PREVIOUSLY:

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Statement from PG&E:

PG&E met with the Elsinore Valley Municipal Water District early this year.  While PG&E has not received a proposal from Elsinore Valley Municipal Water District, we would review any proposal we received.  The window to take over the project and continue to operate it as a hydroelectric project closed years ago, after which FERC directed PG&E to develop a license surrender application and decommissioning plan.  PG&E no longer has the ability to transfer the operating license at this late stage of the regulatory process.  However, qualified parties can seek to take over certain features of the project such as those for water conveyance. 

PG&E continues to work with Sonoma County Water Agency, Inland Water & Power Commission of Mendocino County, Round Valley Tribes, Humboldt County, Cal Trout, Trout Unlimited and California Department of Fish & Wildlife on the proposal received from them.  PG&E included in our Surrender Application and Decommissioning Plan a request for FERC to authorize PG&E to permit the “Non-Project Use of Project Lands” which will allow the Eel-Russian Project Authority to construct the New Eel-Russian Facility (NERF), while utilizing some of the existing Potter Valley Project facilities.  The NERF will provide diversion flows from the Eel River to the Russian River watershed after PG&E’s removal of Cape Horn Dam and Scott Dam.   We have had some previous communication with the Secretary’s staff.

Statement from Friends of the Eel:

US Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins issued a message today alleging that a water district near LA is interested in purchasing the Eel River dams and the rest of the Potter Valley Project from Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E).

“Why anyone would be interested in paying money for a failed, money-losing, and risky project is beyond me, let alone a water district nearly 600 miles away from the dams,” said Alicia Hamann, Executive Director of Friends of the Eel River (FOER). “The project simply isn’t worth investing in. The existing dams are failing, face very serious seismic threats, and cannot be relicensed as a hydroelectric project under the current Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) license.”

Even if a purchaser were to try to keep Scott and Cape Horn dams running just as an irrigation project, they’d still have to pass muster with the State of California’s Division of Safety of Dams, the agency that has told PG&E they have to operate Scott Dam at reduced capacity to mitigate seismic risks. Those seismic risks are only going to come into sharper focus as FERC-mandated studies continue.

Scott Dam was plagued by construction difficulties a century ago. Its Lake Pillsbury Reservoir is filling with sediment that will inevitably block the only remaining low-level outlet. When that fails, the dam won’t be able to release water during the summer, cutting off current irrigation uses entirely. The project also hasn’t generated electricity since 2021 due to a failed transformer that would cost many millions of dollars to replace. Neither water diversions or electricity from the project are “reliable” as Secretary Rollins claims.

And then there are the impacts on Eel River salmon and steelhead protected by the Endangered Species Act. Scott Dam blocks all fish passage to the rest of the watershed for steelhead and Chinook salmon that still occupy the upper mainstem Eel River. Steelhead are especially impacted by the dams because they must spend at least a year in freshwater before migrating to the ocean.

Key stakeholders have agreed to a deal which supports both dam removal and future diversions in the wet season. Regional interests are best served by supporting this deal, removing the dams and installing a modern diversion system as soon as possible. Not by selling out the safety of downstream residents and ecosystem recovery to carpet baggers who likely have no clue about the liability in which they are “interested.”

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