Mistakenly named in 1850 for eel-like lamprey, Eel River begins a 196 air-mile journey from Lake County. Approximately 84,000 acre feet of water flows down Bald Mountain to Lake Pillsbury forming a headwaters lake. The upper-watershed lake formed a bond with the land as it flooded a gravel filled shallow valley containing few summer pools. The pools formed by beavers disappeared by trapping many years before that. A historically wet valley once supported young fish survival and growth before their journey to the ocean.
Downstream, pressure on anadromous fish is extreme as increased demand draws down the river’s shallow water table during the summer and warmer surface water supports predator fish. Adding to the problem, Van Horn Dam diverts water through a tunnel to the Russian River system producing electric power for the PG&E Potter Valley Project enterprise. This splitting of flow decreased water available to downstream habitats.
Today, PG&E is abandoning the hydroelectric project and the fate of both dams is being considered. Dismissive, advocacy chants calling for river restoration just by removing the dams are overriding unbiased solutions needed for the Eel River ecosystem. Native fish and wildlife requirements throughout the entire degraded Eel River watershed and the tremendous ecological and economic value of Lake Pillsbury’s headwaters ecosystem should be in the mix as essential. In truth, removing Scott Dam allows anadromous fish access to only 7% additional habitat compared to all the Eel watershed habitats.
The river’s four branches have degraded significantly over the decades with non-indigenous arrivals. Composed of sedimentary rock and soils, the entire watershed was easily eroded when logging and landuse practices increased vulnerability to high intensity storms. The 1964 storm’s 940,000 cu ft/s flow, was 70 feet above flood stage destroying 10 towns and 20 bridges, burying the main channels with sediment.
The debris wiped out native salmon and steelhead spawning grounds causing the already overfished but fast recovering salmonid populations to crash. Following the storms, the fish count plummeted from an estimated million to 10,000. The upper-watershed 1922 Scott Dam didn’t cause this crash. Instead, a headwater’s lake might have been proposed to replace the snowpack melt to help stabilize downstream salmonid populations. Lake Pillsbury’s ecosystem is now a model for developing an alternate plan that mimics ecological and economic realities for the future.
Keeping Pillsbury Lake has a value to consider. The lake is now home to trout, river otter, mink, water fowl, Tule elk and deer herds, eagles and other water-dependent wildland species. It provides fire protection to fight wildfires and adds backup for control burns. The ponded quiet-water, supports a needed Lake County economy and recharges groundwater to resurface downstream. In earlier climates, much of this chore was accomplished by beaver dams, early fall rains and spring snowpack melt. Nature wants water in this area as it was before the dam.
These values should be retained if the dam is removed. A broader unbiased vision would prioritize watershed restoration by adding spreading pool habitats until robust beaver populations are reestablished, developing streamside backwater pools for helicopter fire support and new trails for hunting, fishing and exploring what could be a trophy destination for outdoors adventurers. This coupled with compelling the downstream interests to keep the entire Eel system healthy before making water demands, should be any projects’ coin-of-the-realm.
Jim Steele is a former Lake County Supervisor, retired State Water Quality Scientist, Fish Habitat Restoration Manager, Registered Professional Forester and environmental consultant.
