Eel River

At 3,800 square miles, the Eel River watershed the third largest in California behind the Klamath and Sacramento/San Joaquin Rivers. Once the home to hundreds of thousands of salmon and steelhead, the Eel River is now going dry or becomes so stagnant that it is unsuitable for human contact in some of its reaches. Filled in by sediment from improper land management and floods, the Eel River is also depleted of flow due to Scott (Lake Pillsbury) and Cape Horn (Van Arsdale Resevoir)Dams on the upper main stem that shunt water south to the Russian River. Friends of the Eel River is working to have these dams removed so Chinook salmon and steelhead can once again return to the Snowy Mountain Wilderness and to allow real recovery of these essential populations.