The following is a press release issued by the City of Ukiah:
The City of Ukiah is taking action over impacts to the Upper Russian River, including environmental and economic harm to the region, caused by PG&E dramatically reducing flows to the Russian River from the Potter Valley Project. In a formal “Request for Rehearing” filed July 29th, the City again underscored how the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC) approval for PG&E’s reduction in water flows was made without fairly or adequately considering the harmful impacts to the Upper Russian River.
For 120 years, abandoned flows diverted from the Eel through the Potter Valley Project have been the foundation for progress in the Upper Russian River. But in the past few years PG&E has made yearly requests for a “variance” to reduce these flows. This year PG&E requested to reduce flows to the East Branch Russian River to match the dry water year minimum flow requirement of 25 cfs, with the “flexibility” to drop all the way down to 5 cfs. FERC granted the request.
FERC approved the request, despite the fact that this 2024 water-year is on track for a normal water-year. Eight days after FERC’s approval, PG&E immediately dropped flows all the way down to the extremely restricted 5 cfs level – as if we were in a dry or critical water year.
“Water is being diverted into the Russian River as if we were in a serious drought year, despite the fact that both water basins are clearly in at least normal conditions,” said Mari Rodin, City Council Member for the City of Ukiah. “This dramatic reduction risks creating a manufactured drought for our entire region reminiscent of the real drought in 2021, all without analyzing the impacts to our ecology, economy, and community. They dismissed our interests and took away our region’s water. It’s untenable.”
The National Environmental Policy Act requires federal agencies to carefully review the impacts of a proposed federal action on the human environment. But FERC’s Order did not include such an analysis, instead referencing a 24 year-old environmental impact statement (EIS) that is outdated and incomplete. FERC did not meaningfully discuss or consider how its approval would impact water users dependent on the Russian River and abandoned PVP flows, Ukiah’s ability to generate clean electricity through its hydropower facility, or endangered salmonids in the Russian River.
The City’s Request for Rehearing asked FERC to comply with NEPA and conduct a new or supplemental analysis of the impacts to the Upper Russian River from reduced imports of PVP water. While this analysis is conducted, and acknowledging the interests of the Eel River, the City has only asked that in the meantime PG&E be allowed to reduce flows to no lower than 25 cfs, rather than down to 5 cfs.
Following the Order, Sonoma Water notified the State Water Resources Control Board that FERC’s Order means that Lake Mendocino storage would be about 12,000 acre-feet lower by the end of this water year than it would be without the Order. This may have major impacts to the entire Upper Russian River – despite the second consecutive year of healthy rainfall.
“We recognize and acknowledge the needs our neighbors on the Eel have, but our needs must be recognized as well,” said Glenn McGourty, Mendocino County Supervisor. “There is so much at stake for our community in the greater Ukiah Valley, and yet a thoughtful consideration of our interests is entirely lacking in PG&E’s request and in FERC’s decision. It’s as if we don’t matter to them.”
“The fish and habitat in the Russian River deserve protection too,” said Sean White, a fisheries biologist who filed a successful lawsuit against the Army Corps of Engineers and National Marine Fisheries Service for failure to protect endangered salmon below Coyote Valley Dam. “There is a pattern – a systemic, institutionalized pattern by federal agencies – of disregarding the interests of the Upper Russian River. It is time for our community to say, ‘Enough – we are done being ignored.’ “
“Our farms and businesses will suffer from the acceptance of this dramatic and unnecessary reduction,” said Jazzmynn Randall, Executive Director of the Mendocino Farm Bureau. “We have worked hard to survive during dry years while waiting for the rains to return, but now in a good water year we are facing a manufactured drought that creates a standard that will harm agricultural output and cause long term economic damage.”
The City of Ukiah’s Request to FERC observes “The entire focus [of FERC’s analysis] is on the Eel at the expense of the Russian…. To be clear, we ask for nothing more than that our interests be given equal weight to others’ and that the impacts to our community: our families, our schools, our businesses, our orchards and vineyards, our listed species, and our environment, simply be identified and analyzed in accordance with the mandates of the National Environmental Policy Act.”
For more information, contact Deputy City Manager, Shannon Riley, at sriley@cityofukiah.com.
Thank God a municipality is fighting to preserve the water resource that is provided by Lake Pillsbury. Not many others seem to care. Till their wells run dry. Then they will care. Many thousands more people than those that live in the Ukiah Valley Will be affected if this 120 water source is lost to a defunct utility company abandoning a resource that they can’t profit off of any longer, and a heard of leftists. The fish are doomed from climate change no matter what actions humans take. We need to secure this water source that has been flowing through the valley for more than a century. I’m sorry to the environmentalists that think they can save the salmon and trout and steelhead. You can’t they are doomed. Fish cannot swim in a dry river bed. And once you remove that damn, the river bed will be dry four months out of the year.
Why exactly will wells run dry?
Aquifers are rarely charged much, if at all, by river flows, as river flows follow along, mostly, impermeable bedrock.
Historically the Russian River ran dry every year for months.
How do you think the Coho survived for millions of years before and since humans existed??
The King Salmon currently managed in the Russian were never there in great numbers before the PVP.
Those Kings are smelling the Eel River at the mouth of the Russian and are thus being diverted from the Eel along with the waters.
Whether I personally agree or not, I usually find your comments very respectable, but I just can’t abide your apathy.
If there will be no anadromous fish in the rivers, this region is doomed. The forests WILL die and humans will eventually find themselves in an unmitigated desertified wasteland.
Without fish and eels returning to the rivers there will not be enough nutrients returning to the natural system to support the flora and fauna.
Fuck apathy.
The entire Ukiah Valley aquifer if fed and replenish by the Russian River. The River through the Ukiah Valley is almost entirely fed by the Eel during the summer. They can’t divert water if the river is dry. I’m not a fish expert, but I know that climate change is real and those fish have a very small chance of not going extinct. And it doesn’t matter what humans do. It won’t change the fact that they’re gonna all go extinct. It’s not apathy. I just think humans should be prioritized over small populations of fish. Guy
Imteresting, according to ukiahvalleygroundwater.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/2023-07-27-Ukiah-Valley-Basin-GSP-Determination-v2.pdf, that’s the Ukiah Valley Basin – 2022 Groundwater Sustainability Plan posted on the Ukiah Valley Basin Groundwater Sustainability Agency website, the “Hydrogeologic properties of the Basin are NOT well-understood and MAY be addressed by conducting pumping tests, geophysical studies, and mananged aquifer recharge projects;”
“Other identified data gaps include an understanding of the:
-Mechanisms for recharge for Principal Aquifer I;
-Hydraulic relationship between Principal Aquifer I and the Russian River;
-Hydraulic relationships, including vertical flow, between Principal Aquifer I and Principal Aquifer II, and between Aquifers and streams;
-Hyrdogeological properties of the Myacama fault;”
Further, from the Characterization of the Ukiah Valley Groundwater Basin – Final Report by the UC Davis Water Management Lab, June 2017:
“In general, the Russian River mainstem, from the confluence of the East and West forks to Hopland, is a GAINING river from Nov to June, gaining approx. 18,952 AF/yr, in average. Surface water gains mostly are from groundwater discharge into the river mainstem when the groundwater table is higher than the surface if the Russian River, and tributary runoff from creeks in the upper watershed and foothills feeding into the Russian River.
In contrast, the Russian River has net surface water losses, approx 393 AF/yr, from July to October.”
Pg.24
“3.1.3 Groundwater
Overall, the Ukaih Valley Groundwater Basin has a reported storage capacity of 324,000AF, with 90,000AF of available storage recharged each year primarily from PRECIPITATION (MCWA 2010).”
So, I think you are either making an assumption or have been given/obtained bad info.
393AF of water is no small amount, but it’s a very small portion of the water inflow into the aquifer.
Most if not all aquifers in the Ukiah Valley are replenished by the Russian river. That is where almost all of Ukiah’s water comes from. And as far south as Healdsburg. That is why every city well is within a half mile of the river. And why we now we have to monitor all groundwater pumping under California law. You say that without fish in the river our modern society is doomed. I don’t see how that is possible. Humans rely on H2O much more than they rely on fish or eel living in the river system. How many people still harvest most of their protein from the river in this day and age? How do fish in the river replenish forests? Nutrients do not come from decaying fish and eel in the river. It primarily comes from sediment transport in the flood planes in riparian zones. That’s why all the orchards are near the river. Not because of fish but because of sediment transport. But if you remove that damn the sediment impounded behind the dam will be released into the Eel River below Pillsbury and will ruin the pool and riffle effect for a century. There will be no stone distribution or sorted pebbles and sand. It will just be a muddy mess that no fish can live or spawn in. And bone dry from August till November. It’s not apathy it’s common sense. I have a basic B.A. degree in Geography but I focused most of my studies on water resources. So I’m not just making up nonsense. With climate change fully in effect. We should not be focusing on saving fish. We should be focusing on saving humans and their livelihoods. Which requires water. A few more droughts like the one we just had will destroy lives. Water is the most necessic need facing humans throughout our existence as a species. Not a few thousand fish and eel. And the cultural importance of those species is important but water is much much more important. Removing Scott Dam will destroy an entire community, one that has been there for a century. It will ruin a secure water supply that has been there for a century, all in a futile attempt to restore a declining fish species. Sorry that’s just my opinion and it’s not gonna change.
I’m sorry that you are out of the loop on this most foundational and basic proven concept of anadromous fish as the prime KEYSTONE species of the entire Mt West and prime source of nutrients to the freshwater aquatic environment that feeds the lanscape, well…uh, “should” feed.
The only other known nutrient imports into our region are the nutrients converted from rainfall by lichens and the dusts lifted from deserts and blown across the oceans and continents.
We literally live on the backs of these fish.
But, you advocate that we continue to cut off our noses to spite our faces based on your very basic & limited awareness of the ecology that supports us.
Just “start” with a very basic search: “nutrient cycle anadromous fish”
But, don’t stop there.
This subject could be written about for days.
Maybe study the current and existing subject matter before you go repeating long outdated ideas as if they were finite and settled.
The nutrient cycles of anadromous fish onshoring vast quanties of biomass & nutrients onto the continental shelf is of critical import.
We have devastated this cycle.
Ask the Swiss. The have very specifically indentified the lowering timberline (tree line) of the Black Forest due to the continued lack of nutrients originally provided by yearly anadromous fish runs.
Nutrients flushing onto alluvial plains during floods are not deposited on the tops of mountains unless those nutrients enter the lifecycles of.flora.& fauna and then become redistributed by species who feed in the river area and redeposit them on the mountains.
But, this only recycles some of the nutrients in the system that are borne by gravity.
Your awareness of nutrient cycles in this ecology is very outdated and oversimplified, even for when it was the belief of the time.
FYI, haven’t you noticed that the dams are used to stop the most productive of alluvial plains from flooding regularly?
Destroying the fish will remove the basis for existence of nearly every species here.
Millions of years of existence, I think, outweighs the desires of human communities with a mere century of history that have never learned to live within the limits of their environment.
Barely a century to destroy millions of years of ecological stability.
Smart…real smart.
Just keep doing the same shit…and desertification will be our reward.
This ecological cycle is not up for debate.
Most of this science was settled long before I, personally, got involved in anadromous fish and forest science and field studies nearly 3 decades ago.
There have been quite a few very specific studies that have tracked radio-tagged phosphorus sourced from anadromous fish making it’s way to the shoulders and tops of mountains.
Predators, raptors, and most roving fauna are a natural nutrient distribution system.
This is also deeply impaired substantially by the this loss of nutrient onshoring.
Without that nutrient web humanity is doomed through desertification and miniturization of the ecology.
The rivers and land may recover, but will we survive to see it?
Or just go eat soylent green and be happy, Beck, because that’s likely where thinking like yours is leading us.
Short term thinking and short term gains in trade for multi-millenial stability, is fucking insanity, suicidal, and deeply predatory thinking….the epitome of selfishness and hubris in action.
Sounds like manifest destiny as a concept of entitlement is still alive and well in your mind and, sadly, many others.
I want for my descendents the option that they may live stable lives, whether 1 generation beyond me or 7-70 generations beyond.
It’s high time we collectively remove our heads from our asses and do something to help guarantee the long term resilience of the ecology we so definitively depend upon.
Or you might as well move away now and go “settle” another area that isn’t quite as devastated, where you might have a slim hope of long term human survival while continuing to ignore the ecological web of existence for all species that support your existence. Good luck, you’ll need it. And you will fail, again, unless you change.
Problem is, humans have already severely depleted most everything not “permanently” set aside already. And those permanent protected areas are not enough for the involved species to be stable.
82% for us, 18% for almost everything else.
BTW, the Russian River is classed as having the worst health among all rivers in CA, decades running now.
Even when compared to the LA River.
Just ask any aquatic biologist with experience here and who’s worth their weight in salt.
Maybe, it’s time for some of these old heads with their ignorance and hubris, that continue to demand that we all should continue with these long term methods of devastation in trade for short term human proliferation and major profits for a very few of us, to step aside.
Responsibly minded, fact oriented people are needed to help turn away from the mandated suicidal tendencies of short term thinking.
All that said, if there was even a chance to have all that people desire from the multi dam system (water on demand) AND have healthy fish runs, then I’d be all for it.
That solution has not emerged.
No fish, no long term human stability.
It’s up to us to determine if both can coexist.
There is no fish or human.
Fish and humans or fish without.
Oh well I guess so. Just another dumb redneck.
If you think the Eel River or the Klamath will ever be restored to a pristine pre-Anglo river systems you are having a pipe dream. My apathetic opinion doesn’t matter. Your education opinion doesn’t matter. It’s not going to happen. Climate change will ensure this. Removing the dams won’t achieve fish restoration. Invasive carp are already in the Eel eating everything except craw fish. Future prolonged droughts are going to become the norm. My ignorant redneck view is that water will ensure human survival. Not nutrients from decaying fish holding together an ecosystem. Water water water is the key if humans want to survive long term. I apologize for my uneducated opinion. I wish you could hear the sarcasm in my voice through my typing. Maybe I should just start posting on this platform using the moniker “Fiction”. And believe me as soon as I can afford to move out of California, I am doing so. I have elderly parents I am caregiving for. Parents that can’t and won’t move. So I’m stuck here for now and you’re gonna have to put up with me and my under informed views. And I apologize for that. My attachment to Lake Pillsbury is emotional. Three generations of my family have been hunting there since before I was born and I was a while ago. I don’t want to lose that lake and all the goals that people who support damn removal have will never come to fruition again because of climate change. I’m not apathetic to that cause. We just have different beliefs and I apologize to you for mine but it’s still not changing. Call me whatever names you want.
Because our groundwater and surface water are interconnected. Aquifers here are shallow. It doesn’t take much to depelete them either through over extraction or drought.
The aquifer in the Ukiah valley is primarily replenished by the river. I’m not a fish expert. I just know that it’s stupid to put species of fish before human needs. Wells will go dry if the river flows through the valley or severely cut because Lake Mendocino is drying up. That’s insanity to me, I just don’t think fish should be prioritized over Human’s water needs. Whether it’s a residential well, a vineyard pond, a city well, etc.
Sorry my post wouldn’t post so I repeated my thoughts.
From a quick search on Google… The dam was built to generate sustainable power and later on became a source of water supply for farmers and Sonoma county. Most of Lake Mendo water goes to Sonoma county contrary to the name. I wonder if this is really more a farmer problem more than it is a city of Ukiah problem. Ukiah is building up more water recycling within the city district to depend less on the aquifers. Farmers use waaaay more water than common residences in the urban environments. I’m sure 100 years ago there were far fewer farms than their are today and even much less an illegal cannabis market which often does illegal water diversions as a normal business practice.
PS…
Your unflappable closed mindedness about how your opinions just won’t change is one of the primary problems we all have.
The changing landscape of facts, as we learn more about this existence and the interconnected ecology that supports us should absolutely change opinions.
Your immovable opinions speak more to your character and apathy than it does to people who can see the facts and adjust our human methodologies to allow for a stable ecology and humanity for the future.
Common sense, as you call it, that’s based on outdated data and what are now slivers of facts is no longer sensical.
Your ideas of how the natural world works are not.only outdated, they were false at the time, we just didn’t know better.
Grow with the changing awareness or get the fuck out of the way.
Why don’t the Lemmings just go leap of the cliff instead of dragging the rest of humanity with them?
Your opinions and myopathy are fucking over current and future generations, whether intentional or not.
Jesus. I feel like I’m bickering with Urmas Kaldveer. On of my earliest instructors. Non-Fiction, is that you? Are you still alive?
Non-Fiction. Environmentalists/leftists like you are the primary reason I want to leave California. I want to go to a place that is the opposite of California and everything you stand for. I didn’t just fall off the turnip truck. I’ve been here my entire life and my opinions are most certainly biased I will admit. You sound like you want to return to a time that was 500 years ago. It’s not possible. Putting any kind of species before the survival and livelihoods of humans is insane. I also think the Endangered Species Act should be overturned. How’s that for brush Okey for you non-fiction? Restoring salmon populations in any of Northern California’s rivers will change nothing. Not to mention it’s impossible.
But I also have a college education, although be it mediocre compared to your ingenious ideas. I spent years in university lecture halls filled with people like you. Can you hear my sarcasm? You need to find yourself a time machine and travel back to about the 15th century and live there. Do you live in a fantasy world? Like so many in this part of California. God I hate hippies and environmentalists. Things have changed and in a big way since the industrial revolution. Humans are headed to the bottom of the line. The bottom of the garbage disposal. Through our own actions we have doomed ourselves. It’s too late to change that. We need to do whatever we can to secure the survival of humans as a species and the number one thing is water. Our planet is changing and a lot more than just fish and birds and insects and plants are going extinct. Humans are next. Maybe you should do us all a favor and jump on one of Elon Musk’s starships and head to Mars. My vision of the future is most certainly nearsighted. I’m just hoping my son and my grandchildren will be able to exist. I’m not worried about fish I’m worried about water. I do my part to get protein for my family, almost entirely, without going to the grocery store. Almost eliminating my families carbon demand for protein. By Hunting. Ah “The Oil We Eat“. With a $3 bullet I can feed my family for half a year. No industrial agriculture, no trucking grain fed beef to the grocery store, no oil involved. Just a little bit of gunpowder. I do my part. What do you do? Where do you get your protein? I doubt it’s from fishing. The decline of our river systems that you talk about is just the tip of the iceberg for what is to come. And yes, I want to build a bunker and if you were smart, you would build one too. And start stockpiling canned foods, or even better learn how to can foods yourself and hunt. I don’t know if you’ve ever watched a news story lately, but I believe in doomsday and Revelations. And I think it’s closer than we all think. That’s why we need to secure water now for everybody. Not worry about the endangered species. Restoring the fish in the river to a pristine condition is not going to save us from what is coming. Now, do you think I’m sane or insane? Either way I don’t care about your opinion any longer. I sit here now for a minute wondering do I hit the post button or not. What kind of message do I want to convey. Like I said I’m…?
This is rediculous, water that has been stolen from the eel for decades is finally being returned and the theives are complaining. The eel river is unique and sacred. The native people have a had enough taken from them. Stop being selfish. Find a new way to get water with all the wealth accumulated from the previous theft and be glad no one is going to actually punish you for the crimes against the ecosystem and indigenous species/people.
The Native People you speak of were not allowed to participate in any of the meetings for this project and overwhelmingly oppose it. Nor were any representatives from Lake or Mendocino County – everyone who will actually be affected by this insane project was not allowed any input at all at any point. Furthermore no environmental studies were ever done on what this will do to the Russian River, and it will for sure collapse entire ecosystem decimating our local fish population. Oh, and the people of Potter Valley will not even have enough water to maintain basic ‘Health and Human Safety’ essentially wiping that entire community off the map. But yes, those people are ‘greedy’ for not wanting to loose their homes, businesses, community, and see their watershed decimated.
This is nothing more than a blatant 500 million dollar hand out to PG&E to get them off the hook for decades of negligence and force the local community to pick up the tab, again. In reality it will decimate the environment, and have drastic and major negative effects on the health, safety, and economy of hundreds of thousands of people. And for what? So a few poorly informed, ignorant extreme left enviro nuts can feel good about themselves, while ignoring the suffering and destruction their insanity has leveled upon an entire community? I’m glad Ukiah is finally standing up to evils of PG&E and the insanity of the morons who think this is somehow good for the environment.
The Russian never supported King Salm9n in substantial numbers before the PVP.
Coho are the native species to the Russian.
The Russian is historically over-watered due to the PVP.
There are 30+ years of studies of these subjects.
The tribes have been present since the very first FERC meetings held in Ukiah ~6yrs ago.
They were actively consulted by FERC in the beginning but have been receiving increasing requests for comment and perspective since then, both on the Eel and Russian sides.
Tribes are “overwhelmingly against” removal of the Eel River dams?
Bullshit.
You seem quite misinformed about who has or hasn’t had input.
Were you at any of the FERC meetings?
I was at some.
$500mil paid by locals??
More Bullshit.
State and Federal moneys.
Though, I do think PGE should pay out of pocket in full.
Get your facts straight, buddy.
If we kill all the fish, there won’t be a local community to speak of in the future.
Short term thinking got us into this fucked situation.
More short term thinking won’t fix anything, will only make it worse and create a self-fulfilling prophecy of death and destruction.
Absolutely correct.
The Kings that have been straying into the Russian since I can remember all the way back to the late 1950’s are Eel River fish keying in on the mineral content of the diverted water.
There is still a fair amount of them which varies from year to year that start dribbling in during late September through October and November.
Fish don’t run the world. People haven’t almost gone to war over fish. But they have over water supplies and water rights. All over the world for many centuries.
Our entire community is dependent on a few hundred fish? You are insane.
You know what will really kill our community? Intentionally eliminating our main water supply.
Everything you have posted is a flat out lie or distortion. You obviously care absolutly nothing about the PEOPLE who live here and have zero clue what you are talking about. Such a lack of care and respect for human life is truly disgusting and immoral.
Blindly supporting this project is the epitome of the dangerous, reckless and belligerent stupidity that poses to harm our entire community and all the people who live in it.
Without the fish, this semi-arid moutain ecology will die.
Anadromous fish are a KEYSTONE species, meaning, as an analogy, they are the bedrock of the ecology we all depend upon.
Nearly every living organism here is dependent upon the anadromous nutrient flows.crossing the marine boundary to the freshwater ecosystems.
Please, educate yourself with immutable facts rather than spew opinions.founded on falsehoods and hubris.
Do you really want communities that can’t survive long term?
Just destroy what you have? And then move on to the next place and destroy that one too?
The Red Abalone is I keystone species also. Look what’s happening to it. An invasive species of sea urchin, and warm water together are eliminating the kelp. The abalone’s main food source. Nobody will ever get to pick an Abalone again. Eating abalone for dinner is a thing of the past. Climate change is already affecting every ecosystem, including the eel river. Along with invasive species. Blame it on whoever you want. It doesn’t change the fact that it’s inevitable ecosystem collapses you are right it is all human cause but there’s no changing it or stopping it. If everybody in the United States stopped using fossil fuel right now and started trapping carbon. It wouldn’t even put a dent in the progression of climate change. Not when you have enormous countries like India and China, and any other poor country pumping millions of metric tons of carbon into the atmosphere, it doesn’t matter what attempts we make in the US. Climate change means we are doomed as a species. That’s why I don’t think we should put any species over our water needs. Again, my dumb backwoods redneck opinion take it for what it’s worth. God why am I still wasting my time and energy on this topic. Because you went down the road of being insulting and got me pissed off. Non-fiction I’m referring to.
That’s his game Bradley and he thrives on it,
Try not to get sucked into it you would be better off trying to argue or debate with a possum.
Thanks for the advice.
Less than 1% of the Eel is behind these dams. The fishery has crashed because of a dozen other reasons.
Jared Huffman our less than worthless Congress person is on the wrong side of this.
Restricting water from the Eel River to enter the Russian River is a serious problem, and flows should immediately be increased from Cape Horn Dam through Potter Valley into Lake Mendocino now. The fish can be accommodated. The real issue is the many human beings in Mendocino Sonoma and Marin Counties that have been caught short, no thanks to Congressman Huffman.
What breaks my heart the most is the loss of the lake as a recreational site. My family has been going there since long before I was born every fall hunting, fishing and camping and boating. To this day I go there three or four times every deer season to hunt and camp at Oak Flat or Pogie Point or Fuller Grove campgrounds and hunt around the lake. But lately only Oak Flat is open annually. The lake is the water supply for the community that lives around the lake. Lake Pillsbury Resort, Rice Fork Summer Homes, Soda, Creek Store, the US Forest Service station. And a small volunteer fire department. At least several hundred different homes and businesses all use the lake water source and it gets chlorinated and that’s their water supply including all the campgrounds that surround the lake. And the elk at the lake of which there’s almost 500 Tule Elk surrounding the lake, several large herds with massive bulls protecting their harem around the lake. They swim in the lake, they drink the lake. Have you ever seen an elk swim 3/4 of a mile across the lake? Or an attire heard of females follow the bull to swim across the lake. I see it every fall. The reason they are there is because of the lake, losing all that and not being able to go there breaks my heart. It’s what bothers me the most even more than losing a water source for the Ukiah valley and the Russian River. If you have never been like Pillsbury and camped in the fall, you are missing out. I invite everybody who has never been there to go there and check out the lake for yourself. It’s a fully functioning community surrounding the lake all the way around the lake. Walk up the road and look at Scott Dam for yourself. I don’t know how many people live there probably at least 500 people live around the lake most year round. You’re not just losing the lake and a water resource. You’re going to destroy an entire community that has been there for over 80 years. It even has a 5000 foot dirt runway airstrip. You can fly into there. Because in the 40s and 50s celebrities from Hollywood used to vacation there. The rat pack and a bunch of famous actors. That is how Lake Pillsberry Ranch got started and why there is an airstrip. To me I think it should be a National Historical Landmark or become a National Monument added to the Mendocino National Forest. Don’t sit on the sidelines and just post comments if you’ve never been there or experienced it. Get your ass up there and go camping for a few days before it’s gone and you will come to love it too.
If we are going to tear out Lake Pillsbury why don’t we just tear out Coyote Dam, and eliminate Lake Mendocino. And tear out Lake Sonoma while we’re at it. Just follow the path of the Klamath River basin. None of us are going to live long enough to see the negative effects of this, but I guarantee you it is not going to be good. There are too many people living in Mendocino, Sonoma and Marin Counties that depend on this water resource. Those people have way too much wealth. The reason this is happening is because PG&E can no longer make a profit off of Lake Pillsberry or the diversion tunnel at Powerhouse Rd. PG&E claims the dam is seismically unsafe. I call bullshit. it has been there since 1904 around 1904. Not quite sure. It’s just insanity. Complete insanity in the name of saving a few thousand fish every year that are going to go extinct anyways. I have repeated myself so much I’m going blue in the face. I’m done. Until the next article comes out. I often wonder why I even comment. It’s not like it matters my opinion.
I question if it’s for fish the tribes want water. Eel fish are more important than Russian River fish? The letter to sherriff about Round Valley sovereign over laws about illegal cannabis grows makes me take a pause in this new developing power struggle. Will Tribes lease lands for other needs and use water under sovereign claim to EEL Water rights that the Eel river goes through? The discussions need to begin about how far Tribal land rights can go and how environmental laws and illegal activities will be enforced. Power to heal or power to destroy? The present isn’t the past. Water is precious and lakes are also amazing ecosystems all on their own with much value to all kinds of fish and wildlife.
Both Eel and Russian should be saved…both Pillsbury and Mendocino lakes should be saved. Power is in finding a way…to save all of them.
Angelcat I couldn’t agree more.
I recommend that everyone watch a highly educational show called South Park. Season 9, episode 2. It’s titled “Die Hippie, Die.” It is enlightening.