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Gravel bar on the Eel River in California.<\/p>\n
UCG\/Universal Images Group\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
The Trump administration is urging PG&E to halt plans to remove two aging Northern California dams that play a crucial role in the region\u2019s river system.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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PG&E owns Scott Dam in Lake County and Cape Horn Dam in\u00a0Mendocino County, which together are known as the Potter Valley Project<\/a>. Those dams divert water from the Eel River to the Russian River, providing water supply to local communities in Mendocino and Sonoma counties. The utility submitted its proposal to decommission the structures<\/a> in July 2025 and plans to eventually remove them altogether after determining that they are no longer economically beneficial.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Despite the fact that PG&E\u2019s plan has been known \u2014 and debated \u2014 for years, the Trump administration stepped in several months ago.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Trump administration\u2019s argument was that removing the dams would cut off critical water supply for farmers and rural communities. In December, Agriculture Secretary\u00a0Brooke Rollins urged<\/a> the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission\u00a0to reject PG&E\u2019s plan. FERC has jurisdiction over the facility as the federal agency that licenses hydropower projects. The Potter Valley Project included a hydroelectric powerhouse until 2021.<\/p>\n Now, Rollins is saying a potential buyer has emerged for the century-old complex.\u00a0<\/p>\n Make SFGATE a preferred source so your search results prioritize writing by actual people, not AI.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Add Preferred Source<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n In a Tuesday post on X<\/a>, Rollins said she spoke with the Elsinore Valley Municipal Water District, which she said is interested in buying the Potter Valley Project. That Southern California water district serves communities<\/a> in southwest Riverside County, about 500 miles south of where the Potter Valley Project was diverting water. Sylvia Ornelas, a spokesperson for the water district, told SFGATE that officials are indeed \u201clooking at water infrastructure and supply options beyond our immediate service area\u201d but said she could not comment specifically on the Potter Valley Project because it involves a potential acquisition.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Alec Varsamis, a spokesperson for the Department of Agriculture, confirmed to SFGATE that the agency met with the Lake Elsinore water district, which he described as a \u201clegitimate buyer.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n PG&E announced its intent to withdraw from the Potter Valley Project as early as 2019 and tried to look for potential buyers for the facility even last year, but no one came forward. A potential buyer would have had to essentially purchase the regulatory license from PG&E and submit an application for its renewal to FERC, PG&E spokesperson Paul Moreno\u00a0told SFGATE.\u00a0<\/p>\n Moreno added that the deadline to take over and keep the project running as a hydropower facility passed years ago.<\/p>\n Now it\u2019s up to FERC to approve the utility\u2019s plans for decommissioning the dams before they are potentially removed.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n At this stage, Moreno said, PG&E can\u2019t transfer the operating license, but other groups could still take over parts of the system, like the infrastructure used to move water. The utility said it\u2019s willing to consider proposals from groups that want to own and operate the dams. It received only a joint proposal from Sonoma Water, the Inland Water & Power Commission of\u00a0Mendocino County, Round Valley Indian Tribes, Humboldt County, California\u00a0Trout, Trout Unlimited, and the\u00a0California Department of Fish and Wildlife, he added.<\/p>\n Moreno said PG&E did meet with the Elsinore Valley Municipal Water District earlier this year but hasn\u2019t received any formal proposal from it to purchase the Potter Valley facility.\u00a0<\/p>\n Beyond removing old, deteriorating infrastructure, PG&E said<\/a> dismantling the dams could also reopen access to a fish habitat in the upper Eel River watershed that is currently blocked. Environmentalists and Eel River advocates<\/a> support the structures\u2019 removal so the Eel River can run at full strength again and potentially return a native salmon population to the waters in the process.\u00a0<\/p>\n But some local community members, primarily farmers and ranchers, have been calling on the Trump administration<\/a> to intervene to save the project for months. In an April 4, 2025, letter<\/a> to the administration, the farm bureaus of Lake, Mendocino, Sonoma and Marin counties wrote that they believed removing the dams would be detrimental to the region\u2019s water supply and to the economy.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n One of the replacement ideas from PG&E is to build the New Eel-Russian Facility, which would help continue some of the water flows from the Eel River to the Russian River even after the dams are removed, Moreno said.<\/p>\n As for keeping the existing dams instead, experts told SFGATE the Trump administration\u2019s push isn\u2019t feasible.<\/p>\n