There are many unknowns regarding life after the Potter Valley Project, but one thing is certain: If diversions from the Eel River Watershed to the Russian River Watershed continue once the Pacific Gas and Electric Company successfully decommissions its hydroelectric plant in Mendocino County, any water still flowing through one of the most life-changing tunnels in the region will become a lot more expensive for humans to use.
“It’s not going to be free water that PG&E has abandoned conveniently into the Russian River; that will no longer be the case,” said engineer Tom Johnson, a consultant speaking at an “All Boards” meeting held at the Ukiah Valley Conference Center Thursday that featured most members of the Ukiah City Council, the Mendocino County Supervisors and other boards whose representatives make up the Mendocino County Inland Water and Power Commission.
Because the “free water” that entire communities and industries have come to depend upon for nearly 12 decades was at the start just a by-product: An incredibly precious resource that was essentially dumped into the Russian River as “waste” after being used to make electricity.
“But that waste product brought life to our community,” said Scott Shapiro, legal counsel for the IWPC, explaining that PG&E has decided that the cost of operating the Potter Valley Project, “particularly of operating the dams, far exceeds its value. And stopping the project means taking out the dams, which are the way the water has been stored in the Eel River, specifically to bring into the Russian to generate power.”
Because the project generated power, Shapiro said, it is regulated by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which will oversee PG&E’s surrendering of the hydroelectric plant, and will submit its application to do so by July 31.
“Now that the project is on this path, I’m told that the path cannot legally be undone now that we are on it,” Shapiro said, noting that one key success for the region is that PG&E’s application includes “the concept of continuing to divert water into this watershed through the New Eel-Russian River Facility, which was not a forgone conclusion.”
This new diversion facility, or NERF, will need to be built, Johnson said, because the “gravity-fed diversion will no longer work” without the dams, which he said “PG&E has been adamant” about removing. And after investigating a number of alternatives, he said, the Eel-Russian Project Authority (formed by a joint exercise of powers agreement between Sonoma County, Sonoma Water and IWPC) decided the best path was to build “basically, a pump station (that will) lift the water about 30 to 35 feet to the tunnel.”
While Johnson was explaining how much water the proposed facility could pump and when, noting that “the Russian River will no longer have the benefit of nearly year-round water flowing in the Upper Russian River, (because) without dams on the Eel River, water through the new diversion will only be available in the winter and spring months when sufficient water is flowing,” one attendee remarked on how much that pumped water is expected to cost.
“We’re paying about $18 an acre foot for water now, (but) we’re going to be paying about $200 to $300 per acre-foot when you’re through with this,” said the attendee. “You can’t farm on $200 to $300 for acre-feet of water and make any money.”
“Yes, it will cost to lift the water and put it through the tunnel, and to own and operate these facilities,” said Johnson, estimating that it would cost at least $40 million to build the diversion structure, then likely another $10 million a year to operate it.
“There are a lot of public funds available, probably not enough, so there will likely be some sort of a bond measure (needed to build it),” he said, noting that those estimates do not include the cost of increasing water storage, which is very much needed “as it doesn’t make sense to pump water that’s just going to get dumped down the river.”
The obvious place to store the water, he said, is Lake Mendocino, and the maximum amount that could be stored there currently would be about “60,000 acre-feet per year, but the reality is probably more in the 32,000 to 34,000 acre-feet range, so we’ve got to be able to store more water on the Russian River side.”
In addition to the uncertainties surrounding funding and storage, Johnson said the timelines for both the decommissioning of the existing hydroelectric plant and construction of any new water diversion facility are full of “best guesses” about multi-faceted government processes that could very likely take longer than expected.
“There’s a lot of regulatory agencies that are going to review a lot of things,” he said, describing a “28-month review process (involving) a lot of permits with a lot of uncertain timelines, but my best guess is we’re probably looking at probably 2031 to 2034 for when we actually have the start of construction (of the NERF).”
As far as any additional storage being provided at Lake Mendocino, consultant Eric Nagy explained that the latest study launched to “investigate” the possibility of increasing storage by potentially raising Coyote Valley Dam is in the “really early” stages of the very deliberate and methodical process that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers uses to determine the right path for reservoir changes.
“And the result is not guaranteed, as the (U.S. Army Corps of Engineers) could determine the best alternative does not meet the federal threshold,” said Nagy, describing the Corps as spending a lot of time to fully understand “the costs, benefits and environmental impacts (of projects),” and estimating that the entire process could take up to five years, “or even longer.”
As for the decommissioning process for the PVP, 3rd District Mendocino County Supervisor John Haschak asked whether FERC had been affected by recent layoffs, and whether its “regulations (were) set in stone, or can they be manipulated, given the current (federal) administration?”
Johnson said his understanding was that “FERC is relatively unscathed (in terms of layoffs), and that the federal regulations outlining the decommissioning process are the result of “100 years of case law, (so it would) probably literally take an act of Congress” to circumvent the process at this point.
When Hascak pointed out that it will be quite an adjustment for people who are now paying only $18 per acre-foot for water to potentially pay $312 per acre-foot for water, Shapiro said “unfortunately, there will be an economic adjustment, but the alternative is no water. It is unfortunate, but it is either (the higher cost), or there isn’t any water.”
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