The Lake Pillsbury Dilemma

A couple of weeks ago, Fred Gardner asked what my thoughts are about the Lake Pillsbury dilemma are, and here is my reply:

I have followed the Lake Pillsbury dilemma since 2006, and during the years since Congressman Huffman got involved, kept up with the various governmental exchanges — mostly by a newly attentive Board of Supervisors, and especially by the District 3 Supervisor Ed Crandell.

I’ve also maintained attention to the water storage and distribution services in both Mendocino and Lake Counties, with a closer eye on special districts and their innovative collaboration in the Ukiah Valley, for example.

I cannot provide any reasoned (or legally citable) argument for what I would prefer as the “solution” to the problem, but for what it's worth:

1. The State (Governor, Governor’s Office of Land Use and Innovation — formerly the Office of Planning and Research, Departments of Conservation, Water Resources, Forestry and Fire Protection, Public Health, et cetera) should — through the California Public Utilities Commission — take eminent domain control of PG&E’s Lake Pillsbury and delegate ownership of the lake to the County, through the State Lands Commission (as it did in 1973, with the disposition of Clear Lake as a Public Trust Asset “managed” by the County of Lake).
2. Surrounding beneficiary counties (Humboldt, Mendocino, Sonoma, Napa, Solano, and Yolo) should be required to compensate the county for the water received from Lake County’s headwaters, for the purpose of maintaining the headwater facilities within Lake County that provide water supplies to those outside counties.  
3. PG&E should be required to provide resources to install the originally-required fish ladder(s) that were supposed to be part of the original construction project, in line with its 2005 statewide “Land Stewardship Program.”    
4. The North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board should revisit its role as the authority governing the Eel River Watershed, and provide technical watershed restoration and economic sustainability of the Humboldt and Mendocino County Public Trust Asset.

[Legal “ownership” of the Eel River Watershed was claimed by NCRWQCB in 2005, within the contents of that Board’s Prop. 50-funded Integrated Regional Water Management Plan.  Lake County’s official responsible for Lake’s IRWMP explained that the County did not want to get into a battle over water rights when the Lake County Board of Supervisors approved the 2005 NCRWQCB plan without dispute.]

5. The US Forest Service should create mutually beneficial road and public safety service agreements* with the County of Lake, and the Forestry Service should provide Snow Mountain Watershed and the Snow Mountain - Berryessa Wilderness with ecosystem management services including the private lands belonging to the County of Lake’s unincorporated territories (within the jurisdictional boundary of the county’s Watershed Protection District).
6. The Mendocino Inland Power & Water District, Russian River Water District, Redwood Valley Water District, et al, should enter into water delivery contracts amounting to the cost of maintaining the Potter Valley components of the system. [I think some of this is already being done.]
7. The US Armey Corps of Engineers should be assigned the responsibility for maintenance of all of the facilities on the “South Fork” of the Eel River, and work with the available supplier agreements to support enlargement of Lake Mendocino and operational sustainability of Coyote Dam.
8. Jared Huffman should . . . [expletive deleted].

I know I don’t have all the parts and pieces correctly specified, but how is that for a start?

*For good measure, the USFS should enforce the federal laws prohibiting the transport of cannabis and cannabis related materials on federal roads in the County of Lake.  The other counties may or may not want that option, but I and several other environmental advocates in Lake County do.