The Partnership seeks to explore terms for a new license that will materially benefit both basins by advancing the following shared objectives:
- Minimize or avoid adverse impacts to water supply reliability, fisheries, water quality and recreation in the Russian River and Eel River basins;
- Improve fish passage and habitat on the Eel River sufficient to support recovery of naturally reproducing, self-sustaining and harvestable native anadromous fish populations including migratory access upstream and downstream at current project dam locations;
- Reliance on best available science and engineering analyses as the basis for evaluating options for restoration, water delivery, and hydroelectric generation pursuant to a new license;
- Collaboration on funding;
- Active participation of tribes and other stakeholders who are willing to support the other Shared Objectives;
- Economic welfare of both basins;
- Continued hydroelectric generation; and
- Protecting tribal cultural, economic, and other interests in both the Eel and Russian River basins.
In 2018, Congressman Jared Huffman convened a diverse stakeholder group in a collaborative Ad Hoc process designed to develop recommendations to inform the FERC relicensing process for the Potter Valley Project. The Two-Basin Partnership is a direct outgrowth of that collaborative effort, which brought together diverse stakeholders to develop a compromise solution for the future of this aging hydroelectric project.
For more information about the Ad Hoc process and the Project more generally, please visit www.pottervalleyproject.org.