To the Editor:
A little more than one hundred years ago a group of very smart people built a diversion dam on the main stem of the Eel River, tunneled through the hill at the north end of Potter Valley and built a hydroelectric facility to supply power for Ukiah, and in doing so supplied water to the East Fork of the Russian River. The small farmers in Potter Valley soon realized that the tailrace flow from the new powerhouse could be used to irrigate their pastures and orchards, so by 1925 an Irrigation District was established to deliver water to agriculture in the valley. The bulk of the water coming through the tunnel continues through Potter Valley and constitutes the majority of the water in the East Fork Russian River. By the 1950s it was obvious that this resource would be invaluable to the ways of life and cultures along the entire Russian River watershed, and therefore, Lake Mendocino was formed to provide reliable supplies of water for the region benefitting municipalities, agriculture, tourism, recreation and fisheries.
Mr. Gjerde: This is a project that should be celebrated as well as protected for its agricultural, environmental and recreational value, and not derided and chastised by a member of the Mendocino County Board of Supervisors. But on June 5 of this year you sent a memo to your colleagues on the Mendocino County Board of Supervisors in which you trashed the Potter Valley Irrigation District for its conduct regarding water coming through the Potter Valley Project as released by Pacific Gas and Electric Company. I find your tone offensive, dismissive and unnecessarily combative as well the fact that you base your recriminations on faulty information and misunderstandings of the issues at hand.
You contend that the “agricultural interests” served by the PVID “pay virtually nothing for their irrigation water” and compare what the more than 200 customers of the PVID pay to what citizens of Ukiah, Fort Bragg and Willits pay for their water. These “agricultural interests” are mostly small farmers and your snide suggestion that they should be paying $150 per acre foot is insulting. First of all the PVID supplies water by gravity flow from a system that has been developed, refined and paid for for almost 100 years. The delivery systems of Ukiah, Fort Bragg and Willits are relatively modern, are delivered under pressure and treated for use as potable, all of which involves expense, so comparing the systems is unrealistic.
Another piece of misinformation in your memo implies that all of the water coming through the Potter Valley Project is for the benefit of these greedy ag interests, not so. Over the years, of the water coming through the PG&E powerhouse, PVID has received a small percentage of the total, the balance flowing into the East Fork of the Russian River and thence to Lake Mendocino; and of the water entering the PVID system some 20 percent is used for delivery purposes and this also goes into Lake Mendocino.
Last week on June 15 during a discussion of the medical system in the county you remarked that when there is a problem in one part of Mendocino County it’s a problem for all of the county. I would hope that that attitude on your part would spill over to this water issue. I’m reminded of last summer when the coast was hurting for water, trucks left the inland valleys carrying needed water supplies to our neighbors on the coast.
This water issue is a countywide and regional one. Besides Potter Valley, Ukiah Valley, Hopland, Northern Sonoma County, Healdsburg, Santa Rosa and Marin County, one way or another, rely on this water. We’ve been abandoned by our radical enviro Woke Congressman Huffman who recently implored the Federal Energy Regulatory Committee to “expedite” retiring the Potter Valley Project without due process of confirming the reliability of water supply for the 750,000 Russian River ag, commercial, municipal and individual interests, thereby putting to lie his so-called “two basin solution.”
We in the Russian River Basin are alone at the moment, Regardless of the outcome the upcoming vote on added one-quarter or three-eighths tax, it is important to put aside narrow interests, the kind of narrow interests that caused Mendocino County to lose control of the water when Lake Mendocino was formed, and think of the good for the entire region, a good that is being attacked by smart, well funded and relentless forces who want to completely eliminate the PVP.
–Guinness McFadden, Potter Valley
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