Q&A: Top Myths on the Potter Valley Dams
Activists want the dams out because they say it will benefit the environment. Here's the reality.
MYTH: Scott Dam steals most of the water out of the Eel River.
This is false. The Potter Valley Project diverts less than 1% of the Eel River.
Scott Dam accounts for a fractional percentage of the drainage of one of five primary branches that form the Eel River System: the Main Fork, the South Fork, the Middle Fork, the North Fork, and the Van Duzen.
Scott Dam only stores water during the rainy winter season. This water forms Lake Pillsbury. Without Scott Dam, that water would simply flush out into the Pacific Ocean.
Over the dry summer months, water is released both to restore the Russian River—providing water to 600,000 citizens from Potter Valley to Novato—and some is even released to replenish Eel River summer flows.
MYTH: Humboldt County will have more water when the Potter Valley dams are gone.
This is false. Humboldt County will have LESS water if the Potter Valley dams are removed.
Without these dams, the water provided by winter rains would flush out into the ocean. The first dam, Scott Dam, holds some of the winter rain back, forming Lake Pillsbury.
This water is then released during the dry months to both maintain summer flows in the Russian River as well as allow a small percentage to be diverted at the second small dam, Van Arsdale, into the Eel to augment its flows during the dry months as well.
Before entering the Russian, this water powers a hydroelectric plant—some of the clean and renewable electricity the state so desperately needs.
That water allows irrigation in Potter Valley, providing the ground water for the wells of all its residents. The Russian continues on to feed Lake Mendocino, which without the diversion is expected to go dry 6 out of every 10 years.
Lake Mendocino is a principal water source for both Mendocino and Sonoma counties, supplementing the Russian River throughout the entire Russian River Valley all the way to Bodega Bay—in fact, providing water all the way down to Marin County.
Without the Potter Valley dams, Humboldt County will only have more water during the winter, which will flush out straight to the Pacific Ocean. They will have less water during the summer as Lake Pillsbury will no longer replenish its flow.
MYTH: Removing the dams will restore salmon runs.
The dams are not the cause of salmon population loss, and removing them will harm salmon as accumulated sediments in Lake Pillsbury are flushed downstream, silting spawning beds.
Read more about the real causes of salmon depletion.
If conservationists and environmentalists are serious about restoring the salmon, there are actual steps that could be taken. The first is addressing pikeminnow—a predatory, invasive fish species introduced by the government into the Eel during the 1980s. The pikeminnow decimates salmon fry populations. Salmon restoration efforts are useless unless the pikeminnow is addressed. There have been zero discussion about doing this.
Furthermore, there is a tremendous amount of spawning ground improvement that could be made by addressing all the drainage access lost by the construction of the now abandoned Northwestern Pacific Railroad line that travels along the Main Fork of the Eel River more than 100 miles from Eureka to Willits. This lost habitat dwarfs by many magnitudes any spawning ground lost upstream of Lake Pillsbury and would be much cheaper and easier to reopen to spawning salmon with virtually no impact on the public.
Again, politicians and activists are not taking steps that would meaningfully restore salmon populations in the North Coast watershed. They are only pushing destructive actions that will kill water supplies for rural citizens.
Our California ancestors built incredible infrastructure projects to make the Golden state the greatest agriculture and manufacturing state in the nation. Unfortunately they were succeeded by a generation that does nothing but tear down and destroy.
MYTH: The dam is a seismic risk.
In 2023, Scott Dam’s seismic safety risk was changed from Satisfactory to Fair. If issues with the dam were serious, its rating would have been dropped to Poor or Unsatisfactory.
Friends of the Eel, an extremist environmentalist group, took it upon themselves to commission a study on land stability around the dam back in 2018. They are pushing this narrative.
A seismic analysis revealed that “the dam may become structurally unstable for seismic loads estimated at a return period of 850 years when the reservoir is at Elevation 1,910.00.”
In reality many of the dams in the state of California are around 100 years old and could use infrastructure improvement or augmentation. Voters have made their wishes clear to the state government: Californians want more water storage. Instead, the administration in Sacramento is willing to spend their money to destroy what little water storage we have.
While the exact report is unavailable to the public for “national security” reasons, according to the California dam safety website, a Fair rating means:
“No existing dam safety deficiencies are recognized for normal operating conditions. Rare or extreme hydrologic and/or seismic events may result in a dam safety deficiency. Risk may be in the range to take further action.”
By the only available estimate, it would cost $100 million to restore the dam to a fully modernized, safe state and to receive a Satisfactory rating again—the highest safety rating available from the National Inventory of Dams.
Instead, PG&E wants to remove the dam completely, and spend $400 million-$1 billion to do so.
In addition, the “Downstream Hazard” rating is classified “High.” But this rating has nothing to do with the condition or safety or fitness of the dam itself. This assessment is only designed to quantify fallout were a dam to fail.
A High rating is defined as:
Expected to cause loss of at least one human life.
Even a recently constructed dam with a Satisfactory safety rating could have a High Potential Classification. In fact, many California dams do have this rating. All the more reason to retrofit and modernize aging infrastructure—something the California government and Gavin Newsom has refused to do.
Scott Dam has safely provided water to California residents as a vital, formative piece of North Coast infrastructure for over 100 years. Tearing it down would be a travesty.
MYTH: This is just capitalism at work. The hydroelectric plant is no longer profitable for PG&E.
PG&E, Gavin Newsom’s second-largest donor, is ready to wash its hands of this dam system and remove vital infrastructure the community has relied on for over 100 years, while passing the bill to California citizens. Not because the dam is not profitable in itself, but because the dysfunctional political climate has made it impossible to operate the dam as intended.
The hydroelectric plant hasn’t been upgraded since the 1970s. In addition, they have reduced flows continually over the last 40 years, which is why the water flow is not sufficient to produce profit.
PG&E has received lawsuits from environmental groups to remove the dams on the grounds of harming salmon.
Rather than destroying this infrastructure, local leaders should be fighting for a retrofitted hydroelectric plant, modern hatchery, fish ladder, rebuilding the logging road to bury transmission lines from the hydropower plant to Potter Valley, improving access to Lake Pillsbury, enhancing recreation—bringing jobs and revival to an economically struggling region in rural California.
There is $50 billion in federal infrastructure improvement funds available to help upgrade water and hydroelectric infrastructure. The dams could be improved to increase water storage and allow for more water flow through the hydroelectric facility to create more power and generate more money, revitalizing Lake County and Mendocino County with jobs, improved recreation and tourism opportunities, and solid infrastructure. The solutions are there, it’s just not what the politicians want.
MYTH: PG&E will pay for the dam removal.
This is false.
Representative Jared Huffman’s office is on record stating that the ratepayers will pay for demolishing the dams.
PG&E, the company that licenses and operates the dams, was found responsible for 1500 fires by a Wall Street Journal investigation, including in the very areas affected by the Potter Valley dam removals.
With the history of corruption at the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), the state board meant to regulate PG&E, California citizens have a reason to distrust PG&E. Last year CPUC green lit PG&E raising rates six times. The same year, PG&E announced record profits—for the second year in a row.
MYTH: Tribes are pro-dam removal.
This is false. Only the Round Valley Indian Tribes have expressed support of dam removal. They have been promised $2 million per year to sell water rights they have never before claimed.
These tribes are not located on the impacted section of the Eel River. Round Valley is on the Middle Fork.
Tribes in Potter Valley, Lake County, Redwood Valley, Geyserville, and many other impacted communities have not made a public statement.
It should be noted that Lake County, the home of Lake Pillsbury, has been left out of discussions completely as have been the citizens of Potter Valley. Both of these communities include tribal lands. Potter Valley will lose their sole water source—its wells will go dry, its homes will lose value. Lake County will lose water and a vital fire resource. These regions have grown to depend on this water for more than 100 years.
Eddie “EJ” Crandall, chair of the Lake County Board of Supervisors and vice chair of the Robinson Rancheria of Pomo Indians, says Lake Pillsbury is the reason Lake County was not destroyed in the 2018 Mendo Complex Fire.
Supervisor Crandall signed a recent unanimous declaration from the Lake County Board of Supervisors asking President Trump to step in and save the Potter Valley Project.
MYTH: A “two-basin solution” diversion will provide water to the communities once the dams come down.
This is false. While Representative Jared Huffman has touted the $15 million in Inflation Reduction Act funds secured for the Round Valley Indian Tribes and the Sonoma County Water Agency to build a new wintertime diversion to the Russian River, this proposal will do nothing to address the needs of the community.
Water is already abundant during the winter season. Diverting water during the winter without providing any storage is a silly endeavor that will not help the region’s water needs in the slightest. Surely these politicians are aware of that. This is an attempt at pretending the politicians and corporations are doing something to backfill the water problems left by dam removal. In reality this “solution” is another waste of taxpayer time.
The proposed “solution” includes no water storage for the dry season (or fire season). During the summer when these communities actually need water, without the Potter Valley dams, their wells, river, lakes, and irrigation will run dry.
MYTH: This is not a political decision, Gavin Newsom has no say in the dam removals.
Governor Newsom is on record boasting about his record removing dams in Northern California. According to a 2024 AP article, Newsom pledged to “fast-track more than half a dozen projects by the end of his term to remove or bypass dams.”
The article specifically names the Potter Valley dams:
Newsom’s strategy includes a promise to complete an agreement by the end of the year to remove the Scott Dam and replace the Cape Horn Dam along the Eel River…
What other questions would you like us to address? Let us know in the comments.
A brilliant synopsis Keely put into layman's terms. This article should be the "Poster Child" for our last chance to get the right thing done. Only if there was a way to get this to the Presidents Cabinet and even himself where it would actually be read. I watched a great podcast you did with "California Underground" previously on the subject at hand and a couple other subjects that have been streamlined by those with the $$$'s. Please get as many of your fellow podcast friends and bloggers to post the whole contents of this article on their websites. I am one of many that grew up in Lake County and spend multiple hours in the Lake Pillsbury Valley seeing what will be lost. Since long ago the Lake Pillsbury Alliance and other local groups have done a great job trying to educate others as they try to save their homeland. The big problem is that in Lake County and the small population of Lake Pillsbury haven't been able to have their efforts heard except by their family and friends and a few outside of this. The Newspapers as well as law makers and PG+E have treated them as lepers. Even though I know where Congressman's Thompson's heart is on the subject, He has not come forward in full support of saving Scotts Dam. He seems not to want to ruffle the feathers of other fellow party congressman in the areas involved. I haven't heard a peep from him in the last 6 months on the subject. I have educated my group of friends, family, and business associates on the subject, but we are small and working people, As I have said before Thank You so much for all your efforts and keep the fight rolling. Cheers! Richard J. Rosa
Keely, you have done it again! Great coverage. PG&E has wanted out of the generation business for sometime now. The PV Project carries a very high environmental line item expense in their budget. They can better afford to support a congressman to make the problem go away. I believe it boils down to who you know now. Not what you know to be right. I am sure you will agree, common sense, it doesn't apply here.
Please keep reaching out as far as you can and I will do the same. Again, Thank You.