Two-Basin Solution Partners Respond to Meeting Between USDA, Interior, PG&E, and Elsinore Valley Municipal Water District Regarding Eel River Dams
Cape Horn Dam in Potter Valley [Photo by Sarah Reith]
Tuesday, the coalition of water agencies, counties, Tribes, and conservation organizations behind the Two-Basin Solution expressed serious concern over reports that Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins convened a meeting with PG&E’s chief executive, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and the Elsinore Valley Municipal Water District in Washington, D.C. regarding the future of the Potter Valley Project on the Eel River.
“We share the Secretary’s concern with maintaining water security in the region, but the USDA’s actions undermine our locally negotiated agreement that provides that security” said Mari Rodin, a member of the City of Ukiah City Council and an appointee to the Mendocino County Inland Water and Power Commission. “It is incredibly important to us and our communities that control of resources stay in local hands.”
The Two-Basin Solution is the product of years of good-faith negotiation among the Round Valley Indian Tribes, Sonoma Water, Humboldt County, the Mendocino County Inland Water and Power Commission, California Trout, Trout Unlimited, and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. The collaborative agreement accommodates PG&E’s removal of its aging and uneconomic Eel River dams, facilitates restoration of the Eel River and builds modern, reliable replacement infrastructure to maintain water supply stability for the Russian River basin.
“The future of the Eel and Russian Rivers should be decided by the people who live along them and depend on them, not brokered in Washington between political appointees and outside interests,” said Charlie Schneider, Connectivity Program Manager for California Trout. “The Two-Basin Solution was built here, by this community, across both watersheds. It is the only plan that protects water supply stability for the Russian River while restoring the salmon runs that our northern California communities depend on.”
The Two-Basin Solution Partnership includes a sovereign Tribal Nation that has called the Eel River home since time immemorial, the water agencies responsible for providing reliable water supply to 600,000 people in the Russian River basin, local county governments, and conservation organizations that have worked for decades to restore fisheries which are important for the region’s economy. The proposed plan includes the creation of the New Eel-Russian Facility (NERF) which would allow for the continued diversions of water from the Eel River to the Russian River. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), which is overseeing PG&E’s decommissioning of the project, recently noted in its scoping documents that the NERF is a viable replacement for the aging infrastructure.
“We’ve been working diligently, and have secured the funding, to design the New Eel-Russian Facility to provide water supply reliability for Lake Mendocino, for future storage in Potter Valley and for the Russian River watershed,” said David Rabbitt, Board Chair of the Eel-Russian Project Authority, the entity created to construct and operate the NERF. “The Two-Basin Solution is how water supply stability is maintained.”
Round Valley leaders also expressed concern about the U.S. Department of the Interior’s involvement in the meeting in Washington D.C., noting that there are no Bureau of Reclamation facilities in the area and emphasizing that the department’s primary federal responsibility is its trust obligation to tribes, including the Round Valley Indian Tribes.
“Restoring the Eel is about healing our river and our community, and it was important to us to come to an agreement that supported our neighboring communities as well,” said Joseph Parker, President of the Round Valley Indian Tribes. “That is why we spent years at the table with our partners building the Two-Basin Solution, because we believe communities in both watersheds deserve a sustainable future. We are committed to that vision, and we will see it through.”
The partnership remains committed to the Two-Basin Solution and will continue engaging with PG&E to ensure the FERC decommissioning process moves forward on its current timeline.
“The Two-Basin Solution took years of detailed negotiations with tribes, irrigators, municipal users, and conservation groups to find a way to accommodate everyone’s interests when these dams are gone,” said Trout Unlimited’s California Director Matt Clifford. “It’s frustrating that a Southern California water agency would try to override what is a very locally focused and successful effort.”
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Internal Documents From a Southern California Water Agency Outline a Vision to Turn Eel River Water Rights Into a Cash Bonanza — at the Expense of Local Users
https://lostcoastoutpost.com/2026/jun/16/elsinore-valley-documents/
Sign me up! I’ll sell the water if you lady types aren’t MAN ENOUGH!
Why do you people not like me enjoying a little cash bonanza? Seems to me YOU might be a Godless communist.
Those people just use that water for HUMAN TRAFFICKING! And disgusting aquatic organisms.
The lake Elsinore region is a hotbed of Freedom, cash and lake side recreation, and urbane philosophical reflection.
Considering how much water southern California already steals from the Trinity / Klamath system, time to say enough is enough.
CA has been trying to rework the CO River compact in it’s favor too. It’s amusing how a metro like Las Vegas (~2mil) can sustain itself on the tiniest fraction of the allotment (0.3MAF vs. 4.4MAF). Perhaps the lot of Los Angeles should mirror their conservation and reclamation rules? Even multiplying NV use by 10x, the difference is still over 3x what they use in a year as a state, let alone just Vegas.
CO R. compact expires this year.
CA already claiming it has senior rights, yet is the downstream user (CA water rights favor senior and upstream users)
Snowpacks aren’t producing, but the lower basin states, AZ and CA want to keep their shares. I see some serious water conservation rules in the future. Who they actually effect is debatable.
Congressional role in the management. Trump is already ordering release of water into the lower reservoirs, and on the CA Water Resources pages, I see a number of “emergency” allotments from reservoirs. This Eel River deal just looks like a money play to me, and dammit to hell with anyone downriver. It doesn’t seem like our voices are even noticed.
A lot of that water is going to agricultural interests to grow such stupid crops as alfalfa, a very water intensive plant, in the desert.
Check out Climate Town’s video about our water; it’s both enlightening and horrifying: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XusyNT_k-1c&t=91s
They don’t want the water, they want the rights so they can sell it to Mendo residents at ridiculously high rates, and use that money to buy local water for themselves. It’s both ingenious and evil. The first comment has a link to the LoCO story with more details.
No outside interests? Elsinore valley water authority seems to be an outside interest. Again, not a word said from Humboldt.
That’s because there is no one representing Humboldt County on the Eel-Russian Project Authority, which oversees the “New Eel-Russian Facility (NERF)”!