Rollins meets with Potter Valley farmers and ranchers, vows to fight for their water

The Trump administration is taking a stand against California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s “fish over people” policy

Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins recently met with about a half dozen stakeholders local to the Potter Valley Project, a hydroelectric plant in Northern California slated for removal.

Through my reporting at UNWON I’ve connected with leaders in the Trump administration and was honored to help coordinate the meeting by organizing a non-partisan coalition of local leaders, farmers, ranchers, and business owners to meet with Secretary Rollins. These individuals discussed the future of the Potter Valley Project, the devastation its removal would have on the region, and the inadequacy of proposed alternative solutions including the so-called “Two-Basin Solution.”

The following Sunday evening, Secretary Rollins posted a message to her X account in support of the effort to protect this water supply, which is vital to thousands of generational farms and ranches in Northern California:

“The work to protect our farmers against a weaponized and often radical government continues. Earlier this week, I spoke with farmers, ranchers, and community leaders in Potter Valley, California. @PGE4Me is cutting water flows and pushing to tear down the Scott and Cape Horn Dams which have been lifelines for farmers and over 600,000 residents for more than a century. Once again, @CAgovernor and his legislature are putting fish over people, destroying century old farms and leaving families vulnerable to more drought and wildfire. Is this really America? This must end. I’m working with @SecretaryBurgum, @USDA, @Interior, and others to deliver real solutions to secure Potter Valley’s water supply. Stay tuned!!”

Around 600,000 Northern Californians rely on water from the Pacific Gas & Electric-owned project, which includes two dams and a diversion tunnel that stores a minor percentage of water from the Eel River during the region’s high-rain winter season. Some water is diverted to the Russian River watershed, the rest back to the Eel River. These diversions are provided during the summer months when the region would otherwise have no water. Farms, ranches and residents from Potter Valley to Marin County have come to rely on this vital water storage.

GOV. NEWSOM RESPONSE

Pleas from locals asking California politicians, including Rep. Jared Huffman and Gov. Gavin Newsom, to preserve the dams have fallen on deaf ears. Newsom has been a vocal advocate of dam removal, naming it part of his salmon restoration “strategy” and specifically promising to “complete an agreement” to remove the Potter Valley Project.

Yet in response to Rollins’ X post, Newsom’s office feigned ignorance. Spokesperson Tara Gallegos told SFGate Rollins “doesn’t understand that PG&E is a private company owned by shareholders, not the governor or the legislature. Once she learns how Google works, she should reach out to PG&E.”

One wonders why, then, Newsom was in the press last year “promising” to remove the Potter Valley Project.

Gallegos also failed to mention that, while PG&E may not be owned by the governor or the legislature, it is in fact regulated by them. PG&E is a state-regulated monopoly, tightly controlled by Newsom’s hand-picked appointees at the California Public Utilities Commission.

For his part, Huffman undermined Team Newsom’s performance of neutrality by providing lengthy commentary to various media outlets in which he vigorously defended dam removal.

“The dam is so dilapidated that it can’t operate in the normal way,” Huffman told Lost Coast Outpost. “So the answer to water supply reliability is the new fish-friendly diversion that our coalition has supported and that PG&E is including in its decommissioning plan.”

But a 2023 report from the California Division of Dam Safety, made public for the first time by UNWON, shows the dams have been rated safe for continued use — in direct contrast with Huffman and PG&E’s repeated insistence that the dams are “crumbling” and present a “seismic risk.”

THEIR ONLY HOPE

As locals explained to USDA leaders on the Zoom call with Rollins, the planned “diversion” referenced by Huffman does not include any storage facilities and would only divert water during the rainy season when the river is already at flood stage. This plan is not only unhelpful, they argue, it is actively harmful, putting Russian River communities at great flood risk. They say this “solution” is merely a tactic to silence opposition to dam removal, which they say is a pre-ordained environmentalist endeavor that puts “fish over people” as Rollins identified.

Advocates on the call told Rollins and her team that the federal government is their last remaining hope to save their water and the region.

PG&E submitted a final dam surrender application to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in late July. FERC is now in the process of considering the request.

The DOI has also signaled interest in intervening in the dam removal process.