The whole situation is absurd. Anyone who has lived in CA for any length of time knows that no functioning dam should be removed. The only thing they should be doing is building more of them. The audacity of politicians who refuse to do what the people of CA want is astounding, and only overshadowed by the stupidity of those who keep voting them into office.
(Born and raised there, now living in NC. My sisters still live there.)
FERC will default to the ERO engineers in the San Francisco office. The Pomo Nation needs to make clear its intention to intervene. Where are all the do gooder lawyers in California? Unspoken is the likelihood that the Pomo Nation will support dam removal, be careful what you wish for, they may want a lot of financial and other considerations which they will use to bend the process to their liking. The Native American nations have not been even remotely friendly to hydroelectric dams. They get big settlements with which the tribal councils spend on themselves and the poor of the nation get scraps. Sorry to be cynical but if the people in the region want to save their dams they better hustle and maybe try voting out the federal and state legislators who support this madness. Someone just needs to strap themselves to a flood gate and say “I ain’t moving until the Departments of Interior (think. Arrive Americans) and Energy come and get busy stopping the process.” Has anyone been in touch with the secretary of energy Chris Wrights office? Good place to start making calls to, get him galvanized and you might have an advocate.
I lived in Clearlake several years ago, met many people & their children who are ‘pureblood’ Pomo Indians; very good people, but living amongst gangbangers & actual Cartel members who have taken over there, and they need help getting rid of the drug problems there. Example: I’ve told people since I moved there & left just 6 months later, “I thought I was moving to Fishing Heaven, instead it was Meth Hell!”
I want to share a scene that shows what really went on with the Potter Valley Project. People often blame “bureaucrats,” but the truth is that political gatekeeping set the stage, shutting out sovereign tribes and locking the process in one direction.
Potter Valley’s Dam Debate: Who Got Shut Out, and Why It Matters
When people look at the Potter Valley Project today, they often blame “bureaucrats” for tribes being left out. But the truth is different. The bureaucratic process — agencies like FERC, state water boards, and PG&E — mostly just follows the plans submitted to them. They don’t decide who sits at the table. They process paperwork, open public comment, and run environmental reviews.
The real power lies in who sets up the table in the first place. And that’s where the story turns outrageous.
In 2019, a staffer from a congressional office told representatives of the Bear River Band of Rohnerville Rancheria, a federally recognized tribe, that they had no seat at the talks. They were ordered to leave the table because they weren’t part of the “official coalition.” That staffer had no legal authority to make that call. Sovereign tribes don’t need permission from a political aide to be present at a process that affects their homelands.
The reaction was swift. Leaders from the Wiyot Tribe and the Round Valley Indian Tribes stood up and walked out in solidarity, calling the exclusion unacceptable. They understood what was at stake: once one tribe can be pushed aside, every tribe’s sovereignty is vulnerable.
This wasn’t about bureaucratic efficiency. It was about political gatekeeping, deciding who was “in” and who was “out.” And that choice shaped everything that followed. The Round Valley Tribes, environmental groups, and water agencies became the dominant voices in the coalition, while the Bear River Band, and later the Potter Valley Tribe, were shut out.
Years later, the Potter Valley Tribe is still fighting for a seat at the table, forced to file a legal motion to intervene. They’ve been trying to be heard all along, but the coalition structure never included them, and bureaucrats simply carried forward the plan they were given.
Meanwhile, the coalition itself has been pushing for full dam removal. Round Valley supports it. Environmental groups want it for salmon restoration. Bureaucrats are processing it. But there’s another angle that’s barely been considered: alternatives like the Baker River model in Washington, where advanced fish collection and transport systems helped salmon recover without full dam removal.
How the Baker River Model Worked
By the mid-1980s the Baker River sockeye run had collapsed to just 71 fish returning to spawn. The population was nearly gone. To save it, engineers built a comprehensive “trap-and-haul” system. Floating surface collectors were placed at the dams to attract and safely capture young salmon heading downstream. Instead of being lost in the turbines, those fish were trucked around the dams and released below to continue their migration to the ocean. When adult sockeye returned, they too were trapped and then trucked back upstream above the dams, where they were released into Baker and Sulphur Creek reservoirs so they could reach spawning habitat that would otherwise be blocked.
Biological Results
The turnaround was dramatic. By 2014, more than one million juvenile salmon were being collected and transported past the dams each year, and adult sockeye returns surged to over 50,000 in a single season. A run that had looked nearly dead was suddenly alive again, thanks to a mix of technology and determination.
Cost to Ratepayers
And here’s the other important part: it didn’t break the bank. Puget Sound Energy customers, who funded the program, saw the cost show up on their bills as about one dollar a month. For the price of a cup of coffee each year, they supported a recovery that brought a river back to life.
That kind of result shows what’s possible when creative solutions are put on the table. But in Potter Valley, that option was never seriously considered. Once the coalition was formed, the direction was locked: dam removal, not alternatives. And the tribes excluded from the beginning never had the chance to argue otherwise.
What This Means for Potter Valley
The problem wasn’t bureaucrats. It was political gatekeeping that narrowed who could speak.
Sovereign tribes like Bear River and Potter Valley were left out, not because of law, but because of coalition politics.
Bureaucrats later just enforced the plan, but it was already tilted.
Alternatives like Baker River’s trap-and-haul system — which turned a run of 71 sockeye into more than 50,000, at only about a dollar a month for local ratepayers — weren’t even explored here.
The fight in Potter Valley is not just about salmon or dams. It’s about who gets to decide the future of the river, and whether the voices of sovereign tribes and local communities are treated as central, or disposable.
That’s why the Potter Valley Tribe is still having to fight just to be heard. Folks deserve to know how the process was tilted from the start, and that other models — like Baker River — proved recovery could be done differently and at very little cost to ratepayers.
I hope the Potter Valley Pomo Tribe stops the removal of the dams. It's all up to FERC.
Anything that will stop the damn politicians and corporations from removing the dams and denying everyone water.
The decision is up to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), an unelected body. They are bureaucrats. They probably live in Washington, D.C.
It's a crazy decision process.
The whole situation is absurd. Anyone who has lived in CA for any length of time knows that no functioning dam should be removed. The only thing they should be doing is building more of them. The audacity of politicians who refuse to do what the people of CA want is astounding, and only overshadowed by the stupidity of those who keep voting them into office.
(Born and raised there, now living in NC. My sisters still live there.)
FERC will default to the ERO engineers in the San Francisco office. The Pomo Nation needs to make clear its intention to intervene. Where are all the do gooder lawyers in California? Unspoken is the likelihood that the Pomo Nation will support dam removal, be careful what you wish for, they may want a lot of financial and other considerations which they will use to bend the process to their liking. The Native American nations have not been even remotely friendly to hydroelectric dams. They get big settlements with which the tribal councils spend on themselves and the poor of the nation get scraps. Sorry to be cynical but if the people in the region want to save their dams they better hustle and maybe try voting out the federal and state legislators who support this madness. Someone just needs to strap themselves to a flood gate and say “I ain’t moving until the Departments of Interior (think. Arrive Americans) and Energy come and get busy stopping the process.” Has anyone been in touch with the secretary of energy Chris Wrights office? Good place to start making calls to, get him galvanized and you might have an advocate.
I lived in Clearlake several years ago, met many people & their children who are ‘pureblood’ Pomo Indians; very good people, but living amongst gangbangers & actual Cartel members who have taken over there, and they need help getting rid of the drug problems there. Example: I’ve told people since I moved there & left just 6 months later, “I thought I was moving to Fishing Heaven, instead it was Meth Hell!”
Who do we contact in our local offices to address this? Which reps? Thank you
Thank you again Keely!
I want to share a scene that shows what really went on with the Potter Valley Project. People often blame “bureaucrats,” but the truth is that political gatekeeping set the stage, shutting out sovereign tribes and locking the process in one direction.
Potter Valley’s Dam Debate: Who Got Shut Out, and Why It Matters
When people look at the Potter Valley Project today, they often blame “bureaucrats” for tribes being left out. But the truth is different. The bureaucratic process — agencies like FERC, state water boards, and PG&E — mostly just follows the plans submitted to them. They don’t decide who sits at the table. They process paperwork, open public comment, and run environmental reviews.
The real power lies in who sets up the table in the first place. And that’s where the story turns outrageous.
In 2019, a staffer from a congressional office told representatives of the Bear River Band of Rohnerville Rancheria, a federally recognized tribe, that they had no seat at the talks. They were ordered to leave the table because they weren’t part of the “official coalition.” That staffer had no legal authority to make that call. Sovereign tribes don’t need permission from a political aide to be present at a process that affects their homelands.
The reaction was swift. Leaders from the Wiyot Tribe and the Round Valley Indian Tribes stood up and walked out in solidarity, calling the exclusion unacceptable. They understood what was at stake: once one tribe can be pushed aside, every tribe’s sovereignty is vulnerable.
This wasn’t about bureaucratic efficiency. It was about political gatekeeping, deciding who was “in” and who was “out.” And that choice shaped everything that followed. The Round Valley Tribes, environmental groups, and water agencies became the dominant voices in the coalition, while the Bear River Band, and later the Potter Valley Tribe, were shut out.
Years later, the Potter Valley Tribe is still fighting for a seat at the table, forced to file a legal motion to intervene. They’ve been trying to be heard all along, but the coalition structure never included them, and bureaucrats simply carried forward the plan they were given.
Meanwhile, the coalition itself has been pushing for full dam removal. Round Valley supports it. Environmental groups want it for salmon restoration. Bureaucrats are processing it. But there’s another angle that’s barely been considered: alternatives like the Baker River model in Washington, where advanced fish collection and transport systems helped salmon recover without full dam removal.
How the Baker River Model Worked
By the mid-1980s the Baker River sockeye run had collapsed to just 71 fish returning to spawn. The population was nearly gone. To save it, engineers built a comprehensive “trap-and-haul” system. Floating surface collectors were placed at the dams to attract and safely capture young salmon heading downstream. Instead of being lost in the turbines, those fish were trucked around the dams and released below to continue their migration to the ocean. When adult sockeye returned, they too were trapped and then trucked back upstream above the dams, where they were released into Baker and Sulphur Creek reservoirs so they could reach spawning habitat that would otherwise be blocked.
Biological Results
The turnaround was dramatic. By 2014, more than one million juvenile salmon were being collected and transported past the dams each year, and adult sockeye returns surged to over 50,000 in a single season. A run that had looked nearly dead was suddenly alive again, thanks to a mix of technology and determination.
Cost to Ratepayers
And here’s the other important part: it didn’t break the bank. Puget Sound Energy customers, who funded the program, saw the cost show up on their bills as about one dollar a month. For the price of a cup of coffee each year, they supported a recovery that brought a river back to life.
That kind of result shows what’s possible when creative solutions are put on the table. But in Potter Valley, that option was never seriously considered. Once the coalition was formed, the direction was locked: dam removal, not alternatives. And the tribes excluded from the beginning never had the chance to argue otherwise.
What This Means for Potter Valley
The problem wasn’t bureaucrats. It was political gatekeeping that narrowed who could speak.
Sovereign tribes like Bear River and Potter Valley were left out, not because of law, but because of coalition politics.
Bureaucrats later just enforced the plan, but it was already tilted.
Alternatives like Baker River’s trap-and-haul system — which turned a run of 71 sockeye into more than 50,000, at only about a dollar a month for local ratepayers — weren’t even explored here.
The fight in Potter Valley is not just about salmon or dams. It’s about who gets to decide the future of the river, and whether the voices of sovereign tribes and local communities are treated as central, or disposable.
That’s why the Potter Valley Tribe is still having to fight just to be heard. Folks deserve to know how the process was tilted from the start, and that other models — like Baker River — proved recovery could be done differently and at very little cost to ratepayers.
I just saw the letter from the Department of the Interior on the Facebook story. Will you follow up here? This at least needs to go statewide.