Regional agencies outline pump-station plan to keep Russian River diversions as PG&E moves to decommission Potter Valley project

Interagency officials outlined a plan Thursday to build a new pump-and-intake facility to keep water flowing from the Eel River into the Russian River watershed after PG&E’s planned decommissioning of the Potter Valley project.

The project team told representatives from multiple local water and irrigation agencies that PG&E has informed regulators and the public it intends to surrender the license for the Potter Valley project and remove dams, and that the proposed New Eel River Facility (NERF) would pump water into the existing tunnel that conveys water to Potter Valley and the Russian River.

Why it matters: The Potter Valley project historically has moved Eel River water into the Russian River and into Lake Mendocino for municipal and agricultural use. PG&E’s decision to stop operating the project and remove the dams would end that flow unless a replacement infrastructure and legal arrangement is in place. Agency officials said they persuaded PG&E to include a community-backed proposal in PG&E’s Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) filing, enabling a coordinated transition rather than a post‑decommissioning retrofit.

Tom Johnson, an engineer consulting to the interagency partnership, described the physical design. He said NERF would place a pump station just upstream of the existing Cape Horn Dam site, lift roughly 30–35 feet, and force water into the project's tunnel when diversion criteria and river flows permit. Johnson said the pump station would be robust enough to operate in high flows and sized to move from small diversions in low flow periods up to flows that match tunnel capacity during high runoff. He estimated peak power draw around 1 megawatt and said the facility would be designed to operate seasonally when water is available.

"We narrow…