Letter to the Editor ~ Englebright Dam

By James Butler

While waiting in line at Wells Fargo in Raley’s I happened to see a copy of the CABPRO News on the counter.  When I started reading it, I couldn’t put it down.  It was like preaching to the choir.  The first article was about the Englebright Dam.  I live just 1.5 miles down the Yuba and can see the dam from my house.  My dad brought me up here in 1951 to look at a mining claim that he knew about since 1927.  I heard my dad talking about Landers Bar to his friends and relatives around the kitchen table since I can remember.

Before Englebright Dam was built, the only dam was the Old Bullards Bar, that diverted the N. Fork of the Yuba down the 6 mile long Colgate Tunnel and pentstocks.  Winter floods re-enriched Landers Bar each year the Yuba was free flowing and salmon migrated clear up to Washington.  So, in February 1951 my dad filed Landers Bar & Extension Mining Claim at the Yuba County Hall of Records in the Old Court House in Marysville. And I’ve been here ever since.  My dad passed away in 1993.  And I, his son is 74 now, with 61 years on the Landers Bar Mining Claim.

The shot rock out of the Englebright and Narrows II Project spoil dumps was scoured off at flood stage and “armoured over,” the river bed vital spawning habitat at Landers Bar 1.5 miles downstream.

During the 1980’s and 90’s I wrote numerous letters to the fish & game, congressmen, senators, and local boards of supervisors about the shot rock and ice water killing the Lower Yuba.  I have a file a foot thick of photos and letters.  In December 1999 I put forth a proposal to the Yuba County Board of Supervisors and the Yuba County Water Agency to remove the estimated 150,000 cubic yards of shot rock on Landers Bar and restore the salmon spawning habitat.  All I needed was a road down from the Narrows II Project road some 2,000 feet to the upper end of Landers Bar to get equipment in.  (Since the ‘97 Flood scoured out the fording I used in the 90’s prior to the flood, I had a 15 T.P.H. gravel washing plant in operation, with a case 580 D scoop loader/backhoe.)  The Board and Water Agency endorsed my proposal and sent a marine biologist up to do a field study of my mining operation, was creating suitable gravel for the spawning salmon.  No detrimental effects were reported (as any boy scout could see).  In 2001-03 I tried to get access from PG&E, UC Davis and only got “stiff armed” and my washing plant and grizzly has been stranded on Landers Bar since.  My property rights are being ignored!

So what do these communists do to improve the salmon habitat?  They ban gold dredging throughout the whole state.  Friend Izzy Martin caved in and said that gold dredging “disturbs” the Chinook salmon and Green Sturgeon.  And, dredging stirs up mercury that if a pregnant woman ate a mercury tainted trout it would damage her un-born child.  Now how absurd and a stretch is that?  Typical Liberalitis Disease it is.  When I write our representatives about this shot rock mess all I get is lip service.  It seems they’re all caving in to this insidious UN Agenda 21, one world government that is totally communist/socialist.

It is a travesty that the legislature without any debate and the governator signed the gold dredging ban.  It is a fraud and unconstitutional.  How has it benefited Yuba and Nevada County employment and businesses?  Also, these idiots are proposing to actually make gold dredging a crime, and to tear down the Englebright for the spawning salmon.  They ignore the fact there is an estimated 30-40 million cubic yards of silt in the bottom of Englebright Lake, that were it to wash down the Yuba would be a total disaster.  However, if this shot rock mess were to be addressed on Landers Bar it could be cleaned up in two months and spawning habitat restored and at a fraction of what these imbeciles are proposing.

Sincerely,

James Butler

Smartsville, CA