Almost a million acre feet of water from the North and Middle Yuba River and Oregon Creek are stored behind the 64-story high, 2,323 foot long New Bullards Bar Dam, which is located at the south end of a 16 mile long reservoir. In addition to providing flood control, the reservoir stores water for irrigation and power generation, is a recreation area, and influences downstream river temperatures for fishery enhancement.
New Bullards Bar dam was constructed by the Yuba County Water Agency. The agency was created through an act of the state legislature in 1959 specifically to construct a flood control reservoir in response to the flood of 1955. The bulk of the financing for the dam came from the issuance of revenue bonds. The dam was completed in 1969.
The dam has a total capacity of 996, 103 acre feet. It provides water for the Colgate powerplant, which has a generating capacity of 315 megawatts. There also are three other powerplants on the Yuba River – Narrows 2, Deadwood Creek, and Fish Release – with a combined generation capacity of 49.15 megawatts.
Bullards Bar Reservoir provides flood control space between September 15 and May 31 of each year. There are 170,000 acre feet of flood control storage space between October 31 and March 31.
New Bullards Bar dam is one of five dams on the Yuba River. The other dams are: Englebright, Our House, Log Cabin and Daguerre Point Dam (a sediment barrier dam).
Source:
Yuba County Water Agency – http://www.ycwa.com
