All clips written by Roger Coryell, owned by their publishers
Gov. Gavin Newsom this week declared a state of emergency in Mendocino County over February’s storm damage and ordered Caltrans to seek federal money to fix highways here.
The U.S. House voted last week to order the Army Corps of Engineers to speed up its study of raising Coyote Valley Dam at Lake Mendocino — a study the…
Sonoma Water, which used to be known as the Sonoma County Water Agency, and which provides water to parts of Sonoma and Marin counties, will keep inspecting every boat that…
The Mendocino Unified School District has two new water tanks on its land off Little Lake Road. In July and August, it filled them with water pumped from its wells.
Anyone who wants a say in what federal regulators study before two Eel River dams come out has until 2 p.m. Friday to put it in writing, according to a…
Eight households on Gibney Lane and Mallory Drive, in an unincorporated area outside Fort Bragg, draw their drinking water through carbon filters installed on their wells in 1992. The owners…
The State Water Resources Control Board has recommended a danger advisory, its highest warning for toxic algae, at Lake Pillsbury after sampling ahead of the Labor Day weekend found toxin…
One of the concerns about taking out the two dams of the Potter Valley Project — Scott and Cape Horn — is the loss of water downstream for agriculture, recreation…
For most of this year, the kids at Potter Valley’s elementary school were not allowed to drink from the water fountains. A notice went up on Feb. 9: boil the…
Three dogs went into the South Fork Eel at Standish-Hickey State Recreation Area, outside Leggett, in the summer of 2002. Two started seizing within five to 10 minutes, and both…
Turn on the tap in Elk, Laytonville or Round Valley, and the water comes from a government. Not the county and not a city — there isn’t one. It comes…
The public gets nearly two more months to weigh in on the plan to pull two dams out of the Eel River. Federal regulators moved the deadline Friday, the day…
Pull up the satellite map from the San Francisco Estuary Institute, and it colors each lake by how much cyanobacteria the satellite can see — black for absent, up through…
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission took its public comment period on the Potter Valley Project in Ukiah over two days in June. Comments were made in private, behind a closed…
Drill a well in Redwood Valley, and a gallon a minute can pass for good news. Twenty gallons a minute, by local standards, is a gusher. Drill one a few…
Those attending the FERC scoping in Ukiah ended up speaking to a court reporter in private.
Federal agriculture and interior officials convened a meeting Monday at the White House with PG&E and a Southern California water district over the future of the Eel River — and…
The town of St. Helena got its first municipal water company on July 27, 1878. The St. Helena Star announced it that morning: "It gives us great pleasure to record…
Huffman charges that Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins is “politically freelancing” on a Southern California bid for the Eel River dams.
Almost all will learn a different river.
Mendocino County is not in a drought. That was the message Tuesday, May 19, from county Department of Transportation staff, who delivered the first formal drought briefing since the county…
The Elsinore Valley Municipal Water District wants to buy the Potter Valley Project — but the physics of the system make the bid nonsensical. A look at what the project actually does, and why a Southern California water agency's offer doesn't hold water.
LAST SUMMER, paddlers who pulled their boats onto a wet strip of sand near Forestville in Sonoma County were met by private security guards and signs telling them to leave.…
MENDOCINO CO., 5/15/26 — The Elsinore Valley Municipal Water District wants to buy the Potter Valley Project. The district sits in Riverside County, more than 500 miles south of the Eel River. It has never run a hydroelectric dam. Its vice president, Darcy Burke, told a podcast in late April t...
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…
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...
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.…
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…
Farmers in Sonoma County are staring down another dry season, but a new round of opportunities is opening up — from funding and field days to policy surveys that will…
Sewer bills keep climbing, tanker trucks still haul roughly 17,000 gallons a day out of Occidental, and summer bacteria warnings shadow parts of the Russian River. West Sonoma County gets…
Here’s the plain‑English version of what’s about to happen — and what it means if you grow grapes or buy fruit in Sonoma County.
The Russian is generous in summer—shade, slow water along the shore, a place to cool down. It’s also unforgiving when we forget it’s a moving river. Three people drowned here…
For the first time in five years, the Petaluma River’s going to get a good, deep clean. Come fall, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will be back with their…
Here’s the summer rumor, cleaned up for daylight: “Pacific Gas and Electric Co. (PG&E) is draining Lake Pillsbury, so the upper river’s toast.” Catchy, dramatic and not quite right. What’s…
Sonoma County’s groundwater is quietly vanishing beneath our feet, and the numbers are alarming. In parts of Sonoma Valley, deep aquifers have plummeted nearly 100 feet in the last decade,…
Water is life in Sonoma County. It fuels our vineyards, sustains wildlife, and keeps our communities thriving. But for months, landowners, farmers, and environmentalists have been locked in a legal…
The tasting room at Bricoleur Vineyards is all at once grand and familiar. The high, rustic ceilings hint at its past life as a horse barn, yet every detail feels…
West Sonoma County residents have a chance to shape the future of their wastewater systems and potentially lower their bills. A new committee, created in response to costly sewer spills…
Homeowners in areas like Monte Rio, Rio Nido, and Forestville who still rely on old cesspool systems now have more affordable upgrade options. These outdated systems dump untreated waste directly…
In a significant push for environmental conservation, Sonoma County may soon see its wetlands expanded, offering new protections to wildlife and bolstering climate resiliency. Local lawmakers, Reps. Jared Huffman and…
The Russian River County Sanitation District will hold a public hearing on May 21, 2024 at 9:45 a.m. at 575 Administration Drive, Room 102A, Santa Rosa to discuss proposed sewer…
Sonoma County is taking advantage of a surge in atmospheric rivers, with 12 recorded in California by mid-March 2023, significantly ahead of the average of six to 10 annually. The…
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