Potter Valley Project

Op-Ed: If feds want Potter Valley dams, they should buy them

PRESS DEMOCRAT EDITORIAL

President Donald Trump’s California derangement syndrome is back as his administration tries to prevent PG&E from removing aging dams in the Potter Valley Project.

Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins has moved to intervene in the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission process to determine whether PG&E may tear down two dams and a mothballed powerhouse. Rollins wants FERC to deny the application.

Agriculture secretaries often get involved in these sorts of proceedings. Major changes to watersheds can impact farmers, after all. What is unusual in this case is that in supporting irrigators, a supposedly pro-business administration undermines private enterprise.

PG&E wants to surrender its license for the hydropower system on the Eel River because it now costs more than it is worth. The dams and powerhouse are more than a century old and are nowhere close to meeting modern standards. They require costly repairs and upgrades to remain safe. PG&E absorbs those costs, and no doubt passes some onto ratepayers.

Read more at https://www.pressdemocrat.com/2025/12/28/pd-editorial-if-feds-want-potter-valley-dams-they-should-buy-them/

Water, Wildlife, , , , , ,

Trump administration intervenes in dispute over future of Potter Valley Project

Phil Barber, PRESS DEMOCRAT

See also the article by the Lost Coast Outpost

Opponents of a plan to remove two Pacific Gas & Electric-owned dams from the Eel River in Lake and Mendocino counties have officially won a huge ally: the Trump administration.

Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins on Friday filed a notice to intervene in the utility giant’s bid to decommission its waterworks in the rural area, which also include a century-old power plant that helps to shunt Eel River water into irrigation canals that support Mendocino County’s Potter Valley and dump into the upper Russian River, boosting supplies for farms and hundreds of thousands of urban dwellers in the North Bay.

PG&E’s application to decommission the so-called Potter Valley Project is being considered by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, or FERC, which oversees licensing of the nation’s hydroelectric facilities.

Read more at https://www.pressdemocrat.com/2025/12/20/trump-administration-intervenes-in-dispute-over-future-of-pges-potter-valley-project/

Water, Wildlife, , , , ,

‘Surprise’ drop in Lake Pillsbury water release stokes fears

Amie Windsor, PRESS DEMOCRAT

A planned-for reduction in the amount of water Pacific Gas & Electric Co. is releasing from Lake Pillsbury caught Potter Valley farmers and ranchers off guard earlier this month during a key point in the summer growing and ranching season.

PG&E says stakeholders should have been expecting the dip in water pressure, which occurred on Aug. 5. But Janet Pauli, a rancher who is president of the Potter Valley Irrigation District board, says the utility failed to communicate about the change, which had been quietly approved by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

“Did we anticipate it? Yeah. But until FERC granted it, there was no reason for us to change what we were doing. Instead of giving us a ‘heads up,’ PG&E dropped their flows extremely rapidly,” Pauli said. “It was a surprise, and for a little while it was a problem.”

As the Potter Valley agricultural community panicked over keeping cattle and crops sated, rumors erupted on social media that PG&E had begun cutting off the water supply from Scott Dam in advance of the structure being torn down as part of the decommissioning of PG&E’s Potter Valley Project, which includes a shuttered hydroelectric power plant.

Read more at https://www.pressdemocrat.com/2025/08/21/surprise-drop-in-lake-pillsbury-water-release-stokes-fears-about-pges-potter-valley-project-decommissioning/

Agriculture/Food System, Water, , ,

PG&E files application to decommission Potter Valley Project

Amie Windsor, PRESS DEMOCRAT

The utility formally has filed its plans to shut down the two Northern California dams and century-old powerhouse that comprise the project.

Pacific Gas & Electric Co. has filed its formal plans with the federal government to decommission the Potter Valley Project, which includes two dams and a century-old powerhouse that together have helped connect the Eel and Russian River watersheds to provide water to cities and farms for generations.

The filing marks another step in the power company’s multiyear effort to divorce itself from the two-dam system — Scott and Cape Horn dams — that PG&E officials say has been operating at a deficit of $1 million a year.

“Today’s filing marks the next step of a thoughtful and transparent decommissioning journey for the Potter Valley Project — but it does not change our operational responsibilities or obligations,” Dave Gabbard, vice president of power generation for PG&E, said in a press release.

If approved by the feds — no such request has ever been denied — plans would kick into motion the next large dam removal project on the West Coast.

Read more at https://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/news/potter-valley-pge-plans/

Water, , , , , ,

Op-Ed: A two-basin deal is the only solution

Joe Parker, PRESS DEMOCRAT

The Two-Basin Solution shares water resources and restores fisheries, benefiting the Eel and Russian rivers.

Our ancestors have hunted, gathered and fished in the upper Eel River watershed for millennia. They lived in harmony with the river and its surrounding ecosystem, intuitively understanding the intertwined nature of the cycles of the river and the cycles of life itself. Their knowledge of the river has been handed down over time, each successive generation adding to that knowledge and passing on to the next the sacred obligation to protect and preserve the river.

No other sovereign has this connection to the upper Eel watershed. This has been, and will always be, our river. We are the Round Valley Indian Tribes.

In the early 20th century, without our consent, the Potter Valley Project dammed our river and started diverting significant portions to generate electricity, after which the water was made available, at no cost, to users in the Russian River watershed. All the while, our community endured the loss of a critical part of our economy and culture: the decimated Eel River salmon fishery.

These impacts are not limited to a degraded fishery and economic hardship, but also significantly severed our spiritual and cultural connection to the river, leading to a diminished quality of life for members of the Round Valley Indian Tribes, while Eel River water flowed free of charge to benefit Russian River users. Quite simply, the Potter Valley Project dams and the water supply they generated have benefited others while we have paid the costs. This can no longer stand.

Read more at https://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/opinion/sonoma-county-lake-mendocino-russian-eel-river/

Water, , , , , ,

New momentum in decades-long quest to upgrade Lake Mendocino’s Coyote Valley Dam

Austin Murphy, PRESS DEMOCRAT

With $500,000 secured by Rep. Huffman, officials have launched a study that could result in raising the level of the 67-year-old earthen dam impounding Lake Mendocino.

Striding along the southern edge of Lake Mendocino last week, Rep. Jared Huffman spotted a bald eagle soaring 150 feet above, a fish in its talons.

An avid angler himself, Huffman then pointed to a nearby stand of partly submerged trees — prime bass habitat, he noted.

If he had a rod, said Huffman, the ranking member of the House Committee on Natural Resources, “I would be casting right into that.”

But the congressman, along with a group of local officials, tribal leaders, and members of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, had work to do.

The group had gathered last Friday to sign an agreement geared to deliver significant future upgrades to the 67-year-old Coyote Valley Dam, which impounds Lake Mendocino, a reservoir providing flood control for nearby Ukiah, and other communities.

Read more at https://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/news/lake-mendocino-coyote-valley-dam-study/

Agriculture/Food System, Water, Wildlife, , , , , ,

Op-Ed: A seismic threat to Scott Dam

Bob Schneider & Chad Roberts, PRESS DEMOCRAT

The earthquake risk at Scott Dam may be a key factor in PG&E’s decision to abandon the Potter Valley Project.

PG&E is surrendering its license for the Potter Valley Project, two dams that divert water from the Eel River to the Russian River while generating hydropower. PG&E identifies this as a business decision, because of the project’s failure to produce revenues that offset operating costs, even though the utility’s customers pay higher rates than just about everywhere else in the United States.

In our opinion, PG&E has determined to rid itself of the Potter Valley Project for a different kind of economic consideration, after determining that the Scott Dam represents an economic liability that the company cannot afford.

A key factor is the increased understanding of seismic hazards represented by the Bartlett Springs Fault Zone, which runs through Lake Pillsbury approximately 5,000 feet east of Scott Dam.

As part of the relicensing process, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission held an auction for potential alternative licensees for the Potter Valley Project. No one made an offer, probably for the same reason PG&E doesn’t want the dams anymore: no potential owner wanted responsibility for the risk posed by the Bartlett Springs Fault.

Read more at https://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/opinion/sonoma-county-lake-pillsbury-potter-valley-scott-dam/

Water, , ,
Scroll to Top