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The Potter Valley Project Variance Dance: Drought and the Russian River...
By: Scott Greacen April 18, 2014 New Rules for Drying Times? Serial Variance Requests Reveal Vulnerability of Eel River Fisheries to Demands from Russian River Irrigators The Eel River’s surviving...
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Feds Clear PG&E to Cut Flows for Eel River Fish
By: Scott Greacen Originally published by Econews, February 2014 See detailed timeline of correspondence and media coverage. Utility cites risk of sediment collapse; drained reservoir may run dry. A...
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Shrinking Lake County Reservoir Prompts North Bay Supply Concerns
Water supplies for Sonoma, Mendocino and Marin counties this summer could hinge partly on the dwindling storage in a remote, drought-starved reservoir on the Eel River that serves as a cornerstone to...
View ArticleWater: Who Needs It?
At the Potter Valley Water Project, owned and operated by PG&E, water is not wasted. It is waste. That’s because the two dams, the manmade lake, the reservoir, the tunnel and the Archimedes Screw,...
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Federal Water Decision that Could Affect Russian River Flows Imminent
Lake Pillsbury (Kent Porter 12/2013) Federal approval of a drought-related request to reduce flows from Lake Pillsbury could come Friday or early next week, relieving concerns shared by PG&E, North...
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Feds OK plan to keep more water in Lake Pillsbury reservoir
The east fork of the Russian River flows from the Potter Valley hydroelectric generation plant in Potter Valley. (KENT PORTER/ PD FILE, 2014) Federal authorities have granted temporary flow reductions...
View ArticleEel River Flows Still Too Low in Peak Salmon Spawning Period + RVITs Comments...
This month’s rainfall and cooler temperatures have helped lessen the strain on salmon migrating on the Eel River, but not near enough to ease the concerns of local researchers. And they have their...
View ArticleHydroelectric Power Officials Bemoan Federal Regulations
WASHINGTON Federal burdens dampen California’s hydroelectric power potential, PG&E and Turlock Irrigation District officials told lawmakers Tuesday. They were preaching to the Capitol Hill choir....
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Letter to the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Energy Subcommittee
March 15, 2017 The Honorable Fred Upton Chairman Energy and Commerce Committee U.S. House of Representatives Washington, DC 20515 The Honorable Bobby Rush Ranking Member Energy and Commerce Committee...
View ArticleOroville Dam Documents Kept Secret by State, Federal Officials
Citing potential security risks, state and federal officials are blocking the public’s ability to review documents that could shed light on repair plans and safety issues at crippled Oroville Dam. One...
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109-year-old Potter Valley Project the Controversial Link Between Russian and...
About 80 feet behind the PG&E hydropower plant in Potter Valley, gray-green silt-laden water from the Eel River passes through a steel gate and is invisibly transformed. It has become part of the...
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Oroville Disaster May Have Been Caused by Weak Soil Under Spillway
Portions of Oroville Dam’s damaged spillway may have been built atop highly weathered rock, geologists say, a type vulnerable to erosion during the weeks of rain that led up to the disaster. A small...
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‘Broken Promises’ County Officials, Public Sound off on Current and...
A deluge of grievances regarding long-stalled relicensing, management and repairs at the Oroville Dam prompted by the recent crisis at the reservoir were aired at the Butte County Board of Supervisors...
View ArticlePG&E Files Notice of Intent to Relicense Eel River Dams
Pacific Gas and Electric, owners of the Eel River Dams known as the Potter Valley Project (PVP), filed their Notice of Intent and Pre-Application Documents with the Federal Energy Regulatory...
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The Eel River Could Save Wild Salmon – If We Can Save the River Itself
The Eel River is on the brink of disaster, its ocean-going fish species threatened with extinction, its nurturing estuary diked, drained and diminishing. At the same time, this massive watershed in...
View ArticleAction Alert: Submit Scoping Comments on Eel River Dams to FERC
We need your help. The dams on the Eel River, known as the Potter Valley Project, have just begun the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC) relicensing process. This is our opportunity to call...
View ArticleFOER and Allies Submit Comments to FERC on Scoping Document 1 & Study Plan...
Friends of the Eel River and our conservation group partners submitted comments to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on their Scoping Document 1 for the relicensing of Potter Valley Project. You...
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Eel River Dams (de)licensing Update
Every thirty to fifty years, hydropower projects get relicensed. Everyone knows that hydroelectric power is clean power, dams are good for rivers and fish, and even old dams never suffer any serious...
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