for the benefit of fish to others in the state who need it. The agency must also release 60,000 acre-feet annually for the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. Water transfers are capped at 200,000 acre-feet a year.

The Conjunctive Use Agreements provide groundwater for irrigating local farmland during dry years to ensure the Yuba River has enough water to sustain fish.

In 2026, the State Water Resources Control Board approved extension of the Yuba Accord’s water transfer program until 2050.

LOOKING AHEAD

Improving habitat and access for threatened fish and reducing downstream flood risk remain ongoing concerns.

A collaborative effort launched in 2025 among local, state and federal agencies is aimed at improving habitat and access to upstream spawning grounds for salmon and other threatened fish that are impeded by Daguerre Point Dam, an Army Corps of Engineers dam on the lower Yuba River 10 miles east of Marysville. 

Climate change is expected to bring more extended droughts and more intense storms with huge amounts of rain, a worry in a flood-prone watershed like the Yuba River. At New Bullards Bar Dam, Yuba Water Agency has changed its reservoir practices to incorporate weather forecasts in its winter flood-management decisions rather than rely on static flood-management rules. The agency also is constructing a lower, secondary spillway to enhance its flexibility to release water sooner when extreme storms approach.

Updated June 2026