The Mendocino Voice | Mendocino County, CA
Some animals win, some lose when the Potter Valley Project dams come down • The Mendocino Voice | Mendocino County, CA
Almost all will learn a different river.
Roger Coryell
All clips written by Roger Coryell, owned by their publishers
122
stories
May 2026
The Mendocino Voice
The best thing for birds in your Mendocino yard isn’t a plant
MENDOCINO CO., 5/12/26 — Clean, moving water may be the fastest single addition you can make to attract birds to your yard. A shallow basin works. A small fountain works. Even a slow drip onto a saucer will do it. Keep it shallow, change the water often, and scrub the basin; a dirty bird bath can...
Wine Country Daily
Tailless Petaluma rehab cub turned loose in remote North State
A young female mountain lion who spent the last five months at Sonoma County Wildlife Rescue in Petaluma is back in the wild, after state biologists walked her into a stretch of remote Northern California habitat earlier this month.
Wine Country Daily
Grand jury gives Sonoma’s open-space agency a clean review — and flags a 2031 cliff
A Sonoma County Civil Grand Jury report released Sunday May 10 says the agency that has spent 35 years buying up farmland and open space across the county is, by and large, doing the job voters paid it to do. The report’s title — “It’s On Their Website!” — is the jury’s broad answer to citizens w...
Wine Country Daily
Federal lawsuit lands as Clear Lake hitch run their spring spawn
LAKEPORT — While the chi push up Adobe Creek and Kelsey Creek for what may be one of their last legally unprotected spawns, a federal lawsuit filed last month is trying to force Washington to do what it was supposed to have done in January.
Wine Country Daily
For Bodega Bay’s salmon fleet, the season is open. Whether the fishery is back is another question.
BODEGA BAY, CA., 5/5/26 — For the first time in three years, commercial salmon boats are pushing out of Spud Point Marina with king salmon as the target.
Local News Matters
Coastal waters from Mendocino to Bay Area turning into a graveyard for gray whales
A deceased adult male gray whale discovered on RCA Beach had traveled past Tiburon on March 28 before passing through the Golden Gate on April 1 and washing ashore in…
Wine Country Daily
Opinion: A quiet scam at the dumps voters own — and pay twice to clean up after
When I moved to West County twelve years ago, dropping a load of yard trimmings at the Pocket Canyon transfer station cost $7. Today the minimum charge for the same vehicle, at the same gate, is $47. The per-ton rate over those twelve years has climbed roughly with inflation. The minimum has clim...
Local News Matters
Potter Valley dams to come down as SoCal interests challenge local water agreement
A century-old hydropower facility in Mendocino County is being decommissioned after PG&E filed to surrender its federal license. The Potter Valley Project includes Scott and Cape Horn dams, which will…
April 2026
Wine Country Daily
Federal gauges below Lake Sonoma have gone dark just as Sonoma Water calls a dry year on the Russian River
The river at Guerneville more than doubled within the same week. The public gauges that would tell us why have nothing to say.
Wine Country Daily
Cloverdale’s own water plan says the city doesn’t need the Eel River dams its vice mayor is fighting to save
Cloverdale Vice Mayor Todd Lands has spent the better part of this month working the phones with the Trump administration, lobbying USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins and her staff to derail PG&E’s plan to tear down the Potter Valley dams. He told the Press Democrat last week that 750,000 people in th...
The Mendocino Voice
Mendocino County’s little conservation fund has big ideas and a shrinking wallet
At the Mendocino County Fish and Game Commission's April grant hearing, commissioners spent the better part of an afternoon listening to some of the most ambitious habitat restoration pitches the…
February 2026
The Press Democrat
New report flags Lyme-positive ticks on Sonoma trail
Ticks collected along Umbrella Tree Trail at North Sonoma Regional Park came back positive in pooled tests for Borrelia burgdorferi — the bacterium that causes Lyme disease — at a…
The Press Democrat
A hard look at Sonoma’s escape routes
If you sat through Tuesday night’s Sonoma City Council meeting (Feb. 4), you heard two very different kinds of local truth in the same room.
The Press Democrat
No speeches, just shovels: Sebastopol volunteers restore a creek edge
On a winter morning in west county, you can still find places where the loudest thing is a shovel bite and a creek moving under the willows. That’s the mood…
January 2026
The Press Democrat
Tiny mountain lion, big stakes
A 16-pound mountain lion cub from Southern California spent Thursday night in Sonoma County under close watch after state biologists couldn’t locate her mother.
The Press Democrat
The smallest fish in the Estero tells the biggest story
You see them at the mouth of the Estero Americano, gliding low over the water with wings locked, skimming inches above the surface. Farther upstream, there is sometimes a flash…
The Press Democrat
What a sewage spill really does to a river town
When the Russian River flooded in early January, the wastewater treatment plant outside Guerneville flooded with it. Millions of gallons of untreated sewage spilled into the river over two days.…
November 2025
The Press Democrat
Road trip: Driving the Sonoma coast
Roll north out of Marin County on Highway 1 and the energy shifts the second you cross the county line. Development thins out, the wind picks up, and you get…
September 2025
The Press Democrat
Potter Valley dam removal to aid salmon but imperil Lake Pillsbury wildlife
A sweeping plan to remove two century-old dams on Northern California’s Eel River promises to revive native fish runs – but it also raises alarms for the wildlife that has…
The Press Democrat
Yogurt tubs to lawn chairs: Sonoma County’s new recycling life cycle
One year ago, Recology poured $35 million into its Santa Rosa recycling plant. With 100 conveyor belts, optical scanners, and storage bunkers the size of small houses, the Materials Recovery…