LAKE COUNTY – Water that originates in Lake Pillsbury and makes its way to Lake Mendocino is at the heart of a disagreement between Mendocino County farmers, Pacific Gas & Electric and a federal agency.
At the core of the issue, which daily appears to become more complex, is water released through Pacific Gas & Electric Co.'s Potter Valley hydroelectric project.
This past fall, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), which receives daily monitoring reports from PG&E on the project, noticed that in the spring too much water was being diverted through the project, according to Dick Butler, NMFS's area office supervisor.
By releasing too much water, Butler said PG&E was in violation of its license with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to operate the project.
Butler said NMFS called the situation to PG&E's attention; PG&E then set out to find what the impacts to the diversion would be if they complied with the license terms and conditions.
PG&E used 21 years of hydrological data and arrived at a 33-percent overall reduction of water through the project on an annual basis, said Butler.
“That surprised us,” said Butler.
He explained that during the environmental impact report statement process on PG&E's license update with FERC, “everyone's target was to reduce the diversion by 15 percent on an annual average basis,” half of what is currently proposed.
NMFS, said Butler, then looked at PG&E's analysis methods and came up with a 28-percent reduction.
David Eisenhauer, PG&E's spokesman, said the company believes a 33-percent reduction will keep the company in compliance with its FERC license.
For Potter Valley farmers, frost protection this spring is a critical issue, and they're concerned that the reduction will mean no water to protect their crops.
Eisenhauer said that PG&E and the Potter Valley Irrigation District (PVID) discussed the frost protection issue, and that PVID suggested it fell under a “rare and brief emergency power demand.”
PG&E asked NMFS to consider allowing more water for frost protection under the agency's “reasonable and prudent alternative” (RPA) rule. Eisenhauer said NMFS said no.
PG&E's request that NMFS consider frost protection an emergency was the first time the agency heard about the issue, said Butler.
He explained that the agency budgets water to protect coho and Chinook salmon, which are listed under the Endangered Species Act (ESA), as well as steelhead, in the Eel and Russian rivers.
If NMFS allowed more water to farmers for frost protection, said Butler, the agency itself would be in violation of the Environmental Species Act.
NMFS met with local farmers, said Butler, who told him they have between three and five days of water in reserve for frost protection. Last year, the farmers indicated they needed water for only one day of frost protection, he added.
Allowing extra water would exceed the level of impacts that NMFS has analyzed, said Butler, which could result in a reinitiation of discussions with FERC about the ESA in relation to PG&E's Potter Valley Project license.
The recent license amendment took 20 years to complete, said Butler, and PG&E said it doesn't want that to happen. Meanwhile, he said, the Friends of the Eel River have petitioned FERC to reinitiate the process.
Eisenhauer said PG&E plans to come up with an analysis tool to assess real-time flow data once they've looked at the rainy season. That, he said, will give the company better numbers on which to base a discussion of the RPA.
Eisenhauer said PG&E has asked NMFS and FERC to take a closer look at the frost protection issue, which they consider critical to farmers. So far, he said, they haven't received a response from the federal agencies.
The issues with the water flows don't just affect farmers in Potter Valley. Reduced flows will mean less water in Lake Mendocino, which is used not just for recreation but to provide water for the city of Ukiah and for other cities downstream in Sonoma County.
Butler said NMFS plans to partner with the Sonoma County Water Agency to develop a good tool for estimating an average annual reduction into the Russian River. He said they'll use 96 years of US Geological Survey data for that study, rather than the 21 years of data PG&E used, which he said was one of the flaws in PG&E's modeling method.
Neither is it known what farmers and other waters users could expect in dry or critically dry years, said Pauli.
There's also an issue, said Pauli, with just how much water Lake Pillsbury is able to hold.
She reported that PG&E recently completed a study that found the lake holds 74,900 acre feet, rather than 82,000. NMFS had developed a storage target curve that helped determine when water would be released from Pillsbury according to lake levels.
The finding that the lake holds less water than the original calculations called for, said Pauli, could be another factor that will mean less water for farmers.
She said she's hoping a recalculation of the lake's storage will be a simple issue. “Although it doesn't seem like anything here is simple.”
Eisenhauer said that the storage capacity issue arises from soil buildup in Lake Pillsbury, which means the lake will be below the necessary storage curve more often. “It definitely does have an impact,” Eisenhauer said.
He added that PG&E has calculated that factor into its 33-percent flow reduction.
Meanwhile, area farmers have decided to continue working with PG&E to find both short-term and long-term solutions, said Pauli.
No one has ever done a study of the impacts on flow reductions, she said, and now is the chance to do so.
Farmers and downstream water users were assured that in normal years there would be no impact on their water supply, said Pauli.
The goal is to find a long-term solution that will protect the water supply, she added.
“A long-term solution will take a while, but we'll come to that, I hope,” said Pauli.
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at
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