Yuba River Dams Need Second Look by Wildlife Agency, Court Says

A federal wildlife agency must redo the endangered species assessment for a dam system on the Yuba River after a federal judge ruled a diversion segment was improperly excluded from review.

The US District Court for the Eastern District of California said Tuesday that the National Marine Fisheries Service improperly excluded the Brophy Diversion from impact studies on three threatened species in the biological opinion for the Englebright and Daguerre Point dams, as the agency acknowledged that water redirection could impact migration patterns for the threatened Central Valley spring chinook salmon.

The NMFS initially declined to study the Brophy Diversion ...