MENDOCINO CO., 2/24/18 — The Eel Russian River Commission met in the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors chambers on Friday, February 23, where PG&E representatives announced the potential sale of the Potter Valley Project to staff and agency representatives from Humboldt, Mendocino, Sonoma, and Lake Counties. We have not been able to locate a recording of the meeting to share with our readers, but our sister paper Redheaded Blackbelt covered the event, in which PG&E’s director of energy regeneration, Dave Moller, explained that the low levels of energy generated by the project meant the company might consider abandoning the project, or selling it off to a private company.
As anyone concern with water on the North Coast knows, the Potter Valley Project includes a tunnel through a mountain, which diverts water from the Eel River, to the headwaters of the Russian River. This water then flows into Lake Mendocino, and from there is used by agricultural interests and municipalities in Sonoma County. The allocation of this water, whether is should continue north in through the Eel, or continue to be diverted south to the Russian, has long been a contentious issue on the North Coast.
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