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ALICIA HAMANN:

Welcome to another edition of the Econews Report. My name is Alicia Hamann. I'm the Executive Director for Friends of the Eel River, and I'm here today to talk to you about Eel River dam removal. Boy, has a lot happened in the last week or two. I've got some wonderful guests with me here today, starting with Hank Seemann, Deputy Director of Public Works for Humboldt County. Darren Mierau, North Coast Director for Caltrout. Charlie Schneider, Senior Project Manager for Caltrout. And Scott Greacen, Conservation Director for Friends of the Eel River.

SCOTT GREACEN:

Can I be Senior Conservation Director?

HAMANN:

Yeah, totally, yeah. So I'm gonna start by just making sure that all our listeners are up to speed on a little bit of background about this project. I hope that you all know that there are two dams in the headwaters of the Eel River. They're a hundred years old. They're failing in just about every way that dams can. The two dams are called Cape Horn and Scott, and they also include a diversion that sends water via a mile-long tunnel through a mountain from the Eel into the Russian River. Collectively, these works are called the Potter Valley Project. PG&E owns this project and is eager to rid themselves of what has become an expensive liability. The project no longer generates electricity, it presents serious dam safety risks, and we would argue that it violates the Endangered Species Act by causing harm to listed species.

The project is licensed by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, that's FERC. The long-term license expired in 2022. That's when PG&E began the work of preparing to decommission and remove the project. Just last week, PG&E published their final draft license surrender application. It's a 2,100-page document that we are all scrambling to read and provide feedback on by March 3rd. If you want to provide your own feedback, you can look to our website, eelriver.org, for tips on how to do that. PG&E will take this feedback and incorporate it into their final plan, which is due in July this year.

On another separate but parallel tract is the plan to continue diversions from the eel to the Russian River, but make them ecologically appropriate. Several stakeholders have been negotiating for the last year or two, and have just this week made public details of a deal that would see a diversion continued, which would provide some water to the Russian without causing harm to the eel. Thanks to the efforts of our guests today, the deal actually goes above and beyond the cause-no-harm threshold and generates sustainable investment in Eel River restoration.

I'm going to turn first to you, Hank. Do you want to outline for us Humboldt County's role in drafting this deal and where the county stands on this project?

HANK SEEMANN:

Sure. Thanks, Alicia. Maybe I'll just start with a touch of history. These two dams on the Upper Eel River were built in the early 20th century. They were built to divert water to generate electricity, and it created this severe imbalance between the two watersheds. For decades, water was diverted first and foremost to generate hydropower without consideration for the Eel River, its fisheries, and the downstream communities. The Eel River flows through Humboldt County for 81 miles. Humboldt County is a big stakeholder. For years and years, we were really disenfranchised from influence or decision-making on how that project was operated. Things got a little better in the 1970s and 1980s, and then progressively have gotten less bad, a bit better, but those dams still block passage to important fish habitat and there's just uncertainty on its future.

When PG&E was thinking about what the future of the dams are, Congressman Huffman really came forward with a framework for thinking about both basins and setting a foundation for principles of fairness between the basins. That was back in 2017, 2018. After PG&E decided not to relicense and to go forward with removing the dams, the question came up, could an agreement be developed for a regional solution that would allow limited diversions that would be consistent with Eel River values and interests?

So two years ago, the director of California Department of Fish and Wildlife and the president of Round Valley Indian Tribes invited Humboldt County, California Trout, Trout Unlimited to join water users from Sonoma and Mendocino in trying to develop the terms of an agreement that would allow continued diversions, but in a controlled way. At that time, the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors issued a statement going into these negotiations, and our strong preference would be for Eel River water to stay in the Eel River watershed, but if water will continue to be diverted, we would insist on two conditions. First, the diversions would have to be very limited to the wet season. They'd need to be compatible with recovery of fisheries. And then second, the Russian River water users would need to pay a premium for that Eel River water that would then be dedicated for supporting restoration in the Eel River watershed.

So that was our position a year and a half ago going into these negotiations. Last week, we collectively released a document. It's called the Memorandum of Understanding, and it presents the key terms of that agreement.

HAMANN:

You mentioned the Round Valley Indian tribes -- they have played a really central role also in helping to draft this agreement. I do just want to share that I invited representatives from both Round Valley and the Wiyot Tribe to join us. But because this is all moving so fast, and we threw this episode together at the last minute, they are very busy people. And we hope to have them on at a future time to really focus more on the incredibly important role that the tribes have served in securing this agreement and like the wonderful step toward restorative justice. That is also a big component of this of this deal.

Maybe someone wants to talk actually a little bit about that. How's this all gonna work? Who's gonna own the water right? Hank, you talked about compensation for the water. How's that all gonna get moved around?

SEEMANN:

I can talk about some of the key elements, and then Darren and Charlie can talk about others, and also Scott. Going into this, we wanted to ensure that there were sufficient protections for the Eel River and also benefits for supporting continued diversions. And one of the key protections is that PG&E's state water rights would be transferred to the Round Valley Indian tribes. The Round Valley Indian tribes would own those water rights and then they would lease them back to the entity that operates the diversion facility. And so that would restore really control of those water rights back to the Eel River watershed and also put them in the hands of a tribal nation.

The Round Valley Indian tribes, they're a confederation of multiple historical tribes that were forced to live in the area around Covelo. Their reservation was formed long ago, going back to 1858. Their reservation boundaries run along portions of the Eel River. Through the treaty that they signed with the federal government, they have reserved water and fishing rights. Those are federally reserved water and fishing rights. And so restoring ownership of the state water rights is a big step towards restorative justice for disenfranchising the Round Valley Indian tribes from the water in the Eel.

HAMANN:

I love the way that this really centers the tribes in a position of power. I trust them to do the right thing by the river. And I think that we're, this is really the right move, both in a strategic way and, and just in a, in a moral way as well, before we get into talking about more details about money and finances and stuff, Darren, I was wondering if you could tell us a little bit about the flow schedule, how that was decided. I know listeners, it really is helpful to be able to see some visual aids. And obviously we're on the radio, so you don't have that benefit, but Darren, can you outline for us this percent of natural flows and why it's considered to be safe for the eel river?

DARREN MIERAU:

Absolutely, happy to do that. I think it's important to start with the idea that from the get-go we took the opportunity to assess how much water the Eel River needs, first and foremost, to protect the Eel River ecosystem, and not starting with the standpoint of how much water do we need to divert to the Russian River. So we enter this process with the goal in mind of protecting the Eel River ecosystem. We've heard a lot about the Round Valley Indian Tribes' role in this, and they were prominent in this process as well through their consultants at Applied River Sciences. They got a grant and developed a model that could help us develop what we call diversion criteria.

So how will we, throughout a daily, weekly, monthly basis, assess how much water is available for diversion to the Russian River while protecting the Eel River ecosystem? So it's based on, first and foremost, establishing what we call a floor, or you might think of it as a base flow, the water that's needed in the Eel River to protect the ecosystem when the flows in the Eel are low. So we establish this floor below which no water is allowed to be diverted. And so only diversions occur when the flows in the Eel are above that floor. And then when the Eel River flows are above that floor, we're only taking a small percentage of that flow on a daily basis. When I say low percentage, it's like 20% on those shoulder seasons, the fall and the spring, and we allow 30% diversion during the bulk winter months when there's abundant water in the Eel River.

And so those criteria established in this model will control how much water gets diverted from the Eel into the Russian River. And as we play this out over scenarios of different water year types, it translates into much less water than was diverted historically. Before, like Hank mentioned, the 70s and 80s when the listings came about and the relicense occurred, those steps in the Potter Valley Project curtailed the historical diversion volumes. And more recently as the powerhouse has gone offline and some of the other issues that have come up with the Potter Valley Project, the water diversion volumes have been further reduced. These flow criteria will really cap those annual volumes at a very low rate.

So it's very conservative, protective of the Eel River. I think it'll work really well.

HAMANN:

Just to give people a sense of some general numbers to work with, it's my understanding that historic diversions were averaged around 150,000 acre feet, probably in the 90s, 2000s. For I'd say the last 25 or 30 years, it was probably in like the 60,000 acre foot range. And then in the last couple of years, because of mitigations for dam safety and trying to protect the temperature of the water released from Scott Dam, diversions were more in like the 40,000 acre foot range. Does that sound right to all of you?

MIERAU:

Yeah, that's exactly right, Alicia. And what is being proposed will fall within that lower range, around 35,000 to 40,000 acre-feet per year. And one thing I also didn't mention that's really fundamental is that we're shifting the season of diversion. So right now, the winter and spring flows are captured in Lake Pillsbury, and then they're released in the summertime and diverted into the Russian River. In the future, the dams won't be there, so those run-of-the-river diversions will occur just in the wintertime, but we'll have a full river channel without obstructions to allow fish passage up into the habitat above what's Lake Pillsbury right now. So that's a really big fundamental change. The diversion will continue, but the diversion infrastructure is wholly different.

HAMANN:

So envisioning a time when the dams are gone and fish can get up into that really excellent habitat up there. One thing that I think is really exciting is some of the analysis of that upper basin habitat that shows that it's really gonna act as a climate refugia. Even in particularly hot summers, cold water remains up there. Scott, can you talk with us a little bit about why that's so important? And I know you love talking about summer steelhead. So I'd love to hear about those.

GREACEN:

That study is led by a National Marine Fisheries Service scientist named Alyssa Fitzgerald, and I want to emphasize the importance of federal science and NIMS as an agency in protecting these incredibly important species. And what that study showed is that the habitat above Scott Dam, where Lake Pillsbury Reservoir is now, offers the equivalent of another Van Duzen River, one of the five major drainages of the Eel River, above Scott Dam and up in the cold water zone of the Upper Eel. Notably, this is also a place where pike minnow, a predatory introduced species that's been a major problem for salmon and steelhead reproduction in the Eel, are going to have a harder time operating, both because of the gradient and because of the temperatures. That right there is a huge reason to be really optimistic about how Scott and Cape Horn Dam removal are going to play out in terms of helping advance salmon and steelhead recovery.

But there's a truly phenomenal story here, which is that when Scott Dam was built and closed in 1922, it closed off the southernmost run of summer steelhead on the planet. These are the largest, fastest, highest-leaping steelhead around. And there's reason to believe that the Eel River's run, because it was so long, was the largest and fastest of all.

What's fascinating is that summer steelhead are a lot like spring chinook. They're adults that migrate back to freshwater in spring before they're ready to reproduce. Most of the salmon and steelhead we're familiar with today come in in the fall and then rush upriver to reproduce as fast, to spawn as fast as they can. But summer steelhead and spring-run chinook come in to freshwater and go up the watershed as far as they can. They hold in the deep, cold pools of the rivers so that when the rains come in the fall, they can then go to the very top of the watershed, up above barriers that would otherwise prevent access from winter-run steelhead or fall-run chinook.

HAMANN:

You're listening to the EcoNews Report, where we're discussing the latest developments in Eel River dam removal.

GREACEN:

Researchers have recently just discovered the genetic basis for this life history. It's important because it helps us understand first that these are very adaptive mutations. They've worked out really well. These life histories have been incredibly successful until our culture came along, basically, but also that they've been really rare. They're unusual, and so they're at risk of being wiped out if we do wipe them out. Further, they let us see in the relatives, the rainbow trout relatives of summer and winter steelhead, the evidence of these summer steelhead life histories.

So here's the punch to this long windup. Above Scott Dam, researchers have found in rainbow trout, the genetic memory of that summer steelhead life history, as well as the genes for anadromy, that what allows those rainbow trout to go to the ocean when environmental cues tell them to go. And what's really complicated and neat here is that while the winter and summer run steelhead are kind of cousins, they can each be brothers and sisters with rainbow trout. So the genes that pass between these steelhead seem to flow through their cousins, their relatives in the freshwater.

MIERAU:

I'd love that the lawyer in our group has become an expert on the genetics and life history of the salmonids in this watershed. It's really great. That was so awesome, Scott. Thank you.

GREACEN:

I did write a listing petition for the fish that was successful, so they're listed as a danger in California.

MIERAU:

And I love to think of spring run Chinook salmon and summer steelhead as our snowmelt runs because they depend on cold upper basin snowmelt and a long duration of that snowmelt to get up into the upper basin. It really fits well with our ecosystems here.

GREACEN:

When the dam comes out, those fish can come back without us having to reinvent them. They're there, they just need to come back.

HAMANN:

And just to put like a bit of emphasis on why this biological diversity is so important, for those of you listeners who aren't ecologists, biologists, geneticists, having a diverse strategy to survival helps species survive through things like climate change and all kinds of things that humans do on the landscape. And so having these fish that come into the watershed at a different time and can reach portions of the watershed that other fish can't, means that they're delivering nutrients to the forests in places where other salmonids aren't reaching. And they're really a key part of the long-term survival strategy for really the entire species. It's not just about like, oh, these cool special fish. It's really making sure that we hold on to an important survival strategy.

GREACEN:

Precisely. These were the southernmost summer steelhead on the planet, and it's precisely there that you expect to find the adaptations to longer, drier times, higher temperatures that are going to be important to steelhead under climate change. Yeah.

MIERAU:

That was the key finding that that Fitzgerald paper from NIMS highlighted about the Upper Eel Basin, which is that it increases their resilience by having this life history diversity of salmonids in the watershed itself. And that's just fundamental for our recovery efforts.

CHARLIE SCHNEIDER:

If I can jump in here, this is Charlie from Caltrout, and talk a little bit about why tie this MOU and this discussion back to dam removal. A real benefit we see in this agreement is to accelerate dam removal. As someone that works on various dam removal projects across the state, I often jokingly say that it's my job to remove barriers to remove barriers. And that's the truth here, right? We look for shared solutions that ultimately remove opposition or complexity to dam removal efforts.

If we take a more utilitarian point of view on these incredible fish that we all love and are pretty nerdy about, when we talk about our commercial fishing folks on the coast or recreational anglers, members of our organization, we really want that population level resilience because that's what builds strong runs of fish. That's what gets us to fisheries recovery that looks like a harvestable surplus. We often joke that fly fishermen do a lot of catch and release fishing, which is great. But I always think about our goal as being having enough fish for people to eat fish, right? And certainly that's of fundamental importance to the tribal nations that we're working with on this project.

So I think this MOU is helpful and I think it's important to remember that this is just one piece of this bigger puzzle that we have to put together to get to dam removal and The federal agency that regulates dams and dam removal really does like to see collaborative efforts come forward and help solve these problems for them so that by the time PG&E submits their paperwork to remove these dams, it's easier for that agency to say, hey, you've worked to solve many of the problems associated with dam removal, be it restoration or communities that have grown to depend on the water supply from this project.

HAMANN:

That's right. This, this deal had some of those difficult conversations outside of the FERC process. And so we can come to FERC with, with a united front, so to speak. And I think that's one of the benefits of this deal. And the other really is getting most of the critical stakeholders to agree to a timely dam removal. Charlie, do you want to speak to why time is of the essence and some of the struggles that fish are still facing in the watershed right now?

SCHNEIDER:

Rebuilding that population resilience is super critical as we think about fisheries recovery here in California. I think all of us on this call really see a big opportunity in the eel because it doesn't have many of the really difficult issues to solve that other rivers do. It's a great big basin and its runs are very significantly reduced from historic populations, but it's also a place that I think some of the genetic bottlenecks that are happening in other rivers where we're down to tens or dozens of fish aren't there. So it really is an opportunity here to reconnect this habitat and recreate some of that life history diversity that we really need for a strong population.

That said, runs here are less than 5% of historic abundance and so there's a lot of work to do, but getting the dams out of the way is a big component of that and I often tell people the scale of this dam removal, the amount of habitat we're reconnecting is the watershed above the dams is roughly the size of the Gualala River or Redwood Creek, for those more familiar with rivers up north. It's like a medium-sized coastal watershed we're putting back on the map for anadromous fish and that's a really big deal and the sooner we can do that, the better.

HAMANN:

For sure, yeah. I want to go back to one detail of the MOU that was the subject of a good deal of discussion at the Humboldt County Supervisors meeting that we haven't touched on yet, which is the compensation that's a part of this deal. Hank, do you want to speak to that, the restoration fund, as well as the payments to Round Valley for leasing their water rights?

SEEMANN:

Yes. So just speaking from Humboldt County's position, going into these negotiations, one of our key platforms was that Russian River water users should pay a premium for diverted Eel River water that would be dedicated to restoration. And so through the course of the negotiations, we have a proposal now on the table where the entity that operates the diversion facility, they would make two separate payments. So one payment would go to Round Valley Indian tribes for leasing their water rights. So that $1 million would be for the tribe's discretionary use. And then there'd be a second payment of a minimum of $750,000 that would go to Round Valley Indian tribes who would then transfer it to an Eel River restoration fund. And those funds would go initially to Round Valley Indian tribes because the tribes would agree to not assert their federally reserved water and fishing rights.

So that's the agreement that is proposed here. And then the tribes have agreed to direct those funds into a fund that is managed by multiple parties. And so the parties to the agreement and potentially other parties doing work on the Eel River would decide how to administer and direct and allocate those funds.

HAMANN:

And maybe Darren or Charlie, you guys are kind of our restoration experts here. Maybe you can talk with us about why that 750,000 at a minimum is really potentially more than that. How can that be multiplied?

MIERAU:

Yeah, I can address that a little bit, and I think we've been thinking for many, many years, even back to the Eel River Reform days, about how we have a central entity within the Eel River Basin that is entirely focused on Eel River restoration.

The Eel River Reform, for example, brought all the different stakeholders together to focus on the various ways that we can recover Salmona populations and ecosystem resilience in the Eel River. And I think going forward into the future, if we have a fund that provides consistent funding on an annual basis to enable us to develop a program that has staff that does that, that will be a tremendous asset to the Eel River recovery efforts. And so with this funding that may come from the water transfer, we can establish a program that can lead restoration, conservation, science management, and so forth in the Eel River, and use those funds to leverage other funds from outside to invest in the Eel River.

So we think that for every dollar that we have in this unrestricted pot, we can raise five to ten dollars of restoration funding. So we can really multiply and amplify that investment that comes to the Eel River just by having that annual consistent funding to support our efforts.

GREACEN:

So Darren, what reason do you have to believe that there are significant restoration opportunities before us in the Eel River?

MIERAU:

Yeah, we've been out front on that quite a bit. So in parallel with discussions about PG&E's license surrender and the planning that's going on there, we've tried to take a broader perspective on Eel River basin-wide restoration and conservation. So we've had funding from the Department of Fish and Wildlife supporting this planning effort. We've completed phase one of our planning and are now going into phase two, where we can start to prioritize the restoration and conservation actions, continue to implement our pike minnow program, which we think is fundamentally important for salmonid recovery, and start to develop some of those planning documents for basin-wide management in the Eel River. And those things will be available for this forthcoming program to incorporate into their mission and take over for us into the future.

HAMANN:

So we've talked a lot about this MOU and the deal for future diversions and the long-term investments that we're going to generate for Eel River restoration. But of course, the biggest restoration project before us is actually getting these dams out. And I just want to talk real briefly about the proposal that PG&E has for what they call rapid removal. Who wants to jump in here and just talk a little bit about what that looks like and what we maybe need to further investigate to really understand what that's going to look like.

SCHNEIDER:

Charlie again. I mean, you mentioned at the top, it's been a busy week. And so along with this MOU that we've been working on, PG&E also released their draft license surrender application that lays out their high-level plans for surrendering their license for this project, which is the technical term, but we often shorthand that for decommissioning.

So how they plan to take out the dams in the case here. And so for Scott Dam ... remember, there's two dams. Cape Horn Dam is quite a bit smaller. So we're much less concerned about the sediment release there, but Scott Dam is, it's large and its sediment release will be significant. And PG&E has based their plans around previous work done by consultants hired by the then Two Basin Partnership. So many of the same groups involved at the MOU that looked at different dam removal alternatives for Scott Dam. Those studies sort of settled on this rapid removal approach as the preferred approach. And so how this works is in the first year, they basically drain the reservoir using the existing low-level outlet on Scott Dam. And then they drill what's called an adit tunnel at the very bottom of the dam, the very bottom of the reservoir. This tunnel goes most of the way through the dam, but all the way through, and then they use explosives in that tunnel and they wait for a large rainstorm to come. And then they blow those explosives and pop the tunnel, which allows a good portion of the sediment to evacuate with the help of nature.

So using the rainfall and the high river flows to move as much of that sediment as possible. This was used on Klamath dams, on a couple of the Klamath dams. And there's various approaches that may come into play here, including using fire hoses or water jets to try to mobilize some of that sediment. PG&E has not done additional engineering work other than what was done as part of the Two Basin Partnership studies, but that will come and will further inform manage that sediment along with dam removal. So once the sediment's released and winter flows stop going into the next dry season, then they'll get the jackhammers and bulldozers out there and physically remove the structure itself.

HAMANN:

So big, big picture is it's going to be done relatively quickly. We're going to see a lot of sediment in the river, but the Eel is resilient. If we know anything about the Eel too, I'd say that it's a sediment mover. I think it knows how to really handle large volumes of sediment. But of course there's further analysis needed to see what that's really going to look like.

SCHNEIDER:

We absolutely should expect some negative effects to the river during dam removal, right? We expect those impacts to be short-term, right, and we expect a pretty significant long-term gain, but over the next couple of years we'll really be thinking a lot about how we manage for that sediment release.

HAMANN:

Definitely. Well, if all of you want to learn more about what's going on in the eel and hear more from groups like California Trout, Friends of the Eel River, and all kinds of other players, Darren, where can they do that later this spring?

MIERAU:

I'm glad you asked, Alicia. We, along with Humboldt County and the Rotary Club, will be hosting what's called the Eel River Expo at the Fortuna River Lodge on April 19th. This is going to be a really great event and I'm really happy that the Rotary Club reached out to us to help and collaborate with them on this event. We're inviting all the different stakeholders to come, a table, we'll have presentations. It'll just be a really festive atmosphere for people to learn about the Eel River and really learn how they can get plugged in and contribute to this effort. So, again, that's on April 19th at the Fortuna River Lodge and we look forward to seeing many of our friends and families come to that event.

HAMANN:

Great, well, thank you all so much for being here and really thank you for the years of work that you've put in to make sure that the future of the Eel River is going to be a healthy and abundant one. Hank, what do you wanna close us out with?

SEEMANN:

I just wanted to say, so on Tuesday, February 11th, at the Board of Supervisors, there was pretty vibrant discussion about the MOU. And this is setting the course for the next several months of negotiations. And then we aim to have a full agreement in July. And so we encourage the public to look at the MOU and it was really important for our board that it be discussed in open session. And we haven't touched on all the elements of the agreement because there's a lot, but we really welcome that public review.

And then just a final note that, you know, there's this history of conflict between the Russian River and the Eel River. We're aware of that history and it's painful. They're also our neighbors to the South and we have a lot in common with them. Just recognizing our national climate of polarization, it's very disturbing. I think this process leading to this agreement shows that we can work with our neighbors, spend time understanding each other and working hard to find a win-win situation. So I'm hopeful that this demonstrates that we can still be civil, constructive and stay true to our core values, but also find something that creates a more positive future.

HAMANN:

Thank you all for joining us, and listeners, we will catch you next time on this same time and channel for more environmental news from the North Coast.