Yellow Sludge Fouling the Yuba River!

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bedrock bubba

Sr. Member
Jun 27, 2010
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NEVADA COUNTY, Calif. — The South Yuba River is yellow -- yes, yellow -- in Nevada County, prompting officials to issue a no swim advisory on Friday for the waterway.
The discoloration and high opacity are apparent in the river from below the town of Washington to Englebright Lake, Nevada County officials said.
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The river “appears to have high level of sediments of unknown origin suspended in the water creating potentially unsafe river conditions for all people and animals,” county officials said in a statement.






The cause is under investigation.
Due to the possibility of unsafe swimming and recreation conditions, officials issued the no swimming advisory.
Nevada County Environmental Health officials took water samples from several locations in the river for testing. Test results are expected in three to four days.





No swim advisory in place after South Yuba River turns yellow

See: KCRA3 https://www.kcra.com/article/nevada-county-south-yuba-river-yellow-no-swim-california/29158319

What in the world is causing this? Any ideas?
 

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I spent my childhood searching for our Dads lost gold mine when he was stationed in Camp Beale in WW11. North San Juan to Marysville. In the 60s there were old timers living up in the hills and one guy had drums of silvery stuff in a mine shaft. More thanlikly quicksilver. Might be something leaking out of some old shaft or Lord knows what. There's lots of time bombs still in those shafts.
 

Went to google earth, and looked. Just a mile downstream of Washington, is a fairly recent landslide that nearly reaches the river. If this area is prone to slides, and y'all have had a lot of rain in the last month or two, you may just have a mudslide that entered the river. In fact, that seems likely, to cause the muddiness in the river.
 

Kray Gelder said:
Went to google earth, and looked. Just a mile downstream of Washington, is a fairly recent landslide that nearly reaches the river. If this area is prone to slides, and y'all have had a lot of rain in the last month or two, you may just have a mudslide that entered the river. In fact, that seems likely, to cause the muddiness in the river.
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Has google earth updated that imagery so recently? I know cal topo has a recent imagery layer, albeit at lower resolution.
 

Google earth is updating, I was coming home from work in Seattle to Shoreline when I ran into a google car mapping the road I was on. It will be fun to go to street view there and see my car.
 

When I say recent slide, I mean in the past years, not days. You can clearly see the shape of the slump, and the exposed bare earth. It is on the south side of the river, about 1 mile downstream of the town.

We have become like superstitious peasants of the dark ages. OH MY GOD, the river turned yellow. No, the river is really muddy, a yellowish colored muddy. Let's see why or where all this yellow colored dirt got dumped in the river, instead of running around in circles, pulling our hair.
 

My best bud told me that there has been severe thunderstorms dropping a lot of rain lately from Sierra Buttes and vicinity.He knows because he got caught in them!
 

yep first good rain of the year we got some too. it washed some of the new stuff in. Amazes mre that anyone was stumped and they have to do testing. Some local social media comments are trying to blame it on a "small mining operation"... before ever admitting that a landslide got muddy water in thee river:BangHead:
 

Goldwasher said:
yep first good rain of the year we got some too. it washed some of the new stuff in. Amazes mre that anyone was stumped and they have to do testing. Some local social media comments are trying to blame it on a "small mining operation"... before ever admitting that a landslide got muddy water in thee river:BangHead:
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If there isn't a good story there, the media will make it good.
 

Sure looks like muddy runoff not yellow at all. This is from the article. Probably, shouldn't swim in it. But, who would? Maybe if it's hot someone may.

"Health officials said in a statement Saturday that "preliminary test results show dangerous levels of E.coli."
 

The Arkansas river up by Leadville Colorado during every spring run off would turn blood red from all the old mine workings filling up and spilling over from the massive amount of snow melt. They've been working for years to fix it and I'm not sure if river turns red anymore like it did decades ago.
 

Now, this looks like a really muddy river. Ecoli usually comes from cows. Looks nasty. Anyone think they would wana swim? This is not mining for cryin out loud. Mining that could turn a river brown? I think, landslide. I was talking earlier this year about this year having ground saturation. I mean, landslide into the Yuba. Let's not say too much.....
And, here's where they get to, once again, find naturally occuring minerals and use it against us.
"In addition to E. coli, officials are also testing for toxic metals such as arsenic, lead and mercury." Arsenic from Granite, lead from fishing weights and mercury from 150 years ago. $10 says this study shows up in State court sometime.

Capture+_2019-09-24-21-36-47.jpg
 

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et1955 said:
The river I mine after a heavy rain,View attachment 1756025
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Right, and there's still not the amount of sediments showing like in the other photo. That's the point. The water doesnt look yellow. It looks muddy. But they cant say that. It would sound too normal. So they say its yellow. Folks think yellow is not normal. So they scare folks by saying the river turned yellow. If there was a yellow tint I can't see it. Maybe Pine Pollen mixed in with the mud? Who knows?
Funny thing is, for the past month I've been driving by several high mountain lakes and they are still the fullest I've ever seen them. I mean ever, still. I have been thinking, what is going to happen if these lakes stay this full when winter hits in the next month or so. Then this story. We've had so many slides on HWY 50 the last couple of years. And our current weather pattern is becoming rainy each week. Which, to me, should be going to carry through to winter. We shall see. That's one muddy river, I bet there's a mud dam somewhere.
 

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I've seen a creek here in southern Misery that had a dirt bank that oozed a yellow to orange goof and I took pictures of it and a sample to send off the Missouri department of natural Resources and they're comment back to me was that it is a Iron Oxide from some old rusted away iron.
 

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