Ukiah Daily Journal
April 20, 2022 at 9:22 p.m. | UPDATED: April 20, 2022 at 9:23 p.m.
To the Editor:
Answer to Scott Greacen’s Sunday April 3, 2022 Letter to the Editor on the Potter Valley Project. Mr. Greacen and his so-called friends of the Eel River, are they actually friends of the Eel River or environmental extremists. Do they care anything about human habitat? There are at least five water districts in Mendocino County that get their water from Lake Mendocino. Without water from the Potter Valley Project, Lake Mendocino will never fill enough to meet the needs for human habitat needed in Mendocino County, not including Sonoma or Marin Counties needs for human habitat. Look at this year how low Lake Mendocino is. All because the environmental extremists would not allow PG&E to transfer water during November and December of 2021 when we were getting plenty of rain to transfer water to Lake Mendocino.
Next, what about this Two Basin Solution disaster that will fail. Ten years after the Cape Horn Dam was built it already had silted in. That’s why Scott Dam at Lake Pillsbury was built. Lake Pillsbury has a bigger basin adequate for the water of every need including fire protection. Cape Horn Dam at Van Arsdale does not have a big enough basin for the needs of both the Eel River (fish) and the Russian River (human habitat) without the water from Lake Pillsbury. There are plenty of solutions to get fish past Lake Pillsbury without removing Scott Dam and destroying an asset like Lake Pillsbury. People need to watch the documentary “A Rivers Last Chance”.
In that documentary Lake Pillsbury only effects eight percent of the Eel River. The illegal dope grows effect one hundred percent of the Eel River. You will not hear any of that from these environmental extremists. If these environmental extremists truly cared about the Eel River they would go after these illegal dope grows that draft way too much water and release toxic pollutants back in the Eel River to the point the fish cannot even navigate back to their spawning grounds. Lake Pillsbury has water to send downstream during droughts in the summer months to help fish habitat. Without Lake Pillsbury there is no guarantee there would be enough water for fish during these droughts that we are now going through. People of Mendocino, Sonoma and Marin Counties, do not let these environmental extremists from Humboldt County destroy our human habitat.
Why don’t these environmental extremists have Ruth Lake’s Dam removed in Humboldt County (water supply for Eureka), because the people in Eureka would run these environmental extremists out on a rail. Oh, by the way Mr. Scott Greacen, I AM NOT a farmer. I am a native of Mendocino County from a family who has been here over one hundred years and does not want my county destroyed by people who do not even live here.
-John Almida, Mendocino County