An Agreement for Post-Dam Removal Diversions From the Eel

Feb 20, 2025

The new Eel-Russian facility preliminary design features Cape Horn Dam removed, fish barrier removed, unimpeded fish passage, Van Arsdale Reservoir drained, a free-flowing Eel River, a new fish screen, and a reconfigured diversion tunnel entrance that will be buried behind a new retaining wall. Located at the former Cape Horn dam, the diversion tunnel will be located before the removed spillway and pump house. Fish screens will be inside a debris cage, and the fish ladder entrance will be removed along with the fish barrier.

The preliminary design for the New Eel-Russian Diversion Facility, or NERF, located at what is currently Cape Horn Dam. Diagram via PG&E.

Just a week after PG&E published their final draft license surrender plan, another significant development was made public: a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between parties who have been negotiating the terms of a proposed deal over the past year and a half. The agreement is an important step forward in securing timely dam removal. It provides for limited wet-season diversions from the Eel to the Russian to continue after dam removal, in exchange for a number of benefits for the Eel.

First, and possibly most importantly, this deal disarms opponents of dam removal and commits critical stakeholders* to supporting timely dam removal. As FOER has said over and over again, to reap the benefits of dam removal on the Eel, we cannot waste time. FERC, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission that oversees federal hydroelectric projects, has a very poor track record of resolving disputed dam removals in a timely manner. Rep. Huffman’s two-basin approach to the Eel River dams was built on the understanding that an agreement between affected stakeholders is our best, maybe only, route to immediate dam removal.

Secondly, this deal is a significant step toward restorative justice for many of the Native people who have suffered the loss of salmon runs on the Eel. The MOU outlines how PG&E’s water right will be transferred to the Round Valley Indian Tribes, who will in turn lease it to Russian River water users in exchange for an annual payment of $1 million dollars. Centering Tribes in a position of power and ensuring they have a controlling interest in the future of the river is not just strategic, it’s the right thing to do. Water users will also pay between $750,000 – $1 million annually into an Eel River restoration fund.

The MOU, which you can read here, outlines a plan for future diversions that varies based on season. Each different season has a different baseflow assigned, based on the needs of Eel River fish, and allows only a percent of flows above that baseflow to be diverted. The bulk of the diversions will happen in the winter and early spring. Depending on the water year type and how much water is available, diversions will cease sometime between mid-spring and summer. It’s worth noting that diversions will also be limited by the size of the tunnel and by the available storage on the Russian River side. The result will be average annual diversions estimated at about 30,0000 acre feet.

As Friends of the Eel has long emphasized, for the last several decades the biggest issue with the dams has been the blocked access to hundreds of miles of excellent cold-water habitat. Opening the upper basin habitat presents great potential for recovery of the Eel’s native fish, and perhaps none more than the summer steelhead.

The summer steelhead run in the upper mainstem that Scott Dam extinguished in 1922 was the southernmost run of these fish on earth. Thanks to research by Samantha Kannry and others, we now know that summer steelhead genes live on in resident rainbow trout trapped behind Scott Dam. There’s real potential to recover the lost upper basin run of summer steelhead by allowing these rainbow trout to resume the life history of their ancestors.

A wise woman recently reminded me that a good negotiation is one in which each party leaves the table equally unhappy. But honestly I think we have a lot to be happy about with this deal. For now, a better diversion is being leveraged to secure immediate dam removal, but that diversion won’t last forever. The MOU provides for an initial 30 year term, subject to a 20 year renewal if performance measures are met. After that, the presumption is that the diversion ends. Measures that incentivize Russian River water users to develop self-sufficiency in their own watershed are an additional step in the right direction.

 

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*Signers of the MOU include the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, California Trout, Humboldt County, Mendocino County Inland Water and Power Commission, Round Valley Indian Tribes, Sonoma County, and Trout Unlimited.