PG&E files long-anticipated application with feds to shut down Potter Valley Project. Here’s what’s next
The utility formally has filed its plans to shut down the two Northern California dams and century-old powerhouse that comprise the project.
Pacific Gas & Electric Co. has filed its formal plans with the federal government to decommission the Potter Valley Project, which includes two dams and a century-old powerhouse that together have helped connect the Eel and Russian River watersheds to provide water to cities and farms for generations.
The filing marks another step in the power company’s multiyear effort to divorce itself from the two-dam system — Scott and Cape Horn dams — that PG&E officials say has been operating at a deficit of $1 million a year.
“Today’s filing marks the next step of a thoughtful and transparent decommissioning journey for the Potter Valley Project — but it does not change our operational responsibilities or obligations,” Dave Gabbard, vice president of power generation for PG&E, said in a press release.
If approved by the feds — no such request has ever been denied — plans would kick into motion the next large dam removal project on the West Coast.
But that is still years away. Janet Walther, director of hydro licensing with PG&E believes the earliest the federal agency could issue a surrender order is 2028. And she adds that PG&E “probably won’t be ready” by that time “as the company still has to finalize the design, construction and restoration plans.”
In the immediate future, FERC staff will begin to seek input from all interested parties, including those who could be affected by the decommissioning, through a 30-day public comment period.
There will be other public-comment opportunities along the way, too, including for national and state environmental reviews as the decommissioning plan takes shape.
The application to FERC also includes plans to construct the Eel-Russian Project Authority to construct the New Eel-Russian Facility, or NERF. If approved by FERC, the NERF would be built at the current site of the Cape Horn Dam while it is torn down.
The NERF is part of the so-called two-basin solution approved by a group of stakeholders in February. It would allow for the diversion of roughly 30,000 acre feet of water to flow from the Eel River to the Russian River through a new diversion tunnel that Sonoma Water expects to construct in conjunction with removal of Cape Horn Dam. (An acre-foot is equivalent to a football field one foot deep, and can supply the needs of three water-efficient households for one year.)
But unlike year-round diversions that occur now, under the two-basin solution, diversions would only occur during seasonal, high-water-flow periods.
PG&E’s move Friday was praised by environmentalists, as it looks to remove Scott Dam, located just north of Potter Valley in Lake County, and its sister Cape Horn Dam, located 15 miles west in Mendocino County. The removal of the dams would drain the dams’ accompanying reservoirs, Lake Pillsbury and Van Arsdale Reservoir respectively, and return the Eel River to its more natural state.
“PG&E’s license surrender filing marks a historic step toward reconnecting the upper Eel River with the Pacific for the first time in over a century,” California Trout Executive Director Curtis Knight said in a press release. “This moment is the result of years of dedicated work by tribes, local communities and conservation groups to restore salmon runs while maintaining a secure water future for the region.”
Amie Windsor is the Community Journalism Team Lead with The Press Democrat. She can be reached at amie.windsor@pressdemocrat.com or 707-521-5218.