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TOM WHEELER:

Welcome to the EcoNews Report. I'm your host this week, Tom Wheeler, Executive Director of EPIC. And joining me is the best friend of the Eel River, Alicia Hamann. And for those who don't get the joke, Alicia is the Executive Director of Friends of the Eel River. We also have Craig Tucker, consultant to Friends of the Eel River and dam removal expert. Hey, Craig.

CRAIG TUCKER:

Hey Tom, thanks for having me.

WHEELER:

Things are heating up in the Eel River, and that's a bad thing. And we're going to talk about what's going on in the Eel River. There's a lot of things that have been in the news lately, Alicia and Craig are going to break down what's going on and how that's going to impact a healthy Eel River. Alicia, how about we start with the variances that PG&E is asking for? And let's start off by talking about what the heck is a variance? What are we talking about here?

ALICIA HAMANN:

Yeah, so PG&E has basically a schedule of flows that they keep that's based on the type of water year we're experiencing. So if it's really wet, there's a certain amount of water that they are allowed to divert in that out of basin diversion to the Russian River. And I guess, you know what, as always, we should just back up a little more and tell people what we're talking about and where it's located. In the headwaters of the Eel, there are two dams and a diversion tunnel that are collectively called the Potter Valley Project. They're owned by PG&E, and PG&E is currently in the process of preparing a decommissioning and license surrender plan for this entire project. It's 100-year-old infrastructure, and it's really bad for the fish. You know, if you need any more background than that, please visit eelriver.org.

WHEELER:

Right. Yeah. And, and we've had a number of other podcasts. We can link some in the show notes here. If you want to go back and listen to our podcast about the eel river and the Potter Valley project. All right. So variances.

HAMANN:

Yeah, so variances are basically PG&E requesting permission to deviate from these normally scheduled flows that they would allow to pass through the dam either into the Russian River or down the Eel River. And what's really telling is that in the last decade, PG&E has had to request variances nearly every single year. I believe eight of the last 10 years they've had to request a variance. And so this is just yet another example of how this project is largely failing. In this latest variance, one of the things that PG&E is to their credit really trying to do is to protect the cold water for salmon and steelhead who are migrating up the Eel River. And we saw them do this last year too. They actually were working to maintain a 30,000 acre foot pool of water in the Lake Pillsbury Reservoir. And they determined that this level of water would be sufficient to maintain, you know, the adequate temperatures downstream. And it worked last year. This year, there's even more of a pinch on the water because of the really startling news we learned last spring about the newly analyzed dam safety risks at the project. And so PG&E is managing the project in a little different way. They are not raising the gates on top of the dam. And so that basically means that the amount of water available in the reservoir is going to be less. And so there's even a smaller

WHEELER:

There's a smaller pool of water to potentially play with here, right? Exactly. Yeah. Maybe, maybe is this right? You think of it like a kiddie pool, a kiddie pool heats up very quickly because there's not a lot of water to get heated. A larger reservoir might heat up more slowly cause there's a larger pool of water behind it to get heated up.

HAMANN:

Right. And another important factor is if taking the kiddie pool analogy, if there's a little bit of water that's colder at the bottom, but you're stirring it around and mixing it, you're going to have the effect of just warming all of the water more, which is essentially what's happening right now. And so this latest variance request that PG&E submitted to FERC earlier this year, and FERC is the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. And so PG&E submitted this variance request to FERC and FERC then opened a 30-day comment window. And during that time period, the water got hotter and hotter and hotter. Wildlife agency folks suggested that temperatures below Scott Dam should be maintained to 18 degrees Celsius or less. And they suggested that at 16 degrees Celsius, there would need to be changes to the way that water, you know, the amount of water that was diverted out of the reservoir to really make sure that they didn't cross that 18 degree threshold. Well, as of this recording, we're at almost 19 degrees. And some important things for people to be aware of, 18 degrees is generally the temperature at which invasive species like pike minnows start being able to out-compete the steelhead. The steelhead get a little more sluggish. They're a little woozy in that temperature. Once you get to around 20, 21 degrees Celsius, you start seeing mortality in the juvenile steelhead. And so we're really pretty concerned right now about the way that the project is being managed and those high temperatures that we're seeing just downstream of the dam.

WHEELER:

So, is this variance attempting by PG&E to help the fish, or is this a variance that PG&E is attempting to help out of basin transfers? What is the underlying purpose behind the variance?

HAMANN:

PG&E, like I said, to their credit, they are trying to keep the water colder for the fish, but they need permission from this federal agency to reduce the diversions going into the Russian River. And so at this point, we are still waiting on FERC to approve the variants. The comment period ended about, well, when this program airs, it'll be a little over a week ago. The comment period ended on August 4th. Many of us wrote to FERC asking them to urgently approve this variance, and we even suggested to PG&E, why don't you go ahead and do what you want to do to help the fish before you get approval from the feds? I'm sure PG&E is reluctant to do that, but the reality is that we're sending a bunch of water down into the Russian River while the fish in the Eel River are just getting cooked.

WHEELER:

That's, that's so unfortunate. All right. Let's go to the, the competing press releases I've seen come out from Sonoma water from Cal trout and others about a proposal from Sonoma water to change. Well, what, what was Sonoma water before I attempt to, to, before I bungle this, tell, tell us what Sonoma water is proposing.

HAMANN:

Well, a little bit of background here I think is helpful and folks should know that it has been It's been about six years that a wide variety of stakeholders in both the eel and Russian River basins have been meeting and talking and you know trying to work together to find a Find a good future for the Potter Valley project that can meet both fisheries needs in the eel River Which is volitional fish passage past both dams and water supply needs in the Russian River We have been through so many different Processes and you've seen a lot of different groups form and fall apart And so this is this is kind of just the latest one but the really disappointing thing is that it came as a surprise to many many stakeholders and this proposal that came from Sonoma water the Mendocino County Inland Water and Power Commission or as I like to call them Mendocino alphabet soup and that's that's a group that has members that include the county of Mendocino the Potter Valley Irrigation District and a variety of other water users in that region and then the third entity that supported this proposal was the Round Valley Indian tribes and the the proposal is is a really vague outline of Their their desire to take over the project and Eventually come up with something It's it's a plan to make a plan and the way I see it We could have seen this plan four years ago with the level of detail that it has It's it's really just a plan to delay the process that PG&E is in the midst of which PG&E Again weirdly to their credit They want to take these dams out and they're planning on submitting a final Licensed surrender and decommissioning plan in January of 2025 and they've even suggested that they could start dam removal activities in 2028 so we see this proposal from those three entities as Really just a way to delay Now what what we see is PG&E's good efforts to get dam removal moving quickly. Craig, would you like to talk a little bit more about what's included in this proposal?

TUCKER:

Yeah, well, I would just say what PG&E is trying to do with the variance and then what PG&E has proposed to do with the disposition of the dams is really just PG&E trying to comply with the law, trying to comply with the terms of its license with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. You know, I think that's really all you can expect these power companies is to fulfill whatever its legal obligations are and try to avoid being sued by someone. And that's really what PG&E is trying to do here. PG&E, you know, originally tried to sell the project. No one wanted it. PG&E then tried to orphan the project, which is a way to give it away. No one wanted it. And so PG&E's last resort is to surrender the license and remove the project. And the reason for that is, as Leisha was describing, it's broken. The seismic risks are such that you cannot fill up the reservoir. When you do divert water from the eel over to the Russian, it goes through a power house on the east fork of the Russian, but the power house is broken. So it's not making any electricity. So it's just one of these projects that's a hundred years old and repairing it is not worth the cost. And that's why PG&E wants to get rid of it. What's happened since this diversion was established over a hundred years ago is folks on the Russian side have become addicted to the essentially free water. So they diverted water over to the Russian, generated some electricity, and then the tail water from the power project ended up in the Russian river. And people over there got accustomed to this essentially free bonus water in their watershed. And so now people really want to keep it. And they've had a lot of opportunities over the years. This moment was well advertised. We knew the project was going to come up free licensing. We knew that if anyone was going to try and maintain the diversion, they needed to put forth some sort of realistic plan for how to do it. And they didn't until the last minute. So I think what's frustrating for us is we're at this moment where PG&E is ready to remove the entire project. We're ready to restore the Eel River. We're ready to see the Eel River rewatered. And here at the last minute, parties have proposed a pretty ambiguous aim to maintain the out-of-basin diversion. And so we just want to make sure that if they maintain this diversion, it does not have any unmitigable impacts to Eel River fisheries. And it doesn't delay removing the dams and restoring the fishery. Because let's face it, these fish are in really dire straits. So these fish are slowly going extinct. And so removing the dam and restoring the river is something that needs to happen immediately. And we can't afford a delay.

WHEELER:

If I'm not mistaken, some of these actors were previously hostile to the idea of dam removal, a two basin solution. And as, as things have progressed and as it's become inevitable that that dam removal is going to occur, they're starting to change their tune and starting to endorse the ideas of a two basin solution, but their idea of a two basin solution is different than perhaps what could be supported by friends that eel the eco news report. I'm talking with Alicia Hayman and Craig Tucker about news on the eel river. Alicia, I know that there is a way, or there's been discussions at friends of the eel about how water from the eel river could continue to be diverted to the Russian river in the event of dam removal. What, what is friends that yields kind of vision of what might be possible to appease these out of basin water users?

HAMANN:

Well, here's where we're at at this point. We spent several years participating in Congressman Huffman's ad hoc committee. And really, in order to be a good partner in that committee, everyone had to agree to the tenets of the Two Basin Solution, which were, as I said before, to secure fish passage and make sure that the project was no longer causing harm to Eel River native fish, while also avoiding adverse impacts to water supply. There were a lot of useful studies and good conversations that came out of that process. But ultimately, it feels to us like the moment to really secure a Two Basin Solution has kind of been lost. It turns out that many of the water users who are part of that process were kind of negotiating in bad faith. Like you said, they were participating in that process while continuing to try to stop dam removal. And at this point, where we stand is that we won't fight an ecologically appropriate continued diversion. And by that, I mean a diversion that, by necessity, would happen during the wet season. It needs to have infrastructure that's not going to impede fish migration or destroy their habitat any further. It's not going to degrade water quality. There's a lot of qualifications that would make for an ecologically appropriate diversion. But if the water users can come up with a plan to implement such a diversion and finance it, we're not going to fight that. But we're also not going to spend any more of our time trying to help them come up with this solution. Because as Craig said, they've had a really long time to do the studies and, really importantly, to talk with all their constituents about how to make this happen. And those conversations have largely just started. I mean, shoot, we've known since the last license was issued 50 years ago that this license would expire in 50 years. I mean, that was well before I was even born. But the point is that many people have known for a very long time that this was coming. And so this sudden need to act with urgency and put forth these half-baked proposals, it's just a tactic in my mind to put forth proposals that have a lot of vague conditions in them and a lot of things that we might get strapped into accepting in the future if we support such a proposal.

WHEELER:

So what's next, what's next for their proposal and who is it even to, is it to PG&E?

TUCKER:

Yeah, so they proposed this to PG&E. We don't know how PG&E is responding to this yet. PG&E is committed to filing a dam removal plan in November. So we'll see if this gets incorporated into that. But surrendering a power license and removing the dams is kind of a lengthy drawn-out process. Those folks who have followed the Klamath know we have to go through the California Environmental Quality Act, which means EIR. We'll have to go through the National Environmental Policy Act, which means EIS. So we have a few years of environmental compliance. But what we don't want to do is slow that process down by some half-baked scheme to maintain the diversion, complicating things and delaying the pace of that regulatory process. So I think we're all ears if someone has a good idea for how water can be moved. But it's not acceptable to come in at the last minute and slow down what will be one of the biggest river restoration projects in California.

HAMANN:

So one example of where I see an interesting parallel with the clan myth is, is this idea of who holds the license for projects like this. And, you know, one, one thing that is included in this proposal is the idea that, that this new regional entity would, would try to get the project license under a non, non power license. And so this is still a federal license under FERC and the implications are, are a bit unclear because non-power licenses are really rare. But one thing that it might allow for is for PG&E to remain on as a co-licensee. Now I can't speak for PG&E, but just based on the way that they have moved somewhat rapidly to prepare their license surrender process. And, you know, the news we've learned about dam safety, the, the risk that they faced for ESA violation, Endangered Species Act violations, it's pretty clear that PG&E is probably not thrilled about the idea of remaining on as a co-licensee, but that is something that we saw up in the clan myth. Craig, do you want to talk a little bit about how that played out up there?

TUCKER:

Yeah, well, on the Klamath, what we originally agreed to was the dam owner there is Pacificor, and Pacificor essentially said, look, we've had enough of you guys. We'll give you the dams and about 8,000 acres of land and $200 million and just take it and do what you want with it and we don't want to hear from you again. We're like, fine, cool. However, FERC didn't really like that because FERC actually moved to hold Pacificor accountable to a degree. And FERC said, look, you can't just create this new entity to remove the dams without having an experienced license holder power company involved. And for a minute, things got shaky on the Klamath, but in the end, Pacificor agreed to be on the license through dam removal. And it means if something unforeseen happens or some natural disaster or whatever, Pacificor will be involved to help solve that problem. And so I think it's set a bit of a precedent. So I think what is being asked of PG&E on the Eel River may be a similar arrangement, but I really don't think PG&E wants to be involved with this. PG&E is really, if this is a company that's gone bankrupt twice in the last 20 years, it's had a lot of liability issues with fire, things like that. So I think what PG&E is trying to do is get rid of toxic assets. And this dam, the Potter Valley project, is a toxic asset. It doesn't make money. It has seismic risks. It's a power project in a remote location that has to transmit power through miles and miles of forest. PG&E doesn't want it. And so we just don't, we will not stand by and allow Sonoma Water to convolute what should be a pretty straight path between here, removing the project, and restoring this river.

WHEELER:

All right. Well, unfortunately, we have so much to talk about with the Eel River, but we are out of time. Alicia and Craig, thank you so much for joining the show.

HAMANN:

I just want to remind people a little bit of what's at stake here. You know, we we are trying to protect these really rare, really unique native wild fish in the Eel River. And and and on the other side, they're trying to grow grapes and protect hatchery planted trout. And there's just there's some things that you can replace and some things you can't. So I just want to really drive home to people that this is something really, really special and rare. And we don't want to lose that.

WHEELER:

Absolutely. All right. Well, thank you so much. And join us again next week on this time and channel for more environmental news from the North Coast of California.