Yuba River Disaster: A River Near You Coming Soon?

By Keiko Mertz, special to CalMatters

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The recent one rupture of a massive pipe at the New Colgate Powerhouse on the Yuba River, about 50 miles north of Sacramento, was not a natural disaster. It was an infrastructure failure.

The pipeline rupture in February sent a torrent of water down a steep hillside, triggering erosion that carried sediment and man-made debris into the Yuba River. Ann an oily sheen was detected. The emergency also caused the shutdown of another power station downstream, causing a sudden drop in river flows, killing hundreds – possibly thousands — of young Chinook salmon at a time when the state is trying to help struggling salmon populations are recovering.

We still don’t know exactly why it happened. Federal regulators have ordered the Yuba Water Agencypublic owner and operator of the project, hire independent forensic engineers to determine the root cause of the failure and have independent consultants oversee the reconstruction.

But more of the same is likely to happen in California.

New Bullards Bar Dam and New Colgate Powerhouse were built in the late 1960san era when California’s fleet of dams rapidly expanded to meet growing demands for water, power, and flood control. PG&E paid a significant portion of the project to the agency in exchange for the power and profits it generated for its first 50 years.

Like many of the state’s major water projects, that infrastructure is now increasingly strained by age and changing rain and snow patterns. The Yuba Water Agency has been making upgrades since taking control back from PG&E in 2016. But the risks associated with maintaining highly engineered river systems remain significant.

These risks are not unique to the Yuba River.

Across California, dams, tunnels, culverts, culverts and spillways built in the mid-20th century or earlier are reaching or exceeding their design lives. More than one in five dams in California are over 100 years old.

When water infrastructure fails, the consequences are immediate and far-reaching: disrupted water supplies, disrupted flood control, power outages and environmental disasters.

In this case, the loss of flexibility in the timing and amount of water released at New Bullards Bar could affect reservoir management and revenue for a year or more. This will affect water users, funding for forest and riparian habitat restoration, and the wildlife that depends on Yuba River flows.

Climate change raises the stakes even higher. More intense storms put additional pressure on aging infrastructure, while declining fish and wildlife populations are less able to withstand catastrophic events. An emergency that was once easily overcome may now push vulnerable species closer to collapse.

Yet while we struggle to safely manage existing infrastructure, billions of dollars are being funneled into planning new megaprojects such as the Delta Tunnel and Sites Reservoir. These projects will not do much for the state’s water supply, but will increase dependence on unreliable imported water.

Every dollar wasted planning new projects is a dollar not invested in maintaining and upgrading what we already depend on for public safety and environmental protection. Put plainly, it is irresponsible to spend billions on risky investments when we are struggling to safely manage our water system as it is.

We’ve already seen the cascading effects of poor design choices and delayed maintenance and upgrades. The Oroville spillway failure in 2017 forced the evacuation of nearly 200,000 people and exposed critical weaknesses in infrastructure we thought was secure.

These are already two major infrastructure failures in the same region of the state in the last 10 years. The Yuba pipeline rupture may not require evacuations, but it does offer another warning.

The sustainability of California’s water system will not come from building more dams or massive tunnels. It will come from reinvesting in aging infrastructure, restoring natural systems that work with—not against—our rivers, and responsible budgeting of our water.

This incident could have been worse. We should treat it as an opportunity to confront the growing liabilities built into our water system – before the next failure happens somewhere closer to home.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and is republished under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives license.