• State Water Board Certification Affirms CSPA’s 10-year Advocacy on Butte Creek

    The State Water Resources Control Board has issued a draft Water Quality Certification for the relicensing of the DeSabla – Centerville hydroelectric project on Butte Creek.  The draft Certification requires Pacific Gas & Electric Company to construct a water temperature reduction device at a project reservoir, and then to stop diverting water from the Lower…

  • CSPA and conservation allies fight for fish passage past Tuolumne River dams

    For the past five years, CSPA and allied conservation groups have been stymied in efforts to require study of fish passage in important hydropower relicensings in California. Licensees on the Merced and Tuolumne rivers have argued that their own agricultural irrigation diversions dams downstream of the huge dams that store water for these diversions were…

  • CSPA and Coalition Press Forest Service on Middle and South Yuba Rivers

    CSPA and fellow members of the Foothills Water Network coalition have pressed the Forest Service to protect cold water fisheries in the Middle and South Yuba rivers. In a filing with the Forest Service for the Yuba-Bear hydroelectric project and a separate filing for the connected Drum-Spaulding Project, the Network proposed alternative conditions to those…

  • CSPA and Coalition Seek Cold Water in Middle and South Yuba Rivers

    CSPA and fellow members of the Foothills Water Network coalition have called for more summer flow in the South Yuba and Middle Yuba rivers to support cold water fisheries. In Comments and Recommendations for the coordinated relicensing of the Yuba-Bear and Drum-Spaulding hydroelectric projects, the Network proposes measures for real-time water temperature management in the…

  • Study of Summer Whitewater Releases and Macroinvertebrates Finds Little Effect

    A just-completed study that included two seasons of field sampling on the North Fork Feather River and two years of analysis shows no ecosystem-level effect of limited summer whitewater boating releases on aquatic macroinvertebrates (insects). The study was designed by top experts on aquatic insects.  It was commissioned by the Rock Creek – Cresta Ecological…