Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that Buffey Wright Bourassa was against dam removal. She is in favor of removing the Potter Valley Project dams because of structural integrity and seismic issues and concerns for the safety of downstream residents. The story has been corrected to reflect her position
UKIAH, CA., 7/14/26 — The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission took its public comment period on the Potter Valley Project in Ukiah over two days in June. Comments were made in private, behind a closed door. Press was barred and recording forbidden. The transcripts of those comments were released Monday, 20 days after the first session, over 43,000 words, more than 70 speakers.
Southern California came first. “My name is Chance Edmondson,” one opens, “and I’m with the Elsinore Valley Municipal Water District.”
Edmondson is a director on that district’s board and its vice president. He was among the first people to put a word into the federal environmental record on whether PG&E should be allowed to surrender its license for the century-old Potter Valley Project and pull out Scott and Cape Horn dams.
He asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to slow down. The commission “cannot conclude surrender is the appropriate response,” he said, until it weighs “less drastic dam removal alternatives that preserve the project’s water supply benefits.”
Right behind him came Lance Eckhart, general manager of the San Gorgonio Pass Water Agency, a state water contractor in Riverside County. He was careful. “I want it to be clear that the Pass Agency is not taking a position on the ultimate outcome of the Potter Valley Project,” he said. “We are here to listen, learn, and better understand the issues and stakeholders involved in this process.”
Eckhart’s board vice president, Larry Smith, also gave his opinion. Three Southern California water men, not a local voice among them.
Residents tell a different story
Those journeying to Ukiah to give FERC their comments came from Mendocino, Lake, Humboldt and Sonoma counties. The record shows neighbors who can’t agree on the dams have no trouble at all agreeing on Lake Elsinore.
Janet Johnson drove down from Laytonville with a friend who had come to testify, and spent the evening where the public was made to spend it — in the waiting room, outside the closed door, unable to hear any of it. She was blunt about who she thought was on the other side of that door. They were “carpetbaggers scamming our water,” she told The Voice.
As it turns out, according to the written testimonies, almost nobody disagreed with her. They just couldn’t agree on anything else.
The most credentialed voice against removal has been farming Potter Valley for 56 years.
He gave his name to the court reporter as Eugene J. McGuinness McFadden, spelling the McGuinness out letter by letter, but said everybody calls him Guinness. He has farmed Potter Valley for 56 years, sat on the Potter Valley Irrigation District board for 35 of them, and holds an alternate seat on the Inland Water and Power Commission — “the main driver in Mendocino County,” as he put it.
His case is that the seismic evidence citing issues with Scott Dam can’t be examined. PG&E’s study, he said, “came up with some questionable data about seismic problems,” and “the parts of it that were released were heavily redacted, so there’s really been no credible party to view the study and see that it makes any sense.”
Nobody, he said, ever seriously priced the alternative. “They just decided that it would be better to totally take the dam out rather than mitigate the problem.” He put PG&E’s own removal estimate at $600 million. “For quite a bit less than that, we feel that mitigation measures can be employed to make the dam safe.”
There had been an earthquake that morning, and McFadden knew where PG&E was.
“PG&E is out there as we speak, and they’re actually going inside the dam,” he said. “The dam is hollow, and they’re inspecting it now.”
A FERC staffer broke in. “Are they?”
They were, McFadden said. “It was quite a jolt. Did you feel it here in Ukiah?”
The staffer admitted they had.
The clearest voice for removal came from a woman who lives in Ukiah and drinks the water they’re fighting over.
“I guess that I shower in Eel River water,” said Alicia Bales, director of the Sierra Club’s Redwood Chapter, which runs from Napa and Solano to the Oregon border and counts 8,000 members. She didn’t hedge on the dam. “I agree with their findings about Scott Dam, that it must be removed for the environmental and the safety concerns for the Eel River and my neighbors here in Mendocino County.”
And then she spent the remainder of her minutes on Elsinore’s bid to buy the Potter Valley Project for reasons that are still unclear. Bales said any decision about who ends up holding the project “should empower and ensure local water security and wellbeing, not try to extract fees or profits from us for an out-of-area operator.” Decommissioning, she said, “needs to ensure local control of infrastructure.”
The Sierra Club and Guinness McFadden, who agree on nothing else, object to the same thing.
“Wrong on all fronts”
Michael Bailey, who goes by Mickey, wants the dams gone. He has looked at them, he said, and “they seem to be in deteriorating condition. And I think the best thing to do is remove them.” In the same breath, he named what worries him more.
“The worst thing that could happen to our Eel River water is that the entire project would be affected by some other entity such as the Elsinore Water District controlling our water.”
Sarah Ryan put it harder. Ryan is the environmental director for the Big Valley Band of Pomo Indians in Lake County, though she said she was speaking for herself and not the tribe. Handing the project to the Elsinore district would be “a water and money grab and a water rights grab of Lake Pillsbury,” she said — with the Round Valley tribe shut out of the negotiations, accomplished by a district “who’s had no public meetings.” Her verdict: “It’s just wrong on all fronts.”
She wants Scott Dam out. She also said the Eel’s water “should not be going to a Southern California water district.”
Mendocino County third supervisorial district candidate Buffey Wright Bourassa said she wanted alternatives “that keep water management decisions in local and regional hands.” Her line: “I am absolutely not for an outside entity from even further south or all the way down south to take over our water.”
Deborah Long, who is against removal, asked the commission to consider “who benefits from the removal? Only outside special interest.”
One local wants them at the table.
Kerri Vau, a seventh-generation Ukiah farmer whose family has worked the valley since the mid-1800s, called decommissioning “a catastrophe” and said she has already sat down with Lake Elsinore representatives.
“I want to point out that Lake Elsinore, I have met with them,” Vau said. “They’re a buyer at the table, and I would hope that FERC would talk to them and consider that as an option.”
The pre-buttal
The Southern Californians anticipated residents’arguments.
Larry Smith, vice president of the San Gorgonio Pass Water Agency, said that the California Water Plan is “not a Southern California plan, nor a Northern California plan” — it covers “the entirety of the state.”
Then he pointed out that his agency already has money in the neighborhood. It’s the third-largest investor in Sites Reservoir, he said — and if you stand at Scott Dam and look 37 miles east, that’s what you’re looking at. To spend “$6 or $7 billion to invest in a reservoir, building dams 37 miles away,” he said, while tearing these ones down, “does not seem like reasonable rational water management.”
The last word
One of the last people to speak Tuesday night had driven two and a half hours to get there.
Autumn Swedin came down from Fortuna because, she said, she had been asked to carry Humboldt County’s concerns to a meeting held nowhere near it. She wanted to know what happens if PG&E walks away — whether the license gets auctioned, and to whom.
“We’ve heard word of a Southern California Water District looking into buying the project,” Swedin said. “Many that live and work along the Eel River don’t want the Southern California Water District involved.”
She asked FERC to hold a session in Humboldt, in person, the way it had for Mendocino.
Then she finished, and the court reporter thanked her, and she drove home. Now finally, everyone can read what she and others said.
Written comments can still be made on the Potter Valley Project. They are due by 5 p.m. Eastern time — 2 p.m. in Ukiah — on Friday, July 24, and can be filed through FERC’s eFiling or eComment system under docket No. P-77-332. The scoping transcripts are posted in FERC’s eLibrary under accession No. 20260713-4000.
“Three Southern California water men, not a local voice among them.” – It was the locals that brought socal here.
There is a plan that if a SoCal water agency buys and owns these lakes and the water, they don’t have a way to get water from NoCal to SoCal so they will be be selling to local water agencies for exorbitant prices. Think about that…
The Round Valley Tribes have stated that they will charge $2M annually just to consider water deliveries. After J Huffman gives away the entire rights
In a recent article, it said SoCal wanted to charge $8000 and acre-foot. Right now PVID pays $35!
The dams are removed, I understand there will be no Lake Pillsbury for water storage? . Where will the water end up going? Is this just more water making its way to the ocean? Ranchers in Potter Vally access to water?
It would be diverted to Lake Mendocino for storage, then use.
The money that would be wasted on the so-called two basin solution (not including 40% cost overruns), would be more than enough to shore up Scott Dam for the imagined seismic problems
PG&E is the failure point. I can’t believe people even debate if the reservoir is needed, where else will municipal and agrarian water be sourced if it’s gone? How about a joint power authority is formed with RVIT, Mendocino and Humboldt counties to have local management of the water and power resources with a local price allocation and export price allocation once local allotments are satisfied. Parts of the Eel River run to a literal trickle by the end of the season so who has the magic wand to summon new water when the reservoir is gone? Stop the SoCal water grab, keep the reservoir and keep it local.
The Eel trickle is BECAUSE of the diversion
Save Lake Pillsbury!!! Leave it the way it is. Let it become part of The Mendocino National Forest, that it is completely surrounded by, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers can manage the water supply year round and the diversion as they do with Lake Mendocino in the winter, while it’s in the flood pool part of management. Or lake Mendocino will be empty most summers. Too many families wellbeing depends on this water. This whole removal scheme is a financial windfall for the tribes in the name of river restoration. Hundreds of millions to the tribes. It’s a scam. Follow the money. Livelihoods are at stake for hundreds of thousands of people if the reservoirs are removed. It’s madness. Trump could integrate this entire water system into the National Forest with one signature.
One, you are racist. Two, I don’t want my tax dollars footing the bill so you can drive around your speedboat and like 6 farmers in Potter can water grass. Did you know 90% of the water used in Potter Valley is just used to water grass? They barely even grow and grapes.
Norman is correct. Potter is a time warp.
I concur with Norman.
Are you calling me a racist? I don’t think so. Obviously I’ve read a lot more about this proposal than you have. It’s a scam. A money grab. Up yours if you are calling me racist. Do your homework before you stick your foot in your mouth. I was born here and have been following this issue since its insane inception. I’ve been going to Lake Pillsbury since the late 70’s and my parents since 1968. Not to mention I did my senior thesis at HSU on Lake Pillsbury and the diversion and PV project.
And I don’t own a boat or jet ski. I hunt and camp there for 45 years. My earliest childhood memories are of Lake Pillsbury. But I grew up on the south side of the hill in PV and RV. My interest is in water security for an estimated 600,000 people and the diminishing availability of public land for recreation and hunting. Lake Pillsbury is an anchor point in the fall for hundreds and hundreds of deer hunters. Most of CA is private property and the Gravelly Valley, aka Lake Pillsbury, is about all that is left in this area unless you want to drive hundreds of miles to hunt. The lake is completely within the Mendocino National Forest and owned by PG&E. Even all the campground around the lake are operated by PG&E. Once the lake is gone, along with the campgrounds, people interested in hunting and recreation have nowhere else to go. Mt. Sanhedrin is locked up tight. Even after the passing of Rich Padula when his estate donated thousands of acres approximately 5 years ago that he purchased, which was previously owned by Louisiana Pacific, and was restored by him then it was donated to the National Forest for public use by his estate. There is still no public access to that land on the northeast side of Mt. Sanhedrin. Then there are hundreds of home owners surrounding the lake, that have lived there for decades, that will lose their property values. And thousands of people lose access to public lands again for hunting and recreation. The Tule Elk will migrate south into Upper Lake and Potter Valley to destroy ranch lands and fence lines. It’s the loss of a way of life for many. You will respond about the tribes losing their water rights to the river but this watershed hasn’t produced salmon in decades. Bitch about the ESA and the pike minnow but the carp are already in the Eel River below the dam and are decimating all species of fish. Couple that with climate change and you have a dead river system below Lake Pillsbury when it comes to fish. Removing the dam won’t fix this. The negative effects far outnumber the positive with dam removal. Nobody really throws climate change into this scam. The loss of water storage will travel to the Golden Gate Bridge. That’s how far Lake Pillsbury water travels. The tribes act like they still live off of Eel River salmon. They don’t and have not for a century. Removing the damn will not restore salmon habitat. Not with invasive species, prolonged drought and climate change. It will increase the Eel River watershed by 3%. Not enough to change anything. The Round Valley tribal members bitch about the white man hunting and taking all the deer in the National forest, northeast of Covelo. They were here first but that doesn’t give them sovereign rights to all land and the Eel River. It is public land for everyone to use. For God’s sake leave it be. It’s National Forest. Lake Pillsbury is part of the National Forest. If PG&E surrenders Lake Pillsbury and the diversion it should become part of the Mendocino National Forest. Public Lands. The Army Corps of Engineers can operate it, and maintain it and provide water to the customers that have been utilizing it since around 1904.
Norman have you ever even been to Potter Valley? There are over 100 farmers just in the valley floor. Not counting the outskirts. And they don’t use anything close to 90% of the diverted water. Do your homework before you keep sticking your foot in your mouth repeatedly.
Stop the Eel River Water Grab by two Riverside Water Agencies, Elsinore Valley Municipal Water District and San Gorgonio Pass Water Agency.
There is an acceptable Plan to build a new Coyote Valley Dam on the East Fork of the Russian River in front of the existing Coyote Valley Dam. Congressman Jared Huffman has securred a $500,000 Federal Grant to do the NEPA & CEQA required environmental studies to, ineffect, raise the Dam that collects the Eel River water that will still be diverted at the new Cape Horn structure allowing the same amount of Eel River water currently diverted into the East Fork of the Russian, just at different times of the year.
Once Scott Dam comes down, the very next year Coho, steelhead and Chinook Salmon will be back in numbers not seen in a hundred years. Those families with cabins around Scott Dam would then have a River Cabin on a wild & scenic Eel River that will draw Fishers from all over the West Coast. And, not only will this be the shot in the arm that the West Coast Salmon industry needs, the 1st Nation Tribe from Covelo will have a piece of their heritage back.
That is a pipe dream. Once Pillsbury is gone the river will be dry. The only reason there is water there in late summer and fall is because it is impounded behind the dam at Lake Pillsbury. Fish can’t swim on gravel. In September and October every tributary is bone dry and so will the main river below the dam in fall after it is removed. The fish will never recover thanks to climate change no matter what humans do. Not to mention hundreds of thousands of cubic yards of sediment that will be released down stream below the dam once the dam is gone. Hundreds of homes around the lake. A complete community and economy will be decimated. All this in an attempt to increase the watershed only 3%.
There are 43 full time residents living at Potter Valley. If you sneak by the handful of these homes in the middle of the summer, you’ll find diveable pools of cold clean spring fed water above the beer cans and blue green algae of the crimbling reservoir. Why would we waste taxpayer money for a bailout of PG&E by a couple of folks who like to jetski?
I’ve read that the Round Valley Tribe is getting around $300,000,000 for River restoration. One of the most corrupt tribal councils in CA. It’s a tribal money grab. Every tribal member will be driving brand new Camaros and Mustang GT’s and other $100,000 cars within weeks. The river won’t get restored. They don’t care about the river. It’s only a shakedown for cash. Do some research into the corruption of the local tribal councils. Everyone is drinking the cool-aid. It’s a scam.
I have read a handful of Potter Valley farmers and wealthy vacation cabin owners at Lake Pillsbury are trying to sell out the 600,000 water users downstream on the Russian by bringing in these SoCal folks. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that the water managers in our and even PVID (where grumpy old Guniess McFadden is a board member) all support the Two-Basin Solution.
The FERC interview was about Dam removal. So most oppose it. That’s the simple answer, to FERC. Why is FERC allowing any other answer?
I don’t understand how any sensible person, cannot realize, without the dams, there is no water to charge for or fight over.
It’s interesting PG&E & Tribes, and FERC, are acting, as if all this surplus water, will be available without a resevoir? Spending a fortune and no water, is ignorant & makes no sense. When something makes no sense follow the huge, huge, amounts of money. These involved entities, act like it’s not, much, wow???
And involves 300,000,000 to a Tribe, plus a future of millions, money for water, and possibly 1 BILLION to contractors, only then, does this whole fiasco, make sense. Big money, big business over citizens. Spending money & getting more water, and electricity, makes much more sense. Of course it does. The worst part is wildlife, people, farms, all lose, in lakes removals, (Mendocino will go dry too) as usual, power & greed will win. And 2 Lakes, rivers will lose & everyone, every fish, every animal, will lose.
I find it so weird that people blame PG&E, FERC, the tribes etc. I think you people need a mirror. PG&E considered selling the Project in the 70s and since then, folks with lake houses and in Potter have done very little to raise funds to buy the dams. What you seem to be asking for is for taxpayers to bail you out. You want the water, you pay for it. Once you do the math on what the water would cost if you had to pay to maintain or rebuild 100-year-old dams, this all suddenly makes a lot of sense. This SoCal group has clearly done nothing to understand that yet. It’s more culture war bullshit. Once they do the math, they’ll be long gone just like PG&E. Raise Lake Mendocino, keep some diverison going to fill it, that’s the only thing that makes sense.
It’s ridiculous that FERC held a meeting in Ukiah and not in Humboldt. Impressive to see so many people make the 3+ hour drive to lodge their comments in support of restoring the Eel River when they’ve been excluded from the conversation.
I’d rather have these dams out and continue diversion then give up my water to a bunch of Dodger fans. They said that Sites is only 37 miles away, meaning they would take over the dams and ship the water NORTH, to Clear Lake, then over to the only existing SWRCB connection.
Wake up folks, your heads can’t be as hollow as Guiness says the dams are (news flash: Scott Dam is made of cobble and built on a fault line). I’d rather see Lake Mendocino raised so we can store more water than fight over a done deal.
It’s not made of cobble. It’s all concrete. The tunnel is cobble stones 8’ diameter and a mile long and drops 500’ in elevation. Scott dam is 100% concrete. Before 9-11 you could walk right up to the base of the dam before they blocked access by creating a land slide that is impossible to get around unless you are a mountain climber. I went there many times in the 90’s. All concrete.
Everyone should start reading about the Klamath and the multiple dams on it that are now gone. It was the same arguments. The same interests. Ag people. Rural residents. Natives. Power generation companies. The plan went through. The river survives. The people do as well.
The fact that PG&E is walking away from the dams after years of trying to maintain and repair them tells you all you need to know. The dams are a liability and a money pit. Tear them down and get the new diversion system going before we’re all getting overcharged by a utility from SoCal.
PG&E is abandoning the Lake because there is no longer a profit to be made. The turbines at the Powerhouse no longer work and it would cost millions of dollars to replace them. And because California has required solar on all new home and so many other home owners installed solar that they can no longer make a profit on hydroelectricity. The bottom line always boils down to $$$. Believe it if they could still make money of of Scott Dam and the Powerhouse non of this would be happening. Even if it were true that Scott Dam was seismically unstable. Which is not true. It’s built like a brick a brick sh.. house.
Here is the thing about alternatives to removal – they are short term solutions that just kick the can (and even more expenses) down the road. Increased lake sedimentation, more seismic concerns, expensive fish ladders that dont work. Just pull the bandaid off and take the dam down.
Why should my PGE rate be subsidizing a play lake for many people whom my tax dollars already subsidize their Forest Tract Homes? These folks are double dipping freeloaders taking hand outs IN BOTH HANDS.
The scariest thing is watching Southern California water agencies circle this like sharks around a dead whale. They need water to keep their lawns and golf courses green in the desert environments where they live. Like our current politicians, they know that if they can divide the residents, they have a better chance of winning.
TIME FOR THE PRO DAM FOLKS TO SEE THE WRITING ON THE WALL THAT THE DAM NEEDS TO COME DOWN AND STOP THE SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA WATER GRAB!
It’s not a play lake. It’s a critical water source. People began building homes there in the 50’s. A lot of celebrities owned homes there. Lake Pillsbury Ranch was established by Jackie Gleason and Jack Haley who was the tinman in the Wizard of Oz. Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Junior used to party there with all the other rat pack members. That’s why there is a runway so they could fly in there on their private planes and that’s how that subdivision known as Lake Pillsberry Ranch got started. They purchased the land from the forest service, it’s not subsidizing their homes. They paid for them. There are homes all around the lake along with a fire department and forest service Ranger station and unfortunately, the store just went out of business last year at soda Creek. The lake has a lot of history around it. But when the dam goes and the lake goes, so do all the campgrounds and all the people that have been hunting there for many generations like myself will be out of luck. One less place to deer hunt. And the herd of elk that probably number 500 will migrate to other areas in lake county and Potter Valley and destroy ranchland because that’s what elk do.
Y’all are crazy. Those dams would bankrupt anyone who touches them. That’s why PG&E tried to give them away and no one took them up on the offer. Besides, there’s already a successor owner in line for the diversion tunnel, which is what matters. Everything else is noise.
Not one word about the lake biom. It is an oasis. Eagles osprey otters greebs herons migratory birds and tule elk have no idea it is not natural. Visit in October during migration and the elk rut, it is beautiful. Furthermore the last time fish spawned above the lake it was all prestine virgin old growth mixed conifer forest. The entire watershed has since been decimated by logging and fires. There are no fish in tributaries below the damn. Water discharged from Scott damn in August is so cold it is uncomfortable to swim in unless it is over ninety degrees. Water coming into the lake is but a trickle. Covelo resident’s swimming holes along highway 162 will dry up completely .
Amen brother. 100% agree.
The dams need to be removed. Water will still be available, this notion that water will not be available is nonsense, the river will still flow. We have new science and information and we know the dam is out of date structurally, environmentally, socially, it’s unsustainable and that is not a political statement, we need to get over ourselves and fix our issues (dams and people, we can actually agree on things with solid accurate info). Potter valley farmers honestly need to become more sustainable and in a better built society our government would be proactive and educate and support that. It would be helpful if published with these types of articles the facts were also published so we’re not just reading other opinions and getting riled up with no accuracy.
The damn is not seismically unstable, that is a cop out for PG&E. It’s been there over 100 years and has survived many large earthquakes and has been fine and it will be fine for another 100 years. Just leave it be. Everything has been working fine except the powerhouse turbines. With prolonged droughts, the diversion is critical. Tearing out the dams only creates 3% more watershed in the Eel River basin. The Eel River north of VanArsdale will have much less water flowing through it without the lake. It will go bone dry probably six out of 10 years. The reason the water is flowing is because of the lake.
Well said Bradley and Brant !! I spent a lot of time in that area in years past.
Reading about the celebrity presence in the Pillsbury area reminds me of the resident game wardens story of the country and western singer Johnny Horton writing the song Whispering Pines on a visit to Hesselmans Park on San Hedrin in the early sixties.
It was a stand of pines named after Archie Hesselman the Forester for Ukiah Pine Lumber Company
I remember as a young boy the sound of those whispering pines.
I’ve never heard of Hesselmans park and I’ve hunted the entire mountain. It was before my time probably. It’s probably referring to Cow Flat which had a campground near Turkey Track called Foster Camp after the Foster family that died in a car wreck on Mt. Sanhedrin. I’m not sure though. Foster camp was owned and maintained by L.P. My dad worked for LP for 30+ years so mill employees got hunting access to all of their timberland. Still to this day my dad and myself get a hunting permit to hunt on Mendocino Forest Products timber land in mostly A zone. Because dad is a retiree in good standing. But we mostly hunt Masonite Rd for A zone. Sometimes Noyo River area by Northspur when they aren’t actively logging. And Sanhedrin and Pillsbury for B zone. I would love to see Cow Flat and Foster Camp open to the public again since Pillsbury might be going away. Along with the campgrounds. But I’m afraid that Rich Padula donated it to the National Forest through a conservation easement. Which probably means no public access to the area.
This issue has really generated a lot of public interest to say the least. There is so much at stake. For those that have spent a significant part of their lives in the area it’s a no brainer. If the dams are sound or repairable they should be saved. That. seems to be unknown to the public.
The politics involved are one sided and
cannot be trusted. I know from my youth it was a beautiful area and with significant environmental clean up it could be again.
HERE, HERE. It is a tiny drop in the speculation paper water bucket.
People beyond emotionally charged non sensical about it.
Its odd when you look at the #s the volume, the impacts that it is still seen as a glorious and required thing. Let’s get sustainable.
This list of facts.
100 years a little more than, none alive remember the times. .
Scott Dam, usable water storage is 65,000 to 66,876 acre-feet. Scott Dam, located on the Eel River in Northern California, was completed in 1922 to create Lake Pillsbury. A rich businessman wanted $ and power. Never consider the biological, eco system mixes after 100 years, was not a concept of long forethought.
Lake Mendocino, created by the Coyote Valley Dam near Ukiah, has a total reservoir storage capacity of approximately 122,000 to 122,500 acre-feet. Completed in late 50s.
Lake Sonoma, impounded by the Warm Springs Dam, has a total storage capacity of 381,000 acre-feet. If we are
using more than we need, not being sustainable nor thinking long term that is what created today’s problem.
Winter storage, more efficient watering practices and management will result in a better outcome for the longterm future. Grapes watered and left rotting on the vine. A tax write off for crop failure or inability to sell 8s a real poor goal for sustainable growth.
There is more to this issue than numbers of acre feet of potential water storage. Like Eel River water rights and Potter Valley ground water and irrigation. Also the Lake Pillsbury community and all the downstream diversions for domestic and agricultural users.
There probably is a lot of information unknown to the public. Time will tell.
The FERC comment period has been extended to September 18.
It would be nice if people would refrain from unfounded blame against taxpaying farmers and ranchers.
I hope I never see the East Branch Russian like the West Branch in summer.
And I do remember the Eel below Scott Dam in February 1977…just a trickle.
And what about all the illegal diversions from the Eel and it’s tributaries that used to support native rainbows and young steelhead that are lifeless and from what I hear now run dry early ? How much of a loss to the watershed is that ?
Of course people that have ties to the area emotionally or economic don’t matter. It’s all about the numbers.
I hope the recent article from a Covelo news source re the Round Valley Reservation makes the FERC comments.
b
Before the dams deep pools sustained fish. Blasting roads, railways, putting up dams slowed the fow. Allowed silt to build up. No annual rains to keep channels clear. The silt layer in.Pillsbury is hundreds of feet deep behind Scott Dam. River flow is a cycle. When we block the cycle, stopped flows we get incredible poor results. Silt and the resulting negative impacts was not a hugely considered concern or concept 100 + years ago. Now we know yet, many can not see or choose not to accept the full complicated issue.
The Eel River downstream from Scott Dam was not a slow meandering stream . There were many deep holes and real whitewater stretches. Every year after Labor Day PGand E would really increase the flow.
I never will forget how high it was on a long hike in to the ranch to feed cattle January 1 1965. That river and it’s tributaries were roaring monsters. No neof us could believe it. The bridge at Van Arsdale was laying down in the
river.
.Many of the opponents of dam removal are local people with many years experience in the area.
What you describe is exactly what keeps the rivers healthy and the salmon populations thriving. Mother nature is boss. She will never fully yeild to man’s attempts to tame or manipulate her. She always has the upper hand. We need to respect that. Within means, not pushing beyond means with non sustainable actions like dams that we did not know would enhance silt builds. The science was not there yet. It is now.