Hundreds of young Chinook salmon found dead in Yuba River. What happened?

Chaewon Chung, The Sacramento Bee on Feb 17, 2026

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Hundreds, and possibly thousands, of juvenile Chinook salmon were found dead in the lower Yuba River after a large water pipe burst at the New Colgate Powerhouse on Friday, according to a local conservation group.

Aaron Zettler-Mann, executive director of South Yuba River Citizens League, explained that flows on the lower Yuba River briefly fell following the rupture, stranding young salmon in the rocks along the shore.

“You work so hard and you spend so much time and energy and resources trying to bring these species back, and then there’s a terrible accident. It’s hard not to feel like a little bit of that hard work is undone,” Zettler-Mann said.

DeDe Cordell, a spokesperson for Yuba Water Agency, told The Sacramento Bee the agency is aware of reports of dead salmon in the lower Yuba and are working with California Department of Fish and Wildlife and South Yuba River Citizens League “to assess the impact of the incident on conditions in the lower Yuba River, including fish mortality.”

A sudden failure at the powerhouse

On Friday just before 3 p.m., a large steel penstock that carries water to the New Colgate Powerhouse ruptured on a slope above the North Yuba River, sending a torrent of water, mud and debris crashing over the hydroelectric facility and injuring one worker.

Cordell from Yuba Water Agency said initial field checks near the incident showed high turbidity, or cloudy water, and that other water quality samples have been sent to a lab for analysis. Eric Laughlin, a spokesperson for the Office of Spill Prevention and Response at the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, said the agency also collected samples of the oil sheen, which are still being analyzed.

But what killed the young salmon wasn’t pollution from debris, Zettler-Mann said.

The Colgate facility sits on the North Yuba River upstream of Englebright Dam, which feeds the lower Yuba. When the penstock rupture forced the powerhouse offline, it triggered a sudden drop in releases from Englebright that roughly cut lower Yuba River flows in half for about two hours, leaving young salmon stranded as the water receded.

“To be clear, none of the debris or materials mobilized by the incident have gotten below Englebright Dam at this point, so any impacts to the lower Yuba River would not have been caused by the debris or other materials in the water,” Cordell said.

Carson Jeffres, a senior researcher at UC Davis’ Center for Watershed Sciences, said Friday’s rapid drop in flows and resulting salmon deaths are unlikely to wipe out the Yuba’s runs, thanks to several recent wet years and a strong return of adult salmon.

California is in a rare stretch of roughly four wet years in a row, and those wetter years have helped salmon rebound from the very low numbers that led to a fishery closure four years ago, Jeffres said, while stressing that it is still a negative situation.

“A rapid reduction in flows can have adverse effects for fish that are unable to move, particularly young salmon that are poor swimmers at that point, and they might get stranded in the margins of the river,” Jeffres said.

“When we rely on manmade structures for managing our ecosystems we have to be eyes wide open that failure of these structures can have ecosystem consequences.” he added.

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