Of course all of these enterprises [including hydraulic mining] create a wide waste in their paths. Tornado, flood, earthquake and volcano combined could hardly make greater havoc, spread wider ruin and wreck, than are to be seen everywhere in the track of the larger gold-washing operations. None of the interior streams of California, though naturally pure as crystal, escape the change to a thick yellow mud from this cause, early in their progress from the hills. The Sacramento River is worse than the Missouri. Many of the streams are turned out of their original channels, either directly for mining purposes, or in consequence of the great masses of soil and gravel that come down from the gold-washing above. Thousands of acres of fine land along their banks are ruined forever by the deposits of this character. A farmer may have his whole estate turned into a barren waste by a flood of sand and gravel from some hydraulic mining up stream; more, if a fine orchard or garden stands in the way of the working of a rich gulch or bank, orchard or garden must go. Then the torrent, dug- out, washed to pieces and then washed over side- hills, masses that have been or are being subjected to the hydraulics of the miners, are the very devil's chaos indeed. The country is full of them among the mining districts of the Sierra Nevada, and they are truly a terrible blot upon the face of Nature.

from Samuel Bowles, Our New West (Hartford, Ct: Hartford Publishing Company, 1869) available at Google Books.

from Carleton Watkins,"Malakoff Diggings, Nevada County, California", in the Hearst Mining Collection of Views by C. E. Watkins, Online Archive of California.

from Carlton Watkins,"English Dam (Middle), Nevada County, California", in the Hearst Mining Collection of Views by C. E. Watkins, Online Archive of California.

from Lawrence & Houseworth Album , "Worked-Out Placer MInes." Gift of Florence V. Flinn. The Society of California Pioneers.

from ,"Yuba River gravel bars from hydraulic mining",Water Resources Center Archives,University of California, Berkeley 1913, in Calisphere.

By the Court, SAWYER Circuit Judge. This is a bill in equity to restrain the defendants, being several mining companies engaged in hydraulic mining on the western slope of the Sierra Nevada mountains, from discharging their mining debris into the affluents of the Yuba river, and into the river itself, whence it is carried down by the current into Feather and Sacramento rivers, filling up their channels and injuring their navigation; and sometimes, by overflowing, and covering the neighboring lands with debris, injuring, and threatening to injure and destroy the lands and property of the complainant, and of other property owners, situated on, and adjacent to, the banks of these watercourses.

In March, 1882, the secretary of war transmitted to congress the official report of Lieutenant Colonel Mendell of the "corps of engineers upon examinations and surveys to devise a system of works to prevent the further injury to the navigable waters of California from the debris of mines arising from hydraulic mining," which surveys and report were made in pursuance of the act of congress, relating to rivers and harbors of June 14, 1880. This report made in January, 1882 ,was introduced in evidence and it has been quoted and recognized by both sides in the case as showing the injurious results of hydraulic and other mining ,up to its date, and the remedies attempted and suggested. It is,, also, fully confirmed by the other evidence in the case and by the condition of things as disclosed upon actual inspection and observation made by the judges who traversed and examined the country affected by the operations complained of in the presence and with the consent of representatives of the respective parties and their counsel…

Hydraulic mining as used in this opinion is the process by which a bank of gold-bearing earth and rock is excavated by a jet of water discharged through the converging nozzle of a pipe, under great pressure, the earth and debris being carried away by the same water, through sluices, and discharged on lower levels into the natural streams and watercourses below . Where the gravel or other material of the bank is cemented, or where the bank is composed of masses of pipe clay, it is shattered by blasting with powder, sometimes from fifteen to twenty tons of powder being used at one blast, to break up a bank. In the early periods of hydraulic mining as in 1855 the water was discharged through a rubber or canvas hose with nozzles of not more than an inch in diameter; but later upon the invention of the "Little Giant" and the "Monitor" machines, the size of the nozzle and the pressure were largely increased, till now the nozzle is from four to nine inches in diameter, discharging from five hundred to one thousand inches of water under a pressure of from three to four or five hundred feet….

The Yuba river is a tributary of Feather river entering it at Marysville thirty miles above the mouth of the Feather where the latter joins the Sacramento It is the fourth river in size in the Sacramento valley and drains about thirteen hundred and thirty square miles of the western slope of the Sierra Nevada mountains comprising portions of Sierra Nevada and Yuba counties its extreme breadth being about thirty six miles and its extreme length about sixty miles excluding the twelve miles of its lower course from the foot hills to its junction with Feather river at Marysville The elevation of the Yuba basin above tidewater is from two hundred feet at its lower parts to about eight thousand feet at the summit of the mountains but the gold deposits of this basin only extend to an elevation of from four to five thousand feet in a belt from forty to fifty miles wide The upper portion of the river is divided into five principal branches the north middle and south Yubas and Deer and Dry creeks The first four Deer creek being nearly as large as the smallest main branch unite in the mountains before reaching the valley Deer creek not far from it the last Dry creek joining the main river in the valley shortly after it leaves the foot hills The debris complained of is mostly discharged into the middle and south Yubas and Deer creek and their numerous smaller tributaries The anriferous deposit on the San Juan ridge between the south and middle Yubas embracing most of defendants mines and a larger part of the mines now actually worked being under their control is much the largest and most important in the state and is favorably situated for working the beds of the ancient channels in which it lies being elevated several hundred feet above the beds of the Yubas and their affluents and the annual floods of the Yuba may be relied on to carry off a large portion of the debris resulting from mining Says the report referred to The linear extent of the gravel channel and its branches on this ridge is about twenty five miles Deducting liberally for the portion already worked and for that too deeply covered by lava to be available for hydraulic mining there remain probably not less than fourteen miles of channel available for washing from which only a comparatively small portion of the top gravel has been removed Below San Juan the gravel body has a surface width of over one thousand feet and is say one hundred and forty feet deep From Badger Hill to Bloomfield it is for the greater portion very much wider and deeper At Columbia Hill its surface width varies from three thousand or four thousand to eight thousand feet and it is from three hundred to six hundred feet deep The gravel at Lake City is probably three hundred or four hundred feet deep At North Bloomfield it is opened to the bed rock showing a depth of more than three hundred feet Roughly estimating the average width of the remaining gravel range at four hundred yards and after allowing for the portion worked off placing its average depth at seventy yards the sum is an average of say fifty million yards per mile or for fourteen miles say seven hundred million yards.

Allowing for the amount washed since 1S76 one hundred million yards there remain six hundred million to be removed adding to this the estimated amount still remaining to be worked at Smartsville lower down the river and the amount remaining to be washed will appear Says Colonel Mendell Seven hundred million of cubic yards may bo assumed to represent the amount of gravel remaining to be worked by hydraulic process tributary to the Yuba Approximately then according to the evidence over one hundred million of cubic yards in these mines have been washed out by the hydraulic process and the debris deposited in the Yuba and its affluents and seven hundred million more remain to be washed out and its debris deposited in these watercourses in the same manner The following shows some of the results of former washings and unmistakably indicates what must result from a continuance of the work The Yuba with its branches and smaller affluents were necessarily characterized by heavy grades the waters falling about eight thousand feet in a distance of ninety or a hundred miles from their extreme sources to the Feather river They ran through deep rocky canyons and gorges over a rough rocky bottom with frequent rapids and water falls of greater or less height and there were many deep holes excavated by the action of the water at the foot of falls rapids and the like The beds of all these streams from the very dumping places of the higher mines to the junction of the main Yuba with Feather river a distance of seventy five miles or more have all been filled up many feet deep at some places to the depth of one hundred and fifty feet and all the streams have regularly graded themselves so that a railroad track might be laid upon their beds for the whole distance the grade of course being steeper in the upper parts but equally regular being steeper upper parts equally regular.

Thus the main branches of the Yuba and Deer creek Shady creek Bloody run Grizzly canyon Humbug canyon and the other smaller tributaries all exhibit this result There are many square miles in the aggregate in the beds of these streams buried many feet deep with debris and these channels are choked and clogged with it the heavier material being deposited higher up and the lighter passing farther down Most of it will from year to year be carried farther down and ultimately find its way to the valley The transporting capacity of the water however is unequal to the task of carrying off all the debris at once as it is discharged into the stream So also the ordinary floods from year to year are unable to carry off all the debris discharged into the streams during the year and it consequently accumulates from year to year along the upper portions of the watercourses within the mountains till an extraordinary flood comes When such a flood occurs it transports a much larger amount at once and precipitates it upon the valleys below Vast amounts are now accumulated in the upper watercourses of the Yuba and its branches which are liable to be precipitated in immense quantities into the valleys below by any extraordinary flood such as that of 1862 that may hereafter occur With reference to the amount of these deposits remaining in the Yuba above Marysville Colonel Mendell in his report says The estimates by Mr Manson reported to the state engineer give the estimated deposits in 1879 on the Yuba above the foot hills as forty six million four hundred and sixty two thousand one hundred cubic yards the great bulk in eight or ten miles and below twenty three million two hundred und eighty four thousand a total of seventy one million seven hundred and forty six thousand one hundred cubic yards In the light of later information it seems probable that this estimate is altogether too low the deposits in small tributaries not having been taken into account and the amount in the lower river having been much underestimated The actual amount is not capable of being ascertained, and the statements are given merely for the purpose of illustration.

"At its escape from the mountains where the foothills recede and give width to the plain the Yuba spreads out its load of sand and gravel over a plain of fifteen thousand to sixteen thousand acres which has risen until it now stands above the level of the adjoining country on either side."

"This plain has a slope of about ten feet to the mile varying above and below this limit as you ascend or descend the slope of the river bed being fifteen feet at the foot hills and five feet at Marysville, ten miles below. The sizes of material have some correspondence to the grades. Ascending the stream one passes to a continually increasing average size of material While it is nearly all sand below above it becomes nearly all gravel, with however considerable admixture of different sizes everywhere."

"This irruption from the mountains has destroyed thousands of acres of alluvial land The state engineer in 1880 estimated that fifteen thousand two hundred and twenty acres had been seriously injured by these deposits from the Yuba."

"On the Yuba the great deposits of gravel are found on a grade of thirty feet to twenty feet to the mile The sands predominate greatly in slopes of ten feet and below…."

Dr Teegarden's lands afford a very striking example of individual injuries inflicted by this mining debris Dr Teegarden is a prominent citizen of Yuba county having for some years represented the county in the state senate He owned twelve hundred and seventy five acres on the Yuba bottoms some three or four miles above Marysville on the north side All except the seventy five acres now lying outside the levee have been buried from three to five feet deep with sand and utterly destroyed for farming purposes for which injuries he has received no remuneration.

…In June last 1883 the English dam near the summit of the mountains which forms the reservoir of one of the defendants gave way and the accumulated waters came down the Yuba in a torrent sweeping everything before them a distance of eighty five miles in about ten hours riding at Home places in its canyons it is said to a height of ninety feet and at Marysville where the channel is broad two and a half feet At Linda seven miles above Marysville meeting some obstruction its current was turned against the south levee which broke at three points the water rushing through and down over a broad stretch of the lower plains outside to and upon the Eli a tract again The water having run out of the reservoir in an hour the torrent soon spent itself and no considerable damage was done to the Eliza tract although considerable damage resulted to the intervening lands In this case however the small private levee constructed by the tenant of Woodruff for the protection of this and other lands held by him would have protected this tract from this brief flood had there not been a culvert the gate of which the proprietor refused to have shut giving as a reason that he desired to show his neighbors who refused to contribute to the expense of building this private levee that their lands were in danger without it Had the rivers all been high and this torrent continued for several days as sometimes happens from natural causes there is no knowing what the result would have been.

Undoubtedly mining is an important industry in the state of California and the state may very properly take any lawful measures within its power to encourage it to the full extent that it can be carried on without injury to or the destruction of other industries or other rights also important It became patent to the most casual observer that some plan must be devised by which hydraulic mining could be carried on without injury to the agricultural regions in the valleys and without obstructing or destroying the use of the navigable waters of the state or in other words without creating a grievous nuisance in the valleys below or else that such mining must be stopped There was no other alternative It was therefore important to the interests of the state if possible to adopt the first alternative from the legislation referred to was simply designed to authorize the devising and carrying out of some plan by means of which the business of mining could be successfully pursued without creating or further continuing these nuisances.

…The brief flood occasioned by the breaking of the English dam in June last afforded a striking illustration of what is liable hereafter to occur This enormous deposit of debris in the Yuba at and near Marysville and in the streams in the mountains above is a continuing ever present and so long as hydraulic mining is carried on as now pursued it will ever continue to be an alarming and ever growing menace a constantly augmenting nuisance threatening further injuries to the property of complainant as well as to the lives and property of numerous other citizens similarly situated Against the continuous and further augmentation of this nuisance the complainant must certainly be entitled to legal protection.

After an examination of the great questions involved as careful and thorough as we are capable of giving them with t painfully anxious appreciation of the responsibilities resting upon us and of the disastrous consequences to the defendants we can come to no other conclusion than that complainant is entitled to a perpetual injunction But as it is possible that some mode may be devised in the future for obviating the injuries either one of those suggested or some other and successfully carried out so as to be both safe and effective a clause will be inserted in the decree giving leave on any future occasion when some such plan has been successfully executed to apply to the court for a modification or suspension of the injunction Let a decree be entered accordingly.

from "Woodruff v. North Bloomfield decision," in James Manford Kerr, Volume 10 of New Complete Digest of the Decisions of the Supreme Court and the District Courts of Appeal of the State of California and of All Federal Decisions Dealing with California Law, Harvard University: Bancroft-Whitney, 1917 available at Google Books.