YWA Penstock Blowout UPDATE: 830PM Sat Feb 14 2026

Описание: POWERHOUSE PENSTOCK RUPTURE UPDATE:
8:50 PM, Saturday, February 14, 2026, by Ted Langdell.

A worker remains hospitalized after Friday’s big penstock rupture at the Yuba Water Agency’s New Colgate Powerhouse near Dobbins.

This worker was among several that had to be relocated by helicopter after the road to the powerhouse was washed out.

No word on whether the worker was a Yuba Water Agency employee, or was working for contractors engaged in maintenance and testing of the penstock.

The 15-foot high penstock is a big pipe connect to a five mile long tunnel. The tunnel brings water from Bullard’s Bar Dam to the powerhouse. The penstock sends it rushing downhill to the powerhouse with great force, where it hits giant Pelton wheels. The Pelton wheels turn generators producing 350 Megawatts at peak.

Tunnel and penstock had been off-line for several months of maintenance, without water in them.

Testing with water was underway Friday. The blowout happened just before 3 PM Friday, sending a torrent of water and hillside debris downhill, across the power generation plant, power substation and into the Yuba River.

That downhill velocity through the substation collapsed several towers taking down power lines uphill toward Dobbins. That disrupted power to part of the Yuba County foothills and neighboring counties. More than 15,000 customers went dark.

PG&E rerouted connections and had most of the affected customers back on-grid around 9:15 PM.

As darkness fell Saturday, power was still off in much of the Yuba County town of Camptonville, areas west of there in the Pendola area north of Bullard's Bar Reservoir, and the Sierra County community of Pike, with around 435 customers affected. PG&E's outage map advised an 11:30 PM restoration. But power came back on around 7:30 according to social media posts.

Saturday morning, Yuba Water Agency General Manager Willie Whittlesey advised “Right now, we’re focusing on doing everything we can to revent any additional debris from entering the Yuba River and continuing to secure the site ahead of forecasted rain tomorrow.”

Helicopters were mapping the debris flow downstream in the river and toward Englebright Reservoir.

“Boats have been pre-positioned on Englebright Lake in an attempt to contain man-made debris and materials from the incident site ahead of the storms,” the agency said in a 4:40 PM news release Saturday.

"The agency is working closely with Clean Harbors, a company that specializes in environmental mitigation in water and on land, and in coordination with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers – which owns and operates Englebright – to contain debris and monitor water quality," YWA said.

“The agency urges the public to stay away from the incident site and out of the Yuba River between New Colgate Powerhouse and Englebright Lake while crews work to contain debris.”

Meantime, work to restore access to the powerhouse is underway. “Geotechnical engineers have completed preliminary aerial surveys of the incident site and will continue ground assessments in the morning to identify safe access routes to the penstock, powerhouse and surrounding areas,” the Agency said.

The road leading to the powerhouse remains washed out in several places, hampering efforts to clean up the debris, assess and repair damage to the powerhouse and substations, and eventually, repair the penstock where water undermined supports and caused sections of the pipe to disconnect.

Expect more details and “what next” Sunday, Monday and during Tuesday’s 9 AM Yuba Water Agency board of directors meeting. Watch here on Yuba-Sutter.LIVE's social media pages
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Ted Langdell, Yuba-Sutter.LIVE