The Cloverdale City Council’s attempt to weigh in on the fate of two Eel River dams broke down this past week in a public hearing marked by at least two council members hurling accusations at one another, exposing deep rifts in the elected panel.
The bare-knuckled discussion included barbed exchanges between Andrés Marquez and Todd Lands, who stand on opposite sides of a divide over PG&E’s plans for its pair of dams in Mendocino and Lake counties.
The utility wants to tear down the dams and an aging, shuttered power plant that has helped funnel Eel River water into the upper Russian River for more than a century.
Lands made opposition to dam removal a centerpiece of his run this year for a seat on the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors, denouncing PG&E’s bid to decommission the Potter Valley Project as a disaster that would jeopardize regional water supplies.
Christopher Chung / The Press Democrat file
Sonoma County Supervisor James Gore, left, and Director of Sonoma County Transportation and Public Works Johannes Hoevertsz talk about the plans for a permanent Asti Bridge over the Russian River, at Washington School Road in Cloverdale on Wednesday, May 31, 2023. (Christopher Chung / The Press Democrat file)
Marquez, the lone Cloverdale incumbent to publicly stand in favor of a plan to continue limited Eel-to-Russian diversions after dam removal, accused Lands of not being forthcoming with the council about his meetings with local, state and federal officials over the fate of the Potter Valley Project.
He said Lands had turned his council-designated role as a city liaison on the matter into that of a “water czar.” The arrangement was not serving the city or region well, Marquez said.
“Vice Mayor Todd Lands has been very active on his take on the Potter Valley Project,” he said. “We should all be very active.”
Lands, responding to Marquez’s allegations, said much of the information he’s taken away from meetings and contacts over the future of the Potter Valley Project had to be kept confidential.
Over the past year, Lands has posted frequently on social media about his meetings with such officials as the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins, who has sought to intervene in PG&E’s bid to decommission the dams, and about touring the Potter Valley Project with “government and private parties interested in purchasing” the infrastructure.
“You can’t always mention the names you’re talking to or the plays that are being done behind the scenes,” he said. “I gave updates for quite a while until someone on the council was … saying I wasn’t telling the truth because they had a different opinion. I had to stop because it was burning relationships I was working to create.”
Christopher Chung/The Press Democrat
Cloverdale Mayor Todd Lands speaks during the Potter Valley Project town hall meeting in Cloverdale on Thursday, March 20, 2025. (Christopher Chung/The Press Democrat)
The council majority has staked its opposition to dam removal and in a February 2025 closed-door meeting considered filing a lawsuit objecting to PG&E’s plans. In the same meeting, Lands, then the mayor, was appointed to represent the city on the matter.
The agenda on Wednesday, June 10, called for council input on a response to the federal agency overseeing PG&E’s application to give up the two dams, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, or FERC.
A report prepared by Cloverdale city staff for that discussion blasted regional efforts to maintain water diversions after the dams are gone. Opponents of dam removal have voiced doubts over the security of regional water supplies under that future project, endorsed by a coalition of governments in Sonoma, Mendocino and Humboldt counties, tribes, water managers and environmental groups.
Marquez, in his opening comments last week, took strong issue with City Hall’s handling of the matter. He accused both Lands and City Attorney Alex Mog of withholding information and not informing the public of closed-session decisions the council made about the Potter Valley Project.
Lands and Mog, he said, had both failed to provide meaningful updates.
“There was a lot of requests for clarity from the community because of the dereliction of the city attorney,” Marquez said. “If things were made clear, there wouldn’t be any questions.”
Mog shot back, saying what he is allowed to divulge out of closed-session meetings is limited without permission from the council.
“It’s a misdemeanor. It’s not the city attorney’s job to decide what the public should know. It’s the council’s job,” Mog said.
Mog did not respond to a follow-up request for more information about the litigation the city had considered. City Hall also has yet to respond to an April request by The Press Democrat for public records relating to the Potter Valley Project. On Thursday, June 11, after the newspaper’s fourth follow-up inquiry on that request, City Clerk Mike Maloney said the city found 96 records and would release them this week.
A city standing apart
Cloverdale has been on the front lines of the debate about the Potter Valley Project in part because the supplemental flows from the Eel River help recharge its Russian River wells, while sustaining irrigators, rural and city residents from Ukiah down to Healdsburg.
The Press Democrat
This map shows the location of Scott Dam, impounding Lake Pillsbury, and Cape Horn Dam, creating Van Arsdale Reservoir, on the Eel River, the Potter Valley power plant, and the diversion tunnel that feeds the powerhouse and supplements flows in the East Fork of the Russian River. (The Press Democrat)
But Cloverdale, led by Lands on the matter, has been an outlier among those communities, crafting a narrative that it faces the prospect of drying up without the status quo offered by the dams. On its website it has a pair of posters illustrating a stark before-and-after scenario for dam removal. The first, with dams in place, shows a thriving, verdant community, bolstered by recreation and farms. The second, with the dams gone, shows the town on fire, homes up for sale and wildlife and forests dying.
The city also drafted a boilerplate letter for local residents to send to FERC to lodge their opposition to PG&E’s dam removal plan and the coalition framework for post-dam diversions.
Christopher Chung/The Press Democrat
People crowd into the Cloverdale Veterans Memorial Building during the Potter Valley Project town hall meeting in Cloverdale on Thursday, March 20, 2025. (Christopher Chung/The Press Democrat)
FERC last month filed its scoping document for the decommissioning, providing an overview of PG&E’s proposed actions and potential resource issues associated with tearing down Scott and Cape Horn dams. The scoping document allows for public comment through July 24.
Kent Porter / The Press Democrat
Scott Dam at Lake Pillsbury, Wednesday, May 14, 2025, in Lake County. (Kent Porter / The Press Democrat)
The regional government officials who have sought to spearhead a post-dam solution for the two watersheds said they had no advance notice of the Cloverdale City Council’s public discussion last Wednesday.
David Manning, executive director of the Eel Russian Project Authority, also took issue with the information the city has put out about the topic.
“A lot of information about the project that has been shared by Sonoma Water presents a different perspective of what was in that (city) staff report,” Manning said. “We sent a message to Cloverdale about what might not be entirely accurate.”
Christopher Chung/The Press Democrat
David Manning, environmental resources manager at Sonoma County Water Agency, presents slides during the Potter Valley Project town hall meeting in Cloverdale on Thursday, March 20, 2025. (Christopher Chung/The Press Democrat)
He said the city had overstated the cost of the future diversion project by twice its estimated amount — the current figure is $50 million. The city also erred in saying that work has no funding.
“We have met with officials from Cloverdale, but it is a complicated project,” Manning said. “We are committed to make sure all communities understand and we will continue to do that.”
Frustration over information flow
Mog, the city attorney, also responded to Marquez’s allegation that Lands had failed to update the council of his work as the city’s liaison on all things Potter Valley. Mog said Lands provided updates last year to the council on March 12, June 23 and Aug. 13.
In his response, Lands touted a list of his accomplishments advocating on behalf of the city.
“We are doing everything. It’s not like I’m just running around saying ‘Save the dams’ and putting up signs in my yard. I’m literally doing everything, plus some to make sure there is a Plan B and Plan C,” Lands said. “It just depends on who you talk to.”
Still, Marquez voiced frustration over learning late about a series of potential alternatives to decommissioning, including an ongoing, final-hour attempt by two Southern California water agencies — Elsinore Valley Municipal Water District and San Gorgonio Pass Water Agency — who have signaled they may be interested in taking over the dams.
Lands, who has sought to distance himself somewhat from those talks while still welcoming the interest, shared new information about those discussions at the council meeting. He said FERC is guiding those interested in the dams toward a storage and flood control license through the federal agency. FERC can issue non-power licenses, but only after it conducts a thorough environmental review and dam safety inspections to ensure the structure poses no risk.
Megan McFarland, a PG&E spokesperson, said the company has spoken with Elsinore Valley, but reiterated the water agency has not sent any proposal.
The window to take over the project and continue to operate it as a hydroelectric project “closed years ago,” she said. PG&E does not have the ability to transfer its operating license “at this late stage of the regulatory process.”
McFarland did not return a request for comment clarifying if an interested party can still take the project over with a non-power license.
Any relicensing of the dams was likely to involve costly upgrades for fish passage and seismic safety.
PG&E’s final plans for decommissioning are expected in July 2027.
Cloverdale City Council member Andrés Marquez (Courtesy of Andrés Marquez)
Marquez’s proposal that he join Lands as a city liaison on the matter, working with — not against — regional stakeholders, was not endorsed by the council.
After nearly an hour of deliberation, Mayor Brian Wheeler called for an end to what he called the “pissing match.”
He sided with Lands, a close ally, saying the vice mayor had put “his heart and soul” into advocating for Cloverdale’s future.
“We’re working on water for the city of Cloverdale,” Wheeler said.
Correction (8:45 a.m., June 16, 2026): This story has been revised to specify that while Council member Andrés Marquez proposed the Cloverdale City Council designate him a liaison to work with local stakeholders on the future of the Potter Valley Project, Marquez did not offer a formal motion along those lines.
Amie Windsor can be reached at amie.windsor@pressdemocrat.com or 707-521-5218.
