eel river salmon

The Eel River, which has the third largest watershed in the state, supports salmon and trout fisheries. The deepest flood waters were nearly 70 feet (21 m) above the normal river level. The Eel River watershed is located entirely in the California Coast Ranges. [17] The Franciscan is part of a terrane, or crustal fragment, that originated at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. The region remained little traveled until 1850, when Josiah Gregg and his exploring party arrived in search of land for settlement. [42][43], Human impacts have led to a dramatic decline of salmon and steelhead populations in the Eel River system. The Eel River system is among the most dynamic in California because of the region's unstable geology and the influence of major Pacific storms. U.S. Route 101 runs along the South Fork Eel River and then the lower Eel River below the South Fork. In early 1972, California state senator Peter H. Behr introduced a measure to create a state wild and scenic rivers system, which would protect many undeveloped North Coast rivers, including the Eel, from future damming. [7] The river also carries the highest suspended sediment load of any river of its size in the United States, in part due to the frequent landslides in the region. [14], About 22,000 years ago, a massive landslide off Nefus Peak dammed the Eel River near Alderpoint to a height of 460 feet (140 m). [63]:315, Over the next several years, Reagan continued lobbying for increased protection of the Eel River system. The river was named after they traded a frying pan to a group of Wiyot fishermen in exchange for a large number of Pacific lampreys, which the explorers thought were eels. Later, the Pacific Coast Highway would be constructed along the South Fork and along the Eel River downriver of the South Fork. [68][69] There is wilderness camping above Lake Pillsbury on both branches, the Rice Fork and Eel River, (also known as South Eel because it is south of the lake), which have plenty of swimming holes and camp sites. The Colorado, Sacramento, and Klamath River systems are larger, but their drainage areas extend into neighboring states as well. Between 1857 and 1921, canning operations took an estimated 93,000 fish per year, with a peak of 600,000 fish in 1877. [16], Most of the Eel River watershed is underlain by sedimentary rock of the Franciscan Assemblage (or Complex), whose rocks date back to the Late Jurassic (161–146 million years ago). [53], The Eel River estuary is recognized for protection by the California Bays and Estuaries Policy. The construction of Scott Dam on the Eel River completely blocked the passage of critically endangered anadromous fish. All these and many more questions will be addressed in detailed studies required to support a final licensing application. At the mouth, the Eel River produces an estimated annual runoff of 6.9 million acre feet (8.5 km3) per year, or about 9,500 cu ft/s (270 m3/s). Eel River fall Chinook salmon historically began mass migrations from the estuary into the lower river in late summer, but now they enter months later as a result of what the ERRP calls … [6], The flooding was also deleterious to rail service through the Eel River canyon. River Information. The river's relatively large estuary and delta, which includes the Salt River tributary and related creeks, is located just one low ridge south from Humboldt Bay and 12 miles (19 km) south of Eureka, the main city for the entire region. [37] The watershed also contains many stands of Redwood that are among the largest such trees in California. [65]:135–137, There are also many miles of river suitable for flatwater boating in the downstream sections of both the mainstem Eel and the South Fork. Consisting of several hundred dwellings, primarily on Mendocino National Forest leaseholds but also including a scattering in private ownership, this community has very few permanent residents. They are Cyclostomes (Circle mouths), a primitive fish-like creature, and are not related to eels. [58] These conditions were revised in 2004, when stricter minimum release standards were established. Eel River Research Examines Dams’ Effect on Salmon. The Middle Eel has a good run from the confluence with the Black Butte River to Coal Miners Falls, which is portaged by all but experts. [15] At least 16 species of non-native fish have been introduced to the river system. This station measures runoff from an area of 3,113 square miles (8,060 km2), or 85 percent of the basin; however it does not include the flow of the Van Duzen River, which joins several miles downstream. [14] However, with better land management practices in the watershed, salmon and steelhead runs have shown signs of recovery. Besides addressing complex environmental issues, these studies would include an economic analysis designed to narrow down cost estimates, which vary wildly from little more than $100 million to more than $500 million. A new major factor limiting Eel River Chinook salmon survival is ocean productivity in the area off northern California. [35], The large storms of the mid-20th century, along with the ecological changes from logging and grazing activities, almost wiped out the river's salmon run. Although the portion south of Willits was reopened in 2006, the section between Willits and Samoa, which includes the entire Eel River portion of the tracks, is unlikely to ever be returned to service. Sediment deposits indicate the lake may have persisted for as many as several thousand years, which is highly unusual considering the easily eroded rock of the region and the highly unstable nature of landslide dams in general. PG&E initiated the licensing process in 2017, but withdrew its application early in 2019, stating that this operation has been a consistent money-loser for years and its fiscal prospects could only get worse given declining energy markets. [65]:134–135, The South Fork is a class III–IV run in its upper section between Branscomb and Cummings, with a waterfall that needs to be portaged. [15]:586, In the 20th century, much of the watershed area was included under state parks and national forest, including Six Rivers National Forest, Yolla Bolly-Middle Eel Wilderness, and Humboldt Redwoods State Park. The Eel River basin has also been a significant source of timber since the days of early settlement and continues to support a major logging sector. [25]:916[26] American settlements were made along the flat terraces of the Eel, near the confluence with the Van Duzen River and toward the mouth of the river where there was more arable land than the steep upper canyons. Water exports would take place during high winter flows rather than in the summer as they do presently and would be stored in Lake Mendocino. [18] This soil is often known as "blue goo" because of its gray-blue texture and its tendency to slip when saturated. Wilson calculated that Dos Rios would have reduced the 35-foot (11 m) flood crest of the 1964 flood at Fort Seward by less than a foot (0.3 m). [7] Monthly average flows at Scotia range from 19,700 cu ft/s (560 m3/s) in January to 138 cu ft/s (3.9 m3/s) in September – a 143:1 difference. Although most of the early settlements were made along the coast, some people spread south into the Eel River valley, which offered fertile soils along with other abundant natural resources. The party split in two and the survivors returned to San Francisco from where ships left to settle Humboldt Bay in early 1850, bringing lumber and supplies from San Francisco. This proposal would re-open the main stem of the Eel River to spawning runs of salmon and steelhead by removing Scott Dam, while maintaining electric generation and water deliveries to … The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers proposed a series of dams on the river and its tributaries, the largest of which was the enormous Dos Rios Dam near the confluence with the Middle Fork, which would provide water for the California State Water Project and control flooding. [50], The Eel River forms a 7-mile (11 km) long estuary west of Fortuna, which has been identified as one of the most important and sensitive estuaries on the West Coast. They crossed the Eel River on their way south where they traded a broken frying pan to the local fishermen in exchange for a large number of Pacific lamprey, which they mistook for eels. Several thousand people were left homeless by the floods and over 4,000 head of livestock died. Beginning several million years ago, tectonic forces shoved the Franciscan assemblage against the North American Plate, pushing up the Coast Ranges. Recreational Dos Rios, located at the confluence of the Middle Fork of the Eel River and the mainstem, is the put-in for a popular four-day trip through the Eel River … PG&E’s license will expire on April 14, 2022, presenting significant risks, liabilities and uncertainty to local communities and the environment. However, if you are looking for rainbow trout, you will want to stay above Lake Pillsbury. However, both the Mississippi and Colorado have lesser sediment yields relative to their drainage areas. [52] About 1,100 acres (450 ha) of the estuary are protected as the Eel River Estuary Preserve. [30] Now listed on the National Historic Register, Fernbridge is the last major crossing before the Eel arrives at the Pacific Ocean. "[24]:170–171, The Eel River was named in 1850 during the California Gold Rush by an exploring party led by Josiah Gregg. The Army Corps of Engineers and Bureau of Reclamation both sought to build dams in the Eel River system, which starting in the 1960s was targeted as a potential new source for the California State Water Project. Salmon and Steelhead are important to tribes, recreational and commercial fishermen and contribute to the local economy along the entire length of the Eel River. [12], Since the 19th century, logging activity in the watershed has loosened soil and destabilized aquifers, reducing the river's base flow, although the watershed is slowly recovering. Large-scale commercial fishing began in the 1850s, with multiple canneries on the Eel River operating into the early to mid 1900s. With no major dams to control its flow, the main Eel reached a peak of 936,000 cu ft/s (26,500 m3/s), with 200,000 cu ft/s (5,700 m3/s) from the South Fork alone. [54], There are two hydroelectric dams on the Eel – 130-foot (40 m) Scott Dam, which forms Lake Pillsbury, and 50-foot (15 m) Cape Horn Dam, which forms Van Arsdale Reservoir just north of Potter Valley. Current law requiring licensing to include provisions for fish passage costing nearly $100 million dollars made the financial picture even less tenable. But the … [58], The federal United Western Investigation study in 1951 proposed multiple large dams on the wild North Coast rivers of California, including the Eel River. Introduced pikeminnow, in conjunction with the diminished flows due to the Potter Valley Project water diversion, have taken a significant toll on the native fish population below Van Arsdale Dam. Below the South Fork the Eel flows through a wider agricultural valley, past Scotia and Rio Dell, before receiving the Van Duzen River from the east. Dam releases are now timed to mimic natural flows in the Eel River system. In response, they have formed a “Lake Pillsbury Alliance” which advocates for retention of the reservoir and development of alternative ways to provide fish passage. Dos Rios Dam would have flooded 110,000 acres (45,000 ha) of Mendocino County, creating a reservoir of 7.5 million acre feet (9.3 km3) – the largest in California, at nearly twice the size of Shasta Lake.[33]:136. In 2019 the Two-Basin Solution Partnership filed a Notice of Intent to apply for licensing and ownership of the project, followed in the spring of 2020 by a feasibility study and project plan that includes removal of Scott Dam, and a commitment to provide water to Potter Valley and the Russian River. [33]:147 From the beginning, these dams were heavily contested by local residents as well as by environmental groups seeking the protection of California's remaining wild rivers. The Potter Valley Project has been argued by environmental groups to have significant impacts on the salmonid (Chinook and coho salmon and steelhead) populations of the basin. Commercial fishing on the Eel River was banned in 1926 after decades of overfishing. Without licensing, FERC would have to initiate a “decommissioning” process that probably would result in the removal of both Scott and Cape Horn dams, restoration of historic flows to the Eel and cessation of water exports to the Russian River watershed. Rep. John Garamendi, whose district includes northern Lake County, has submitted formal comments to FERC announcing his categorical opposition to the removal of Scott Dam and demanding that Lake County be given a “full and equal seat at the table” by inclusion in the Two Basin Working Group, not just the committee, which has had representation from the Lake County Board of Supervisors all along. Logging companies also took hundreds of millions of board feet of timber from the basin, which were floated down the Eel River to the estuary. The river can be closed to fishing in some years after October 1 if flows are insufficient for migrating salmon and steelhead. [14][49], The Eel River has never contained true eels, but is named for the Pacific lamprey, an eel-shaped parasite that attaches itself to other fish during its ocean life-cycle. Be it the rivers of southern Oregon or the many … However, Behr had been forced to compromise in order to get his bill approved from the state: as signed, it would only place a 12-year moratorium on planning for dams in the Eel River system. In the Eel River basin, redwoods can be found further inland than other parts of the northern California coast because of the wide lower valley of the river, which acts like a funnel conducting moist … This proposal would reopen the main stem of the Eel River to spawning runs of salmon and steelhead by removing Scott Dam, while maintaining electric generation and water deliveries to Mendocino and … So, what can we do to improve freshwater habitat to help Chinook survival? Beneficiaries of the Two-Basin Solution include the fish: according to esteemed ichthyologist Peter Moyle more than 99 percent of available spawning habitat upstream of Soda Creek in the upper mainstem Eel River is blocked by Scott Dam, including Gravelly Valley, “some of the best historical spawning habitat in the drainage.” Beneficiaries include the water users. From 2013-14, 2016-17 were between 15,000-25,000 while 2015, & 2018-19 were between 9,000-15,000. Since 2004 the dams used by the project have been used to provide additional flow to the Eel River during the dry season, primarily to support fish populations. [29] Although located near the headwaters, these dams can cause a significant reduction of the flow of the lower Eel River because much of the river's summer flow originates from the mountains above Lake Pillsbury. In its natural state, it was the third largest salmon and steelhead producing river system in California – with over a million fish spawning annually – after the Sacramento and Klamath rivers. [57] Project water is disproportionately important to salmonids in the Eel River system as a whole because the water released from the bottom of Scott Dam is the only cold water available in the basin during the dry season. The Eel was granted federal Wild and Scenic River status in 1981, formally making it off limits to new dams. What would be the effects on surrounding wildlife such as the resident herd of Tule Elk? Our team is assisting the California Department of Fish and … Most of these areas were appropriated for agriculture and grazing land. [4] Flooding events have a large effect on the average amount of transported sediment: high water in the years 1969, 1983 and 1998 caused an annual sediment load 27 times greater than that of normal years. [67]:109–110, The Eel River watershed includes Admiral William Standley State Recreation Area, Smithe Redwoods State Recreation Area, Standish-Hickey State Recreation Area, Humboldt Redwoods State Park, Richardson Grove State Park, Six Rivers National Forest, and Mendocino National Forest, which are popular for camping and hiking. The river flows generally northward through the Coast Ranges west of the Sacramento Valley, emptying into the Pacific Ocean about 10 miles (16 km) downstream from Fortuna and just south of Humboldt Bay. Let Brice Dusi take you on a salmon or steelhead fishing adventure! The South Fork Eel River joins from the west, near Humboldt Redwoods State Park and the town of Weott. Because of the mountainous topography, the only flat land in the Eel River watershed is along the larger river valleys, where stream terraces have been formed, and in the estuary region near the mouth of the river. While tributaries like Jack of Hearts and Redwood Creek ran low, they remained cold but had no coho salmon … Making up … Steelhead numbers during the early-1960s were estimated to have been 82,000 spawners for the entire Eel River … Victoria Brandon is president of Tuleyome’s board of directors and she has lived in Lake County since 1981. At the small Cape Horn Dam about 15 miles (24 km) east of Willits, water is diverted from the Eel River basin through a 1-mile (1.6 km) tunnel to the Russian River, in a scheme known as the Potter Valley Project. After the state legislature approved both bills, the final decision fell to Reagan, who signed the Behr bill, again in favor of the conservationists. [22] When the first European explorers arrived, the area was home to several tribes of the Eel River Athapaskan group, with at least four groups identified by dialects: Nongatl and Sinkyone in the north, and Lassik and Wailaki in the middle and south parts of the basin. [1] The river flows south through a narrow canyon in Lake County before entering Lake Pillsbury, the reservoir created by Scott Dam. The lower part of the River provides good fishing for chinook salmon and steelhead. During the 1950s and 1960s, there was great interest in building much larger dams in the Eel River system, in order to provide water for the State Water Project. Lake Pillsbury would disappear. [33] Ronald Reagan, governor of California at the time, refused to approve the project. In 1981 – well before Behr's moratorium expired – Secretary of the Interior Cecil Andrus granted federal protection to the Eel River system and 1,235 miles (1,988 km) of streams along the North Coast, succeeding state legislation and placing the river permanently off limits to new dams. FERC can’t compel the partnership to pivot to a dam-retention-plus-fish-ladders outcome, or consider that outcome at all without a willing and well-funded entity to assume responsibility for massive construction costs and liabilities including ongoing dam maintenance. Snaking along California’s North Coast is the Eel River, the state’s third largest watershed, which along with its tributaries, covers 3,684 square miles … [40], The Eel River supports runs of multiple anadromous fishes – Chinook, coho salmon, steelhead (rainbow trout) and coastal cutthroat trout among the major species. [14] By the 1890s, fish populations had already recorded a precipitous decline. In combination with drought in the early 21st century, average diversions through the project have decreased by about 69,000 acre feet (0.085 km3) for the period 2004 through 2010. Below the dam the river turns north, flowing through a long isolated valley, receiving Outlet Creek from the west and then the Middle Fork Eel River from the east at Dos Rios. In the same year, senator Randolph Collier proposed a measure that would block dams in the Klamath and Trinity Rivers but "permitted 'planning' for dams on the Eel River. After the South Fork turns due north at Cummings it is mainly a class II–III, changing mostly to a class II run below Piercy. ", "California Water: Will There Be Enough? Are downstream flows sufficient to support spawning migrations this far upstream? The Eel's behavior of down cutting its own sediments has caused it to flow in a deeply incised channel, which can generally contain all but the largest floods. Although the effect on the total annual flow is negligible (only about 3 percent of the total flow of the Eel River) the impact is much larger during the dry season, when the Eel's already low natural flows are further reduced by diversions. However, redwood groves are still most common in the drainage area of the South Fork Eel River, which lies closest to the Pacific. What would replace the lake’s function as a fire-fighting resource? At Cape Horn Dam, the majority of the water is diverted through a tunnel and hydroelectric plant, and then to the headwaters of the Russian River in Potter Valley and is known as the Potter Valley Project. A second chance for Eel River salmon and steelhead? The human population of the watershed is about 32,000 – less than 10 people per square mile (26/km2). Ten towns were obliterated with dozens of others damaged; at least 20 bridges were destroyed, and some, including Miranda and South Fork, were never rebuilt. Vizcaíno sailed into the mouth of the Eel in January 1603 where instead of the cultured city of Quivera the papers had described, the men encountered native people they described as "uncultured. After damaging floods in 1955, these dams also received support for potential flood-control benefits. In contrast, during the dry months of July through September, the river achieves nearly zero flow. It begins high in mountainous pine forests, flows through deep canyons, cuts through majestic redwood forests and finally runs through a long, sloping valley into the Pacific. Starting in the late 19th century the Eel River supported a large salmon canning industry which began to decline by the 1920s due to overfishing. [4], The lowermost United States Geological Survey (USGS) streamgage on the Eel where flow volume is measured is at Scotia, where an annual mean of 7,309 cubic feet per second (207.0 m3/s), or 5.3 million acre feet (6.5 km3) per year, was recorded between 1910 and 2012. [14] The estimated annual sediment load is 16 million short tons, or an average of 4,458 tons per square mile (1,720 tons/km2). The Northwestern Pacific Railroad tracks follow the Eel River from Outlet Creek, about 7 miles (11 km) above Dos Rios, to Fortuna. A second chance for Eel River salmon and steelhead? By some estimates, it is the most important producer of coho salmon in the state. The watershed is bordered on the north by the basin of the Mad River, on the east by that of the Sacramento River, on the west by that of the Mattole River, and on the south by those of the Russian River and Ten Mile River. To report their discovery English Ridge – should receive the first federal funding grazing and other human activities to... Requires periodic license renewal from the federal Energy Regulatory Commission leads paddle trips along that stretch of anadromous! Estuaries Policy, when stricter minimum release standards were established the lower River! 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