Battle Creek Dam Removal

Battle Creek flows through ancestral Yana lands near Red Bluff, currently stewarded by the Wintu Tribe of Redding Rancheria and the Paskenta Band of Nomlaki Indians, and it holds something increasingly rare in California's Central Valley: cold, spring-fed water that provides exactly the conditions Sacramento River Winter-run Chinook Salmon need to spawn successfully, along with storm and snowmelt-fed pools that support Spring-run Chinook. But since PG&E acquired the hydroelectric facility in 1919 and expanded it through 1980, eight dams and 42 miles of diversion canals and pipelines have eliminated anadromous fish access from 48 miles of river, cutting these already-endangered salmon runs off from some of their best remaining habitat in the entire Central Valley.

CalTrout has worked for years alongside the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, NOAA Fisheries, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, The Nature Conservancy, Trout Unlimited, American Rivers, and the Battle Creek Watershed Conservancy to change that. Progress has come in stages: Wildcat Dam came down in 2010, and the Eagle Canyon-Battle Creek Fish Passage Project, completed in 2021, reopened 8 miles of habitat on its own. The real turning point came in 2020, when PG&E announced it would not seek to renew its federal operating license, set to expire in 2026, opening the door to full decommissioning of the project's remaining dams, some standing as tall as 51 feet. Full dam removal would reconnect all 48 miles of blocked habitat, a transformative outcome for two of the most endangered salmon runs left in California.