We need your help. Under orders from the State Water Board and federal fisheries managers, the Sonoma County Water Agency (SCWA) is rewriting the rules that govern stream flows in the Russian River watershed. (Click here to learn more about the Fish Flows Project DEIR) This is important to Friends of the Eel River because … Read more
Tucked away among rolling green hills off the road leading up to the River Rock Casino near Geyserville, a once-beleaguered creek is springing back to life. Situated at the bottom of a slope ravaged by a landslide in the 1980s, part of the creek bed and its immediate surroundings were for years covered with asphalt … Read more
Restoring salmon in the Russian River and protecting the North Coast from oil rigs — two long-standing campaigns with broad public support — are among the goals likely to be challenged if not stifled by the sharp right turn of Donald Trump’s administration, environmental advocates and Democratic lawmakers said. More broadly, the environmental camp fears … Read more
When it rains in Guerneville, people keep a close watch on the Russian River, because rising waters can flood the town. But just upstream, there’s another threat when it rains, found in the large piles of red dirt bordering a creek that runs into the River. They’re part of what remains of the Mount Jackson … Read more
MISSOULA, Mont. — They are beautiful, glistening icons of the West, filled with life and history. But there is far more to mountain rivers, scientists are learning, than the water churning between their banks. In a paper published earlier this year, a team of ecologists sought to outline the essential role of gravel-bed rivers in … Read more
An hour north of Sacramento, in a ghost town tucked into a remote mountain valley, California is poised to build a massive new reservoir – a water project of a size that hasn’t been undertaken since Jerry Brown’s first stint as governor in the 1970s. Sites Reservoir, all $4.4 billion of it, represents an about-face … Read more
New fish passage opens 11.2 miles of prime habitat for endangered salmon that had been blocked for decades. Salmon conservation achieved a major victory this October as construction finished on a fish passage and stream restoration project in Mill Creek, California. After California Sea Grant identified that a flashboard dam was stopping endangered coho salmon … Read more
A major federal court decision requires reassessment of four dams on the Lower Snake River in Washington, and may set a precedent for others. The dams block access to some 5,500 miles of historic salmon spawning. ALMOST FROM THE moment they were completed in 1975, four hydroelectric dams on the Lower Snake River in eastern Washington … Read more
California’s drought is forcing farmers across the state to squeeze the most out of every last drop of water, but what if it was possible to grow a bountiful crop with no water at all? One local winery is doing just that, with a centuries-old technique enjoying a renaissance in parched California. A soft breeze is … Read more
Researchers have identified a novel virus found in the brains of Eel River salmon from last year’s strenuous run, but the find is not generating any concerns for fish health this year. U.C. Davis Associate Professor of medicine and epidemiology Esteban Soto Martinez said there is much they don’t know about the virus, but said … Read more