A Southern California water district is reportedly interested in purchasing the Potter Valley hydroelectric project, sparking debate over the future of the Eel River dams and water rights. The potential sale, highlighted by Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, is welcomed by those seeking to prevent dam removal but criticized by some as a water grab.
That’s the distance that separates a pair of dams in Lake and Mendocino counties from a Southern California water district touted this week by a top Trump official as a potential suitor for the North Coast waterworks.
The move has been hailed by those seeking to avert the Eel River dams’ proposed removal, including local farming interests and their political allies, who have Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins posted on X on Tuesday that talks are underway with a Riverside County water district to take over the Potter Valley hydroelectric project owned by Pacific Gas & Electric Co. President Donald Trump listens to Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins speak during an event with farmers on the South Lawn of the White House, Friday, March 27, 2026, in Washington. “Last week I heard from the Elsinore Valley Municipal Water District … a legitimate buyer who expressed strong interest in purchasing the project from PG&E,” Rollins wrote.
The post immediately raised a host of questions about a Southern California entity’s play for a Northern California water project. Rep. Jared Huffman, who represents the region and played a lead role brokering a historic pact outlining a post-dam future for the upper Eel River, said the announcement had the marks of a “Southern California water grab.
” The news also put more distance between parties who have for years labored to ensure Eel River diversions for farms and residents in Mendocino and Sonoma counties continue once the dams are torn down and those behind more nascent attempts to keep the dams, despite PG&E’s move to abandon them and eventually see them torn down. Cloverdale Vice Mayor Todd Lands, a leading local voice among those fighting to keep the dams, said he welcomed the Riverside County water district’s interest and potential future stake in the Potter Valley Project, which also includes an aging power plant that has been offline for several years.
Members of the coalition that has worked toward a post-dam solution said Rollins’ announcement amounted to a top-down end-around that overlooked most local interests..
“The goal is restore the health and habitat of the river and ensure people in have access to water. ” The Round Valley Tribal Council, background, meets with their attorneys to discuss the latest Eel River dam removal twist, Tuesday, April 21, 2026, in Covelo.
PG&E no longer wants to operate the Scott and Cape Horn dams and the outdated, 118-year-old downstream power plant that used to generate electricity while diverting a share of the Eel River into the upper Russian River. Those supplemental flows support farms and boost downstream supplies for urban customers in Mendocino County and northern Sonoma County.
Under a historic agreement reached in February 2025, both dams are slated to be torn down in what would be theThis map shows the location of Scott Dam, impounding Lake Pillsbury, and Cape Horn Dam, creating Van Arsdale Reservoir, on the Eel River, the Potter Valley power plant, and the diversion tunnel that feeds the powerhouse and supplements flows in the East Fork of the Russian River. The Press Democrat The power company filed its formal plans with the federal government to decommission the Potter Valley Project in July 2025, marking a major step in PG&E’s yearslong effort to relinquish a waterworks its operates at a deficit of $1 million a year.
Rollins did so in December, filing a notice to intervene in the power company’s bid to decommission the dam. The comments, filed with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the agency responsible for approving the decommissioning, Still, an open question remained: Who, if anyone, would be able to take over the project from PG&E, the nation’s largest utility, which says the aging project doesn’t pencil out financially? Relicensing the dams is likely to require costly upgrades for fish passage.
The seismic safety of Scott Dam, which impounds Lake Pillsbury, a seasonal retreat with shoreside cabins, also has been an open question for years. With a backdrop of Hull Mountain in the Mendocino National Forest, a couple take to Lake Pillsbury from Pine Point, Wednesday May 14, 2025.
Kent Porter / The Press DemocratCommercial salmon fishing to open in California for the first time since 2022 as population reboundsSome of the same interests that coalesced behind a post-dam future at first banded together, back in 2019, to assess taking over the hydropower project. They failed to raise the more than $10 million needed to conduct an initial study. Elsinore Valley Municipal Water District, by comparison, would appear a far-fetched suitor.
It serves 163,000 customers in a 97-square-mile western corner of Riverside County along the Ortega Highway. It has an annual operating budget of $125 million and it imports about 75% of its water from the State Water Project that runs through the Central Valley to Southern California. Notably, the Eel River system, on the western flank of the Snow Mountain Wilderness, has no connection to the State Water Project.
The closest hub is dozens of miles to the east, across rugged terrain. Sylvia Ornelas, public affairs officer with Elsinore Valley Municipal Water District, said it remains in “initial stages” of gathering information. She declined to say more about the water district’s reported interest or plans for the Potter Valley Project.
“We’re really trying to understand opportunity and impacts,” Ornelas said. “If you look at our strategic plan, we’re evaluating ways for long-term water availability to the public. All water agencies in California are constantly looking to supply options for their region. ” PG&E officials confirmed they met with Elsinore representatives in January.
The power company has not received a proposal from the water district, PG&E spokesperson Megan McFarland said. Any entity seeking to operate the Potter Valley Project into the future would have to pursue federal relicensing on its own, PG&E said. The costly process can take years.
“FERC would have to review whatever the final disposition would be and have the final say,” PG&E representatives said. , said the potential purchase would “secure reliable water for 750,000 Californians and hundreds of hardworking farmers who rely on it for irrigation. ” The U.S. Department of Agriculture did not immediately respond to a request for more information and comment.
Todd Lands, Cloverdale's mayor at the time, speaks during the Potter Valley Project town hall meeting in Cloverdale on Thursday, March 20, 2025. Christopher Chung/The Press Democrat Lands said he’s been part of the meetings with Elsinore, PG&E and the federal government. In an email response to questions, Lands said “the goal is to do what is right for the people of California. Outside water investments benefit their customers and improve California’s water reliability.
Water reliability in Northern California will benefit water reliability in Southern California, as they are not fighting for the same water. ” But Huffman, whose caseload as an environmental attorney decades ago involved some of California’s most entrenched water wars, said “you would have to be wildly naive not to connect the dots here. ” “I really think people have to take this seriously,” he said.
“If the Secretary of Agriculture is saying these things publicly, she’s got buy-in from the Trump administration. We have to be asking, ‘Why? What does the federal government and Southern California want with our water? ’” Round Valley Tribal Council president Joseph Parker, Tuesday, April 21, 2026, in Covelo.
“Why anyone would be interested in paying money for a failed, money-losing and risky project is beyond me, let alone a water district nearly 600 miles away from the dams,” said Alicia Hamann, executive director of Friends of the Eel River. Members of the Eel-Russian Project Authority, the public entity that would manage future water diversions after the dams come down, signaled they shared Huffman’s concern the region could lose local control with any outside takeover.
Janet Pauli, president of the Mendocino Inland Water and Power Commission, one of three agencies that make up the authority along with Sonoma Water and the Round Valley tribes, said “local control of this water supply is very important. ” Sonoma County Supervisor David Rabbitt, who serves on the ERPA board, called Rollins’ post a result of “pressure politics” by Trump officials.
In this term and in his first, Trump has long sought to use California’s complex water infrastructure, and the politics around them, to his advantage. Elsinore Valley’s interest in the Potter Valley Project is another example, Rabbitt suggested, calling that link “head-scratching. ” Nevertheless, he agreed with Huffman’s alarm.
“You can never underestimate what could happen in this administration,” he said, adding, “The goal is to have The Round Valley Indian Tribes, who are set to reclaim Eel River water rights long denied to their people under the future pact, said it was no secret the Trump administration seeks to stand in the way of that agreement. “They made it known they opposed taking down the dams,” President Parker said.
“They asked us what is our future with the dams still up. We told them, ‘There never was a future with the dams. ’” 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.
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