Mendocino County

California returns stretch of Mendocino Coast to Indigenous tribes: ‘This is beyond huge’

Alex Wigglesworth, LOS ANGELES TIMES

California is returning a stretch of rugged Mendocino County coast to the Indigenous nations whose ancestors once stewarded its shores.

State transportation officials recently approved the transfer of Blues Beach and the surrounding bluffs to Kai Poma, a nonprofit founded by representatives of the Sherwood Valley Band of Pomo Indians, Round Valley Indian Tribes and Coyote Valley Band of Pomo Indians.

The transfer of 136 acres just south of the community of Westport will mark the first time land managed by the California Department of Transportation has been returned to Indigenous tribes.

“This is beyond huge,” said J. Carlos Rivera, tribal chairman of the Sherwood Valley Band of Pomo Indians. “It’s enormous from our tribal perspective that we are basically obtaining the land that our people once lived on before colonization.”

Read more at https://www.pressdemocrat.com/2026/07/02/california-returns-stretch-of-coast-to-indigenous-tribes-this-is-beyond-huge-2/

Sonoma Coast, ,

Sonoma Clean Power to make pitch for Lake County to join

Jeff Quackenbush, NORTH BAY BUSINESS JOURNAL

Sonoma Clean Power is set to make its case Tuesday evening for Lake County to join the energy agency currently serving Sonoma and Mendocino counties. It’s a conversation a decade in the making.

The offer comes with clear conditions from the public electricity supplier. Sonoma Clean Power’s board has made Lake County’s membership contingent not only on approval from the county, Lakeport, and Clearlake but also on the county’s participation in the agency’s geothermal energy initiative.

That initiative, known as the geothermal opportunity zone (GeoZone), is a partnership among Sonoma and Mendocino counties and three energy companies. Its goal is to tap The Geysers geothermal field, which spans all three counties, to generate an additional 600 megawatts of renewable power for the North Bay. CEO Geof Syphers said joining the GeoZone is central to the offer: without consensus on new geothermal development, he cautioned, conflicts would likely emerge down the line.

Read more at https://www.pressdemocrat.com/2025/09/29/sonoma-clean-power-to-make-pitch-for-lake-county-to-join/

Climate Change & Energy, , , , ,

Mendocino museum highlights injustices, resilience of Pomo people

Karen Misuraca, PRESS DEMOCRAT

The Kelley House Museum showcases the history and resilience of the Northern Pomo people through artifacts and contemporary art.

Thousands of years before Russian fur trappers, Spanish missionaries and American settlers arrived to the Northern California coast, the Northern Pomo Indians called area from the Noyo River to the southern part of Mendocino County home.

With the influx of immigrants in the 1800s, the lives of the indigenous tribes were forever changed, and their population decimated.

Today, there are about 5,000 Pomo people living in several rancherias and reservations, comprising 11 Pomo bands in Mendocino County, according to Visit Mendocino County’s Land Acknowledgement.

Read more at https://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/news/kelley-house-museum-pomo-tribes/

Local Organizations,

Sonoma County considering taking over Eel River water-power project

Guy Kovner, THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

Sonoma County supervisors agreed Tuesday to study the possibility of applying for a license to operate a remote Mendocino County hydropower project, marking the first move to maintain a long-standing water transfer deemed critical to residents and ranchers in both counties.

A coalition of five Mendocino County agencies and California Trout, a 50-year-old environmental nonprofit, are collaborating with Sonoma County’s water agency in the consideration of taking over the federal license for the Potter Valley Project, which delivers 20 billion gallons of water a year from the Eel River into the Russian River basin.

Each of the three partners is putting $100,000 into the study, an amount dwarfed by the potential cost of establishing free passage for the Eel River’s protected salmon and steelhead — likely a requisite step to extend the project’s life.

PG&E, the state’s largest utility now in bankruptcy, surrendered the project in January, upending the license renewal process, and no entity has responded to a Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) call for a new operator.

The utility, which had owned the project since 1930, said it was no longer economical to operate a plant that generated less than 1 percent of its power.

But the water flowing through the powerhouse is virtually invaluable to the towns and ranches along the upper Russian River from Potter Valley to Healdsburg and is a critical source for Sonoma Water, which delivers water to 600,000 Sonoma and Marin county customers.

Read more at https://www.pressdemocrat.com/news/9598819-181/sonoma-county-supervisors-eye-future

Water, Wildlife, , , , , , ,
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