ongoing dispute as to land title and access. Much of the land is owned by Western Aggregate, a mining company extracting gravel from the goldfields. The remainder of the land is split between small private owners, the Bureau of Land Management, and the United States Army Corps of Engineers. The BLM land is free for the public to use for recreational purposes, but much of it is actually unreachable. Some of it can be accessed via boats on the river, but other access roads have been closed off by Western Aggregate. The parcel of land owned by the Army Corps is technically public land, but it is also inaccessible and it is closed for recreation. Western Aggregate owns mining rights over much (but not all) of that property as a result of a purchase from a gold mining company in 1987 by its parent company Centex Construction, based in Texas. The Goldfields is the largest aggregate mine in the State of California, as well as one of only two dredge gold-mining operations in North America (as of 1989). The titles themselves are also under much dispute because mining has so shifted the landscape of gravel as well as the river itself that it has become unclear as to what the property boundaries are. In response to the blocking of Hammonton Road, a county road, into the Yuba Goldfields, the Yuba Goldfields Access Coalition was formed in 1996 by local historian Chuck Smith and neighboring landowner William Calvert. Smith, along with Goldfields residents and 80 members of the community, spent the next 10 years fighting for public access, arguing that the road had been public since 1850, when it was used by gold miners. Dozens of members of the coalition were arrested for trespassing on the public road, although none was convicted. In 2000, Yuba County Superior Court Judge Dave Wasilenko ruled that Hammonton Road was a public road, a decision ultimately upheld by the California Supreme Court in 2002. Two mining company owners were arrested for blocking a public road, and one mining company owner was arrested for threatening protestors with a handgun during the years-long dispute. Environmental role In the Central Valley, the Yuba is one of two rivers where Chinook salmon spawn, and the only one that supports steelhead trout runs. Salmon die when they reach fresh water, and their carcasses pile up in the goldfields, where turkey