South Yuba River and Alpha Omega Diggins by Zeke Lunder

View from Highway 20 overlook. Near the barren dirt bluffs in the center of the image were the gold mining towns of Alpha and Omega, established in the early 1850s.

During this time, Yuba River water was diverted into canals and flumes which were used for both small-scale 'placer mining' and 'hydraulic mining' - which used huge nozzles to wash entire hillsides through sluice boxes in the search for gold. Hydraulic mining created these scars, still visible almost 150 years later. The 'diggins', engulfed most of the original townsites.

The Alpha and Omega diggins were one of the largest hydraulic mining operations in the Sierra Nevada. Debris washed into the rivers by these and other mines caused flooding in the Sacramento Valley along the Lower Yuba River, and mercury used in the sluicing process still contaminates many of the areas where the 'tailings' (debris) accumulated.