Huffman warns Eel River water export could hurt Humboldt County

Humboldt County’s fight over the Eel River has become a fight over who gets water, who keeps the river, and who pays when the old Potter Valley Project finally comes apart. Jared Huffman warned that a new export scheme could hurt Humboldt County just as the region tries to end a century of diversions that sent Eel River water south for use in the Russian River basin.

The dispute sits inside PG&E’s long-running Potter Valley Project decommissioning. PG&E stopped generating power at the Potter Valley powerhouse in 2021, the project license expired in April 2022, and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission ordered the company in May 2022 to develop a surrender and decommissioning plan. PG&E filed that plan on July 25, 2025, and FERC accepted it on Oct. 31, 2025, opening a public comment period.

At the center of the county’s preferred deal are Scott Dam and Cape Horn Dam on the upper Eel River. Humboldt County says removing them would restore a free-flowing Eel River and reopen fish passage to upstream habitat. The county’s Water Diversion Agreement also calls for a new Eel-Russian Facility, or NERF, overseen by the Eel-Russian Project Authority, or ERPA, to keep a controlled diversion in place for Russian River users in Mendocino, Sonoma and northern Marin counties.

Humboldt County approved the agreement on July 22, 2025, after approving an earlier memorandum of understanding. County officials have described the negotiations as nearly a decade of work aimed at a “two-basin solution” that balances the needs of the Eel and Russian rivers. The agreement has an initial 30-year term with a conditional 20-year renewal, and the county says PG&E’s Eel River water rights would be owned by Round Valley Indian Tribes. It also includes limited diversions based on Eel River fisheries needs, adaptive management and an annual restoration payment.

Support for the broader package has come from a wide coalition. California Trout said it joined Round Valley Indian Tribes, the California Department of Fish & Wildlife, Humboldt County, the Mendocino County Inland Water and Power Commission, Sonoma Water and Trout Unlimited in signing a 2025 memorandum of understanding. CalTrout said CDFW committed $18 million, split between design and capital costs for modernizing the diversion and building NERF and an Eel River Restoration Fund.

The stakes are larger than a single dam removal. CalTrout said taking out the last two dams on the Eel River would make it California’s longest free-flowing river, while Humboldt County says the plan is meant to support Chinook salmon, coho salmon, steelhead and lamprey. Supervisor Michelle Bushnell has described the county’s side of the fight as a painful history of water being diverted out of Humboldt County without local input or consent, a history Huffman’s warning now puts back at the center of North Coast politics.