The Yuba County Water Agency (Yuba Water) is proposing to construct, operate, and maintain the Lower Yuba River Daguerre Point Nature-like Fishway (NLF) Project (Daguerre NLF Project). The Daguerre NLF Project occurs within real property interests of the United States and requires a land use outgrant from the Sacramento District U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE). USACE’s potential issuance of a land use outgrant is a federal action and requires compliance with pertinent environmental laws and regulations. This public notice will inform USACE’s consideration of the land use application for the Daguerre NLF Project.
The public notice is below and is also available at https://www.spk.usace.army.mil/Portals/12/documents/usace_project_public_notices/Daguerre_NLF_Project_Public_Notice_16JUL26.pdf
Comments must be submitted electronically to CESPK-NLF_Project_Comments@usace.army.mil . Please reference the Daguerre NLF Project in the subject line. Comments must be submitted to USACE on or before August 16, 2026.
The Yuba Stakeholders group has been requesting and promoting that the following measure be adopted by or required of the DPD NLF project:
“The DPD NLF project shall develop and implement a predation management and monitoring plan and adaptive management program for the lower Yuba River, with the purpose of avoiding predation by striped bass of naturally occurring ESA & CESA listed salmonids in the region above DPD made accessible by the nature-like fishway around Daguerre Point Dam.”
The CEQA-SRGO document for the project says that striped bass are expected to use the NLF to gain access to essential habitat for listed salmonids above DPD to which the striped bass currently do not have access. Minimizing predation of juvenile salmonid outmigrants is identified as a “Priority 1” recovery action in the NMFS (2014) Central Valley Chinook Salmon and Steelhead Recovery Plan. The project does not include any plan, program, or mitigation for ‘minimizing’ predation at and around the project or project affected reaches. Relocation of the South Canal Diversion alone will not ‘minimize’ habitat conditions that can increase predation risk for juvenile salmonids caused by the existing conditions or the NLF project as currently designed and conceived.
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