Potter Valley dam buyer interest surfaces from Southern California district

A Southern California water district with more than 163,000 customers has surfaced as a possible buyer for PG&E’s Potter Valley dams, and that could matter in Humboldt far beyond the boundaries of Lake and Mendocino counties. If Elsinore Valley Municipal Water District is more than just sounding out the deal, a new outside player could change who controls the future of Eel River diversions, salmon passage and the regional bargaining table.

Elsinore Valley says it has served Southwestern Riverside County since 1950 and covers a 96-square-mile service area. That makes the district a long way from the headwaters of the Eel River, but not a trivial one. A board meeting minutes trail shows two directors traveled to a Potter Valley Irrigation District meeting, a sign the district is at least looking closely at the project. U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins added fuel to the speculation with a public post identifying the district as interested in taking over the two dams.

For Humboldt County, the stakes are not about who owns old concrete. They are about whether the long fight over water exports and river restoration gets more predictable or more complicated. PG&E first said in 2019 that it would not renew the Potter Valley Project license, then filed its final surrender application and decommissioning plan in July 2025. The project includes the Potter Valley powerhouse, built in 1908, Cape Horn Dam and Van Arsdale Reservoir, and Scott Dam, built in 1922. PG&E says salmon and steelhead can get past Cape Horn Dam through a fish ladder, but cannot pass Scott Dam.

That is why a buyer from Riverside County could be a serious shift, not just political noise. PG&E has been moving toward removing Scott Dam and Cape Horn Dam and replacing the old diversion system with the proposed New Eel-Russian Facility, or NERF, to keep limited diversion flows going after decommissioning. The State Water Resources Control Board already has a notice of preparation and scoping meetings underway for an environmental impact report on the surrender and decommissioning plan. The Eel-Russian Project Authority, created at the end of 2023, is also negotiating with PG&E to secure water for the Russian River and improve Eel River fisheries.

If Elsinore Valley is only testing the idea, Humboldt gets little beyond a fresh round of uncertainty. But if the district is willing to step in with real money and a real plan, local leverage shifts fast. North Coast tribes, fishery advocates and county officials would face another agency with its own water needs and its own institutional power. Lake County government and Potter Valley agricultural interests have already tried to block the current arrangement, and a Southern California bidder could either reopen the fight or complicate the path to a final deal, leaving Humboldt with less control over what comes next on the Eel.