Efforts on the Eel continue
California’s Eel River got its modern name from the swarms of Pacific lamprey that once plowed up and down its length, but it’s more famous for its wild steelhead and salmon –– and, unfortunately, for the dramatic decline in those fisheries over the past century. Trout Unlimited has been working over the past 25 years to improve habitat and fish passage for steelhead and salmon in the Eel watershed, much of which remains largely intact. Two recent developments in which TU has played a major role should dramatically improve the prospects for wild salmon and steelhead in California’s third largest river system. The first is that Pacific Gas & Electric, the utility that owns two old hydropower dams on the river, has agreed to remove them. … The second is that the North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board recently approved a proposal to designate two important tributaries to the Eel’s south fork as Outstanding National Resource Waters (ONRW).