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156-515: The Eel River ( Wiyot : Wiya't ; Cahto : Taanchow ; Northern Pomo : ch'idiyu ) is a major river, about 196 miles (315 km) long, in northwestern California . The river and its tributaries form the third-largest watershed entirely in California, draining a rugged area of 3,684 square miles (9,540 km) in five counties. The river flows generally northward through the Coast Ranges west of

312-442: A CVV or CVC structure. Word final syllables may or may not be heavy. These syllable-final consonants are lengthened in speech, but do not appear as doubled letters in transcription. For example, in the word palógih , meaning 'flounder', the 'l' is lengthened. Thus, the first syllable ends with 'l', and the second begins with 'l', and both syllables are considered heavy. Teeter describes the " weight " of Wiyot syllables as one of

468-686: A burgeoning cannabis industry, and other human activities continue to significantly affect the watershed's ecology. The Eel River originates on the southern flank of 6,740-foot (2,050 m) Bald Mountain, in the Upper Lake Ranger District of the Mendocino National Forest in Mendocino County. The river flows south through a narrow canyon in Lake County before entering Lake Pillsbury , the reservoir created by Scott Dam. Below

624-467: A deeply incised channel, which can generally contain all but the largest floods. The younger mountains in the north may be uplifting at a rate ten times faster than the headwater regions further south and east, which consist of much older rock. The Eel River has the highest per-unit-area sediment yield of any river of comparable watershed size in the continental U.S., excluding those fed by active glacial or volcanic sources. The estimated annual sediment load

780-478: A distinct flood plain and also a terrace. California State Route 20 runs east from Route 101 to the north of Ukiah. It skirts the north shore of Lake Mendocino and then crosses East Fork Russian River near the northeast corner of the lake. It follows the river for about two miles, then turns to the southeast along Cold Creek. Potter Valley Road continues from Highway 20 along East Fork Russian River, which it crosses twice before reaching Potter Valley. McKee Park

936-460: A general weakening of articulatory force, which is followed by a noticeable interval of silence. Despite the intricacies of pitch involved in Wiyot, the total pitch range of the spoken language is only a fraction of that of English, for example. This fragment of Wiyot narration consists of two breath groups: the first contains five accent phrases, the second contains just one. The first accent phrase of

1092-553: A high of 12.5 million acre-feet (15.4 km), or 17,300 cu ft/s (490 m/s), in 1983, and a low of 410,000 acre-feet (0.51 km), or 563 cu ft/s (15.9 m/s), in 1977. Reduction in flow occurs in part due to deliberate water diversion from the Eel to the Russian River watershed by the Pacific Gas and Electric Company's Potter Valley Project , located to

1248-533: A northwesterly direction across Humboldt County, past a number of small mountain communities including Fort Seward . The South Fork Eel River joins from the west, near Humboldt Redwoods State Park and the town of Weott . Below the South Fork the Eel flows through a wider agricultural valley, past Scotia and Rio Dell , before receiving the Van Duzen River from the east. At Fortuna, the river turns west across

1404-609: A phonological cluster, are combined due to morphological construction, the general tendency is for the second element to be eliminated. This is not true in the case of a laryngeal combining with a consonant cluster, in that order. In such a situation, the initial laryngeal element is eliminated. Wiyot is a highly synthetic , agglutinative language. Words or, more specifically, accent phrases, are formed by joining stems and affixes . Wiyot employs both prefixation and suffixation, meaning that affixes appear both before and after stems. Both verb and noun forms are constructed this way, though

1560-614: A primitive fish-like creature, and are not related to eels. The Eel River forms a 7-mile (11 km) long estuary west of Fortuna, which has been identified as one of the most important and sensitive estuaries on the West Coast. The estuary consists of some 8,700 acres (3,500 ha) of tidal flats, perennial and seasonal wetlands, connected by 75 miles (121 km) of river channels and tidal sloughs . About 1,550 acres (630 ha) consist of undeveloped wetlands while 5,500 acres (2,200 ha) have been converted to agriculture. The estuary

1716-888: A run of over 30,000 fish, the largest on record since 1958. Since 2012, runs have fluctuated. While improved from the low point of 3,500 at the beginning of the decade, the runs have yet to again reach the high mark of over 30,000. From 2013 to 2014, 2016 to 2017 were between 15,000 and 25,000 while 2015, and 2018 to 2019 were between 9,000 and 15,000. The river provides wildlife habitat for preservation of rare and endangered species including warm and cold freshwater habitat for fish migration and spawning. The river and its tributaries support at least 15 species of native freshwater fish. Major species include Pacific lamprey , Entosphenus tridentatus , formerly Lampetra tridentata , Sacramento sucker , threespine stickleback , Pacific staghorn sculpin , Coastrange sculpin and prickly sculpin . At least 16 species of non-native fish have been introduced to

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1872-729: A series of dams on the river and its tributaries, the largest of which was the enormous Dos Rios Dam near the confluence with the Middle Fork, which would provide water for the California State Water Project and control flooding. Water would be diverted through a 40-mile (64 km) tunnel to the Sacramento Valley , where it would join the water flowing down the Sacramento River to the California Aqueduct pumps in

2028-411: A slash where both orthographies use the same grapheme. Teeter's orthography is used in this article for examples. Wiyot syllables always begin with consonants or consonant clusters, which are followed by a vowel. This vowel may be long or short. If the vowel is short, the syllable must end in the same consonant that begins the next syllable. Therefore, all non-final syllables are heavy, acquiring either

2184-612: A storage capacity of 74,993 acre⋅ft (92,503,000 m ) and releases water for the powerhouse throughout the year. The Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) acquired the project in 1930. The Potter Valley Project maintains minimum instream flow in the East Fork Russian River and in the Eel River. Some of the water from the generating station is used by the Potter Valley Irrigation District, while

2340-416: A subordinative derivational suffix. Pronouns from this second set tend to replace the initial consonants of the themes they are affixed to. Thus, in the noun form khápt , meaning 'your teeth', the second person possessive prefix for inalienable nouns kh- replaces the initial consonant of wapt , 'teeth'. Within the second set, there is also an indefinite or absolutive prefix b . The third set

2496-404: A suffix added to a noun theme, expresses that the inflected noun belongs to another nominal concept- a person, perhaps. Nouns can also be subordinated to an indefinite nominal concept using the suffix -ik . The definite subordinative suffixes are -ahl , -ihl and ohl . An example of a definite subordinate inflection is the noun form waptáhl , meaning 'his teeth', which consists of

2652-464: A time or place in which a verbal phrase occurs. For example, dótok is a principal nominal form meaning 'large, longish object'; kíłi is a modifying nominal form meaning 'right now'. Pronominal phrases further elucidate verbal complexes, and can be employed as noun forms themselves. hinód , for example, can take the nominalizing affix -ał and be treated as a nominal phrase. These elements are combined relatively freely to form sentences;

2808-580: A water supply pool of 70,000 acre⋅ft (86,000,000 m ). The embankment is 160 ft (49 m) high and has a crest length of 3,500 ft (1,100 m). Construction of the Coyote Dam began in July 1956. The USACE proposed to only clear a strip of land around the reservoir from the 700 to 745 ft (213 to 227 m) elevations. Residents were concerned that underwater trees, stumps and debris would be dangerous to swimmers, boaters and fisherment, and in

2964-558: Is Franciscan Complex , a jumbled mixture of different types of rock that is very prone to erosion and landslides. Coyote Valley is a southerly trending valley about 1 to 1.5 mi (1.6 to 2.4 km) wide by 3 mi (4.8 km) long that is underlain primarily by metamorphic rocks from the Franciscan formation. Most of the recreation areas located within the Lake Mendocino boundary have 6 to 12 inches of silt, or sandy silt, overlying

3120-570: Is 16 million short tons , or an average of 4,458 tons per square mile (1,720 tons/km). Flooding events have a large effect on the average amount of transported sediment: high water in the years 1969, 1983 and 1998 caused an annual sediment load 27 times greater than that of normal years. Among rivers of the contiguous United States, only the Mississippi River carries more sediment to the sea (the Colorado River historically transported more than

3276-438: Is a modifying nominal phrase, translated in this example as 'here'; kwháli means 'here' and yał is an adversative postposition translated as 'but'. koto walùy is the verbal phrase: ko is the negative preverb, from position class IV, and to is an articular preverb, while walùy is the verb 'see' inflected for the indefinite third person. East Fork Russian River Cold Creek flows year round, while

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3432-401: Is about 623 ft (190 m) above sea level. East Fork Russian River forms in the north end of Potter Valley and flows south through a canyon to Coyote Valley, now filled by Lake Mendocino . Potter Valley is an alluvial valley, a depression created by movement of parallel faults that has filled with gravel, boulders and cobble eroded from the surrounding mountains. The basement rock

3588-405: Is also the most common third person inflectional suffix in Wiyot, and both the nominalizing and inflectional suffixes appear in the same position. This gives rise to some degree of morphological ambiguity in many cases.) bacawáłiksił is a nominalized form meaning 'swan'; it is derived from the homonymous verb meaning 'he makes it dry'. bacigadarawił means 'robin', and is derived from

3744-736: Is highly variable; average flows in January and February are over 100 times greater than in August and September. The river also carries the highest suspended sediment load of any river of its size in the United States, in part due to the frequent landslides in the region. However, the river basin also supports abundant forests – including some of the world's largest trees in Sequoia sempervirens (Coastal redwood) groves–and, historically, one of California's major salmon and steelhead trout runs. The river basin

3900-541: Is in the south of Potter Valley beside the Potter Valley Road and stretches along the East Fork Russian River for about 2 mi (3.2 km). This section of the river is shaded by various types of native oaks and bay trees. The waters may be dangerous, and there are no attendants, but visitors may wade, swim or fish along the river. Clear Lake , to the east of the Russian River, formed about 600,000 years ago as

4056-566: Is known as the Potter Valley Project. Originally conceived in the late 1800s and built between 1906 and 1922, the project provides about 159,000 acre-feet (0.196 km) of additional water for the Russian River system for about 500,000 people in Mendocino and Sonoma Counties. The Potter Valley Project has been argued by environmental groups to have significant impacts on the salmonid (Chinook and coho salmon and steelhead) populations of

4212-402: Is limited largely to kinship terms and the word for 'nose'. In the third set, the second person possessive is articulated by aspirating the initial phoneme of the noun theme. Thus, čul , meaning 'maternal aunt', becomes čhul [čʰul] , 'your maternal aunt'. There is no marking of a first person possessive in this category, and, as in the second set, a third person possessive is indicated by

4368-490: Is often dropped in spoken Wiyot. khuhlóš , meaning 'your strawberries', includes the second person pronoun from this first set, khuh- . The second set applies only to inalienable nouns, or nouns that must be possessed, such as body parts. Curiously, the words for 'wood' and 'enemy' belong in this category of Wiyot nouns, as well. The set only distinguishes two persons: first- d- ; second- kh- . Third person possession of inalienable nouns tends to be conveyed using

4524-658: Is part of a terrane , or crustal fragment, that originated at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. Beginning several million years ago, tectonic forces shoved the Franciscan assemblage against the North American Plate , pushing up the Coast Ranges. The Eel River basin is among the most seismically active areas in California, especially in the north (the river empties into the Pacific only several miles north of Cape Mendocino near

4680-569: Is performed using a device of some kind. Instrumental and benefactive affixes directly encode for the subject of the verb and thus do not appear with inflectional affixes for subject. Therefore, the most inflectional affixes a verb can possibly take is three. Inflectional affixes can be either terminal or nonterminal in nature. Terminal affixes, when added to verb or noun themes, can complete words, while nonterminal affixes require additional affixation. The noun form rakhóhwalił , meaning 'he/she laughs at me', contains two inflectional affixes that modify

4836-551: Is recognized for protection by the California Bays and Estuaries Policy . In 2018 CalTrout , along with other partners, announced they had received a grant of over $ 5M to revive the degraded estuary. The site of the project is the Eel River Estuary Preserve, formerly known as Connick Ranch. The Wildlands Conservancy acquired the land in 2008 with the goal of restoring the wetland system and provide public access to

Eel River (California) - Misplaced Pages Continue

4992-499: Is the only cold water available in the basin during the dry season. During July, August and September, temperatures in the lower Eel River occasionally hit 85 °F (29 °C) or higher, creating fatal conditions for these fish. In 1983, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission relicensed the project under the condition that more water be provided to the Eel River during the dry season and less be diverted to

5148-537: Is the third-largest coastal wetland region in California, after the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta and the Salinas River estuaries in central California, forming an important habitat for various species of shorebirds, fish and mammals such as river otters and harbor seals . About 1,100 acres (450 ha) of the estuary are protected as the Eel River Estuary Preserve. The Eel River estuary

5304-402: Is used with the inalienable nouns and kinship terms mentioned above. 'On your teeth' is expressed hola wáptihyam ( -la appears after all prefixes that are followed by b or w ). There is a single vocative prefix, ho- , that occurs with kinship terms. It appears affixed to ko , meaning 'mother', in the form hóko . Wiyot personal pronouns are generally used to emphasize

5460-729: The Mendocino Triple Junction , which marks the northern end of the San Andreas Fault and produces frequent earthquakes due to the juncture of three tectonic plates ). In the western and northern portions of the Eel River watershed, soils eroded from the Franciscan assemblage are often sticky, clayey and highly unstable, creating a high risk of landslides. This soil is often known as " blue goo " because of its gray-blue color, soft, sticky texture, and its tendency to slip when saturated. Further inland and south, soils are well drained, although landslides are nevertheless common because of

5616-598: The Sacramento River , on the west by that of the Mattole River , and on the south by those of the Russian River and Ten Mile River . Major centers of population on the river include Willits , Garberville , Redway , Scotia, Rio Dell , Fortuna, and Ferndale . Minor communities include Laytonville , Branscomb , Cummings, Leggett , Piercey, Benbow , Phillipsville , Myers Flat , Shively , and Pepperwood . The river's relatively large estuary and delta, which includes

5772-473: The Sacramento Valley , emptying into the Pacific Ocean about 10 miles (16 km) downstream from Fortuna and just south of Humboldt Bay . The river provides groundwater recharge , recreation, and industrial, agricultural and municipal water supply. The Eel River system is among the most dynamic in California because of the region's unstable geology and the influence of major Pacific storms. The discharge

5928-564: The Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta . The proposal was defeated with public initiative by the early 1970s, to protect the remaining relatively wild rivers in the state. Ronald Reagan , governor of California at the time, refused to approve the project. The proposed reservoir would have flooded the Round Valley Indian Reservation . In 1964, a severe Pineapple Express event known as "The '64 Flood" brought heavy rains to coastal northern California. The Eel River drainage area

6084-539: The Salt River tributary and related creeks, is located just one low ridge south from Humboldt Bay and 12 miles (19 km) south of Eureka , the main city in the region. Since the mid-19th century, logging activity in the watershed has loosened soil and destabilized aquifers, reducing the river's base flow , although the watershed is slowly recovering. Logging, grazing and other resource exploitation activities and their accompanying environmental changes have also increased

6240-581: The Yurok language , were first identified as relatives of the Algonquian languages by Edward Sapir in 1913, though this classification was disputed for decades in what came to be known as the Ritwan controversy . Due to the enormous geographical separation of Wiyot and Yurok from all other Algonquian languages, the validity of their genetic link was hotly contested by leading Americanist linguists; as Ives Goddard put it,

6396-427: The 1850s, with multiple canneries on the Eel River operating into the early to mid 1900s. Between 1857 and 1921, canning operations took an estimated 93,000 fish per year, with a peak of 600,000 fish in 1877. By the 1890s, fish populations had already recorded a precipitous decline. Logging and grazing, which expose formerly forested land as bare ground, have had even greater impact on the populations of these fish. Due to

Eel River (California) - Misplaced Pages Continue

6552-400: The 1964 flood, chinook salmon populations plunged to fewer than 10,000 per year. Anadromous fish populations have continued to decline since the 1960s; in 2010, only 3,500 salmon and steelhead returned to the river to spawn. However, with better land management practices in the watershed, salmon and steelhead runs have shown signs of recovery. In late 2012, high water in the Eel River attracted

6708-569: The Army Corps took great pains to conceal, by exaggerating its economic justifications for the dam. When exposed, this would end up becoming the "Achilles' heel of the project". Meanwhile, the Bureau insisted that its first priority–English Ridge–should receive the first federal funding. As Marc Reisner describes in Cadillac Desert (1986), "The feuding agencies were about to lock horns and starve over

6864-465: The East Fork including bluegill ( Lepomis macrochirus ), brown bullhead ( Ameiurus nebulosis ), common carp ( Cyprinus carpio ), golden shiner ( Notemigonus crysoleucas ), green sunfish ( Lepomis cyanellus ), largemouth bass ( Micropterus salmoides ), redear sunfish ( Lepomis microlophus ), smallmouth bass ( Micropterus dolomieu ) and western mosquitofish ( Gambusia affinis ). Before 1908

7020-428: The East Fork with rainbow trout. Common species in Lake Mendocino now include largemouth bass, smallmouth bass, striped bass ( Morone saxatilis ), bluegill, black crappie ( Pomoxis nigromaculatus ), white crappie ( Pomoxis annularis ), channel catfish ( Ictalurus punctatus ), white bullhead ( Ictalurus catus ), brown bullhead ( Ameiurus nebulosis ) and a variety of non-game species. Rainbow trout stocked in

7176-465: The Eel River and its major tributaries are protected under the National Wild and Scenic Rivers system, with 97 miles (156 km) classed as wild, 28 miles (45 km) as scenic, and 273 miles (439 km) as recreational. About 155 miles (249 km) of the main stem are designated, from the mouth to a point just below Cape Horn Dam . The Middle Fork is also wild and scenic from its confluence with

7332-411: The Eel River as an important transportation link connecting Eureka and the many small towns along the Eel River valley to the national rail network. The railroad had the ignominious distinction of being the most expensive (per mile) ever built at the time: it traversed some of the most rugged and unstable topography in California, with 30 tunnels in a 95-mile (153 km) stretch. The ceremonial driving of

7488-414: The Eel River near Alderpoint to a height of 460 feet (140 m). A 30-mile (48 km)-long lake formed behind the barrier. Sediment deposits indicate the lake may have persisted for as many as several thousand years, which is highly unusual considering the easily eroded rock of the region and the unstable nature of landslide dams in general. The dam blocked access to steelhead trout spawning grounds in

7644-452: The Eel River to the estuary. Because the Eel River's twists and turns made it difficult to float the large redwood logs, the timber was cut into smaller rectangular "cants" to make them more manageable. In 1884 the Eel River and Eureka Railroad began shipping lumber from the Eel River estuary to the port at Humboldt Bay, where the logs were loaded onto ships bound for San Francisco. As part of

7800-405: The Eel River was Sebastián Vizcaíno , sailing on behalf of Philip III of Spain , seeking a mythical northwest passage described in secret papers as being at the latitude of Cape Mendocino . Vizcaíno sailed into the mouth of the Eel in January 1603 where instead of the cultured city of Quivera the papers had described, the men encountered native people they described as "uncultured." The Eel River

7956-488: The Eel River watershed is supported by the name of a tributary of the Middle Fork Eel River, Beaver Creek. Cyanobacteria grow in the river, and are suspected as the cause of death in fourteen dogs in the Eel River, Van Duzen River, or Big Lagoon between 2004 and 2024. The Eel River supports runs of multiple anadromous fishes : Chinook , coho salmon , steelhead (rainbow trout) and coastal cutthroat trout among

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8112-534: The Eel River's mouth to the waters of the bay, where they were met by members of the Laura Virginia party. Many of the people who settled in this region were prospectors from the Gold Rush who did not manage to find gold. Although most of the early settlements were made along the coast, some people spread south into the Eel River valley, which offered fertile soils along with other abundant natural resources. However,

8268-527: The Eel River. Conservationists saw this as a backdoor attempt to resurrect Dos Rios Dam and endorsed the Behr bill." Collier's bill was supported by powerful agricultural interests in the Central Valley on the then-"dubious claim" that they would need the water from these rivers in the future. After the state legislature approved both bills, the final decision fell to Reagan, who signed the Behr bill, again in favor of

8424-591: The Eel arrives at the Pacific Ocean. The last crossing before the Pacific Ocean is at Cock Robin Island Road a few miles to the west of Fernbridge. Later, the Pacific Coast Highway would be constructed along the South Fork and along the Eel River downriver of the South Fork. In 1914, after seven years of construction, the Northwestern Pacific Railroad completed a rail line running along much of

8580-468: The Eel as well, but most of its sediment is now trapped by dams). However, both the Mississippi and Colorado have lesser sediment yields relative to their drainage areas. The Eel River basin has been inhabited by humans for thousands of years; some of the oldest concrete evidence of human habitation is at a petroglyph site near the upper Eel River discovered in 1913, which may be as old as 2500 years. When

8736-821: The Eel to the boundary of the Yolla Bolly–Middle Eel Wilderness. The South Fork is designated from its mouth to the Section Four Creek confluence, the North Fork from its mouth to Old Gilman Ranch, and the Van Duzen River from its mouth to Dinsmore Bridge . Most of the Eel River watershed is underlain by sedimentary rock of the Franciscan Assemblage (or Complex), whose rocks date to the Late Jurassic (161–146 million years ago). The Franciscan

8892-399: The Eel until the drought eases. Under current agreements, the dams must release at least 100 cubic feet per second (2.8 m/s) beginning every year on December 1 to aid salmon migration. The federal United Western Investigation study in 1951 proposed multiple large dams on the wild North Coast rivers of California, including the Eel River. These dams would have been far bigger than those of

9048-484: The Potter Valley Project, and would create some of the largest reservoirs in California. The Army Corps of Engineers and Bureau of Reclamation both sought to build dams in the Eel River system which, starting in the 1960s was targeted as a potential new source for the California State Water Project. Major dams proposed in the watershed included ones at English Ridge, Bell Springs and Sequoia (Alderpoint) on

9204-510: The Potter Valley Project. A 3.5 MW hydroelectric power plant operated by the City of Ukiah came into operation in 1986. Lake Mendocino is used for recreational purposes such as camping, swimming, hiking, fishing, and boating. All the facilities are operated by the USACE. A large amount of fine sediment is transported through the water diversion on Eel River, causing turbidity in Lake Mendocino during

9360-478: The Potter Valley for alfafa, grapes and rice. The river flows south through the valley, then runs southwest through mountainous territory to Lake Mendocino , formed by the Coyote Dam near the point where East Fork enters the main Russian River. In the canyon between Potter Valley and Lake Mendocino, the East Fork receives the left tributary Cold Creek, which flows from Lake County to the east. A 1914 survey of

9516-496: The Potter Valley include Adobe Creek, Burright Creek and Mewhinney Creek from the left and Busch Creek, Williams Creek, Bevans Creek and White Creek from the right. Today the river's primary source of water is the Powerhouse Canal from the Potter Valley Project. The project began to transfer water from the Eel River into the East Fork Russian River in 1908 to generate electricity and support irrigation. The water has been used in

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9672-411: The Potter Valley or Eel River Project, a pair of dams were built across the upper reaches of the Eel beginning in 1906 to divert water to the more populous but smaller Russian River drainage area to the south, resulting in a much higher flow in the smaller river and a decreased flow in the upper Eel during certain seasons. Although located near the headwaters, these dams can cause a significant reduction of

9828-423: The Russian River and 500 ft (150 m) downstream from the Coyote Dam, which impounds Lake Mendocino. At this point the maximum discharge of the East Fork Russian River before regulation by Lake Mendocino was 13,300 sq ft/s (74,000 m /min), recorded on 21 December 1955. Since then the maximum discharge was 7,350 sq ft/s (41,000 m /min), recorded on 24 January 1970. Tributaries in

9984-417: The Russian River basin. Dam releases are now timed to mimic natural flows in the Eel River system. Occasional large "blocks" of water are also released from Scott Dam to help juvenile salmonids migrate to the sea before temperatures in the lower river become unsuitable for their passage. These conditions were revised in 2004, when stricter minimum release standards were established. In combination with drought in

10140-402: The Russian River by eliminating the warm, still pools that had been used for breeding by native fish. In the 1950s the state introduced poison to the river to eliminate "useless" fish species in favor of game species. The Coyote Dam prevented steelhead trout from returning upstream, so today the East Fork Russian River is dominated by rainbow trout . The section of the river that flows through

10296-468: The Russian River was reduced in the summer to a series of deep pools that hosted many small fish. The constant flow of cooler water changed the summer conditions in East Fork Russian River and downstream in Russian River, degrading the spawning habitat. In 1954 the Department of Fish and Game began a program to eradicate "trash" fish in the Russian River below East Fork. The rotenone poison was sprayed into

10452-455: The Russian River. This could account for the relatively mature profile of Cold Creek. At some time in the last 10,000 years a landslide at the west end of the Blue Lakes blocked Clear Lake's outlet to the Russian River watershed. The lake rose again, and created its present outlet via Cache Creek to the Sacramento River. At one time the lower part of what is now East Fork Russian River from

10608-468: The Sacramento Valley, from which the water would travel by canal to the Sacramento River. An alternate proposal would have sent the water south from Dos Rios, through English Ridge and then a tunnel to Clear Lake , from which the water would flow down Cache Creek to the Sacramento River. From the beginning, these dams were heavily contested by local residents as well as by environmental groups seeking

10764-546: The Ukiah Area said the Cold Creek Valley was small and not very important agriculturally. It was interesting because it belonged to a middle-aged stream that was now tributary to a very youthful stream. The East Fork of the Russian River has a youthful topography in this section, flowing with a high gradient through a V-shaped gorge. Cold Creek flows at a much lower gradient, as is shown by the size of stones in its bed, and has

10920-561: The University of California Press. The consonants of Wiyot, as recorded by Teeter, are given in this chart. A cell containing a phoneme will contain, from left to right, Teeter's Practical Orthography, the Wiyot Tribe 's orthography, and their IPA equivalents in brackets. Teeter's orthography and the Wiyot Tribe's orthography are separated by a slash, and only one grapheme is listed without

11076-409: The Van Duzen River after James Van Duzen, a member of the expedition. The party split in two and the survivors returned to San Francisco from whence ships left to settle Humboldt Bay in early 1850, bringing lumber and supplies from San Francisco. One ship sailed up the Eel River and became trapped. In the hurry to be first into Humboldt Bay, they dragged a longboat through the sloughs on the north side of

11232-401: The actual entities being signified are rarely named. Noun and pronoun phrases serve to provide this information. The transitivity of the verb complex determines the classes of noun forms that may occur in the sentence; nominal phrases serve to specify subject and object information, so intransitive verbs , which lack inflection for object, would not appear in combination with a nominal phrase for

11388-404: The basin. Although dam operators are required to maintain certain flows below the diversion during the dry season, these flows can be cut during exceptionally dry years, preventing salmonids from reaching certain spawning streams in the Eel River basin. Project water is disproportionately important to salmonids in the Eel River system as a whole because the water released from the bottom of Scott Dam

11544-461: The beginning of the accent phrase until the culminative syllable in the accent phrase is reached, after which pitch precipitously drops, except when it is the final syllable of the accent phrase. In such a situation, the accent phrase would end on a high pitch. The vowel of the culminative syllable bears either an acute or grave accent, the latter indicating a high pitch, and the former a high pitch which rapidly falls. The grave accent appears only when

11700-402: The coastal plain and enters the Pacific via a large estuary in central Humboldt County, about 15 miles (24 km) south of Eureka . The Northwestern Pacific Railroad tracks follow the Eel River from Outlet Creek, about 7 miles (11 km) above Dos Rios , to Fortuna. The railroad has been out of service since 1998 due to concerns involving historically exorbitant maintenance costs versus

11856-552: The conservationists. However, Behr had been forced to compromise in order to get his bill approved from the state; as signed, it would only place a 12-year moratorium on planning for dams in the Eel River system. Wiyot language Wiyot (also Wishosk ) or Soulatluk (lit. 'your jaw') is an Algic language spoken by the Wiyot people of Humboldt Bay , California . The language's last native speaker, Della Prince, died in 1962. Wiyot, along with its geographical neighbor,

12012-590: The culminative syllable comes at the end of the accent phrase, indicating that pitch and length increase through the phrase until the final vowel, which starts on a high pitch that rapidly falls. This articulation is indicated with a grave accent over the 'i'. These accents only appears when the culminative syllable is the last syllable of a breath group, as in this example. Teeter recorded many morphonemic processes that Wiyot words and phrases undergo. A few are listed below. Aspirated stops, such as [pʰ] and [kʰ] , undergo deaspiration when in word-final position. Thus, in

12168-413: The culminative syllable is the final syllable of a breath group, which are groups of accent phrases. The ends of breath groups are marked by periods, and are notably lower in relative pitch. Accent phrases towards the end of a breath group follow the same pattern of gradual lengthening and pitch increase, though the relative pitch is lower with respect to the preceding accent phrases. Breath groups end with

12324-536: The dam the river flows west, re-entering Mendocino County. At the small Cape Horn Dam about 15 miles (24 km) east of Willits , water is diverted from the Eel River basin through a 1-mile (1.6 km) tunnel to the East Fork Russian River , in a scheme known as the Potter Valley Project . Below the dam the river turns north, flowing through a long, isolated valley, receiving Outlet Creek from

12480-659: The derivational affix -ohw and become rakhohw- , or 'laugh at'. Thus, -ohw serves to create an impersonal transitive verb theme with rakh- as the stem. There are many derivational affixes, most of which correspond to a complicated set of rules: stems can belong to one of eleven categories that determines which set of derivational affixes it may take. Therefore, to form an impersonal transitive verb theme like rakhohw , for example, there are 10 other possible affixes that occur with stems from other categories. Furthermore, certain derivational affixes occur only when affixed to specific stems. Inflectional affixes encode

12636-484: The door to Eel River dams technically remained open. In early 1972, California state senator Peter H. Behr introduced a measure to create a state wild and scenic rivers system, which would protect many undeveloped North Coast rivers, including the Eel, from future damming. In the same year, senator Randolph Collier proposed a measure that would block dams in the Klamath and Trinity Rivers but "permitted 'planning' for dams on

12792-461: The early 21st century, average diversions through the project have decreased by about 69,000 acre-feet (0.085 km) for the period 2004 through 2010. In December 2013, due to record low levels of water in the Eel River and the associated dammed lakes, levels of fish and lampreys in the rivers were at lowest recorded levels, and Pacific Gas and Electric Company sought to have FERC change their operating license to permit even lower releases of water to

12948-478: The east. The hills to the east of Lake Mendocino are very rugged and continue for many miles. To the west and northwest, the hills are more rounded with benches that were once planted with vineyards. In a period of very low water in September 1905 the East Fork Russian River had a discharge of 2.2 cu ft/s (3.7 m /min). A discharge measurement station is located 1,300 ft (400 m) upstream from

13104-473: The example hi walúy, hinód , meaning 'we saw'. Here, walúy is inflected for an indefinite third person, though hinód unambiguously expresses 'we'. Verbs are the core of Wiyot grammar, and verbal phrases are the most important part of Wiyot sentences. Verb complexes- inflected verb themes combined with syntactic affixes- form sentences along with nominal phrases. Verb phrases themselves frequently encode subject, object and instrumental information, but

13260-582: The federal government for safety reasons. Although the portion south of Willits was reopened in 2006, the section between Willits and Samoa , which includes the entire Eel River portion of the tracks, is unlikely to ever be returned to service. The Eel River watershed lies within the Oregon and Northern California Coastal freshwater ecoregion , which is characterized by temperate coniferous forests consisting largely of Douglas fir and western hemlock . The watershed also contains many stands of Redwood that are among

13416-492: The fertile and heavily timbered region attracted settlers to Humboldt Bay and the Eel River Valley beginning in 1850. Starting in the late 19th century the Eel River supported a large salmon-canning industry which began to decline by the 1920s due to overfishing. The Eel River basin has also been a significant source of timber since the days of early settlement, and continues to support a major logging sector. The river valley

13572-637: The first European colonizers arrived, the area was home to several indigenous peoples of the Eel River Athapaskan group, with at least four groups identified by dialects: Nongatl and Sinkyone in the north, and Lassik and Wailaki in the middle and south parts of the basin. The upper valley was home to the Interior Yuki (the Huchnom), with the river and its tributaries frequented by Northern and Northeastern Pomo fishing groups. The first westerner to enter

13728-489: The first breath group, kowa baktéthohlabił , carries the stress on the fourth syllable. The vowel of this 'culminative syllable', an 'e', carries an acute accent and is pronounced at a higher pitch than any other in the phrase. It is also lengthened relative to the other vowels in the phrase. After this culminative syllable, pitch and length decrease rapidly through the end of the accent phrase. The second breath group contains just one accent phrase, łekoku lulawìl . Here,

13884-481: The first heavy runoff of the year and for several months afterwards. Normally sediment migrates steadily down the river. The Coyote Dam impounds bedload, and the sediment-poor water it releases erodes the bed and banks of the river downstream in the Ukiah Valley. After a major storm, flood releases from the Coyote Dam may also cause erosion of the river banks. In February 2019 torrential rains caused serious floods on

14040-414: The first or only stems in a given word. Most stems belong to this class. thig- , for example, is the initial stem in the above-mentioned compound thigatol- . All initial stems start with a consonant. Medial stems may not appear as the initial or sole stem in a word, and therefore must be combined with an initial. Medials, such as -atol , always begin with a vowel. Medial stems may also occur as

14196-435: The first two dams on their priority list." By 1969, a strong opposition movement had formed, led by a Round Valley rancher named Richard Wilson, who had studied hydrology at Dartmouth College . Wilson calculated that Dos Rios would have reduced the 35-foot (11 m) flood crest of the 1964 flood at Fort Seward by less than a foot (0.3 m). Governor Ronald Reagan formally refused to authorize the project. Despite Reagan's veto,

14352-487: The flow of the lower Eel River because much of the river's summer flow originates from the mountains above Lake Pillsbury. In 1910 noted American engineer John B. Leonard designed Fernbridge , a 1,320 feet (400 m) all-concrete arched bridge at the site of the earlier Singley's Ferry crossing. Completed in 1911, and now listed on the National Historic Register, Fernbridge is the last major crossing before

14508-512: The golden spike at Cain Rock was delayed by flooding and subsequent landslide damage to the rail line in October 1914. In the 1950s, interest grew in damming the Eel River system to provide water for central and southern California. After a damaging flood in 1955, these dams also received support for potential flood-control benefits. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers proposed

14664-411: The gravelly phase, Older Alluvium. Coyote Valley is flanked by rolling hills that rise 400 ft (120 m) about the valley floor to the west of Lake Mendocino and steeper Franciscan bedrock hills to the east. Elevations above mean sea level in the surrounding region range from about 600 ft (180 m) in the valleys near Ukiah to about 3,975 ft (1,212 m) on top of Cow Mountain to

14820-542: The high rainfall and steep slopes. Because of the mountainous topography, the only flat land in the Eel River watershed is along the larger river valleys, where stream terraces have been formed, and in the estuary region near the mouth of the river. Terraces were formed due to a combination of the high sediment load of the river system, and the rapid regional rate of geologic uplift (up to 13 feet (4.0 m) per 1000 years, as measured at Scotia Bluffs). The Eel's behavior of downcutting its own sediments has caused it to flow in

14976-412: The homonymous verb meaning 'he is dry on the eyes'. A less ambiguous, more obviously derived example employs the nominalizing suffix ihla : táthotawihla , meaning 'football', is the nominalized form of the verb meaning 'it goes with a kicking motion'. Nouns are inflected for four categories: the subordinative, possessive , locative and vocative . Subordinative inflection, indicated by

15132-420: The huge amount of sediment and debris swept down the river, including millions of board feet of timber. The deepest flood waters were nearly 70 feet (21 m) above the normal river level. Several thousand people were left homeless by the floods and over 4,000 head of livestock died. The large storms of the mid-20th century, along with the ecological changes from logging and grazing activities, almost wiped out

15288-545: The intensity of flood and drought. Prior to 2011, the Eel River basin consisted of 65.1% forest, 12.2% shrubland , and 19.2% grassland , with just 1.9% agricultural and 0.2% developed urban. The human population of the watershed is about 32,000–less than 10 people per square mile (26/km). In the 20th century, much of the watershed area was included under state parks and national forest, including Six Rivers National Forest , Yolla Bolly-Middle Eel Wilderness , and Humboldt Redwoods State Park . A total of 398 miles (641 km) of

15444-463: The issue "has profound implications for the prehistory of North America". However, by the 1950s, the genetic relationship between the Algonquian languages and Wiyot and Yurok had been established to the satisfaction of most, if not all, researchers, giving rise to the term Algic to refer to the Algonquian languages together with Wiyot and Yurok. The Wiyot Tribal Government is fostering a revival of

15600-623: The land in the region began to subside when the Clear Lake Volcanic Field erupted. The Clear Lake basin lies between the watersheds of the Sacramento River and the Russian River . When it was formed it drained east into the Sacramento Valley. About 200,000 years ago the Clear Lake Volcanic Field blocked the lake's outlet. The lake rose until it found a new outlet, draining west through the Blue Lakes into Cold Creek and

15756-456: The language through videos, online dictionaries, and an annual Wiyot language calendar. Karl V. Teeter published the first modern descriptive grammar of Wiyot in 1964. His data, supplied by Della Prince soon before her death, was crucial to the establishment of the genetic relationship between Algonquin and Wiyot, and effectively ended the scholarly conflict surrounding the issue. All of the linguistic data below comes from his work, published by

15912-460: The language's most salient features for speakers of English. He adds that voiced sounds tend to be exceptionally long in spoken Wiyot, a feature that adds to the perceived phonological heaviness of the language. In speech, Wiyot words are grouped into pitch accent phrases, which are separated by commas when written. Within these phrases, regular patterns of syllable stress and vowel length emerge. Stress, pitch and vowel length increase gradually from

16068-518: The largest peak discharge of any California river in recorded history, and one of the largest peaks recorded in the world relative to the size of its drainage basin. In contrast, during the dry months of July through September, the river achieves nearly zero flow. The lowermost United States Geological Survey (USGS) stream gauge on the Eel where flow volume is measured is at Scotia , where an annual mean of 7,309 cubic feet per second (207.0 m/s), or 5.3 million acre-feet (6.5 km) per year,

16224-753: The largest such trees in California. In the Eel River basin, redwoods can be found further inland than other parts of the northern California coast because of the wide lower valley of the river, which acts as a funnel conducting moist air eastward from the coast. However, redwood groves are still most common in the drainage area of the South Fork Eel River, which lies closest to the Pacific. Aquatic mammals include beaver , muskrat , raccoon , river otter and mink . Beavers are confirmed in Outlet Creek (tributary to main stem Eel north of Willits), but may occur in other areas as well. That beaver were once native to

16380-413: The limited corpus of Wiyot text indicates a wide variety of syntactic organizations. Most Wiyot sentences are in the indicative mood , as are all of the examples given below. kwháli yał, koto walùy. Literally translated, the sentences means 'but they don't see it here', though the verb form is here employed idiomatically to mean 'grow', giving a translation of 'but it doesn't grow here'. kwháli yał

16536-482: The line's economic returns. U.S. Route 101 runs along the South Fork Eel River and then the lower Eel River below the South Fork. Average flow of the Eel River varies widely due to its location, which places it more or less directly in the path of Pineapple Express -type winter storms. In the Mediterranean climate of its basin, almost all precipitation falls in the winter, and wet-season flows can be enormous, while

16692-463: The lower Russian River. In June 2021 the river's tributaries were almost dry due to a severe drought. Lake Mendocino and Lake Sonoma , further downstream, were only releasing the minimum amount of water needed for fish and wildlife to survive. Relief was not expected until the winter rains, and meanwhile fish were struggling to survive in river pools. The alternation of the Clear Lake drainage route in

16848-540: The lower numbers appearing earlier in the verb form. Some examples of preverbs include: The position numbers fix the relative positions of these preverbs when they appear in combination. Thus, to create a perfect cessative construction using the inflected verb theme tikwátolił , ła would have to precede bu to form łabu tikwátolił , 'He had just come down'. Preverbs, in addition to aspect, often convey tense and mood . Wiyot nouns are often derived from verbs, and typically serve to fill out and expound upon

17004-436: The main stem, and the infamous Dos Rios on the Middle Fork. Dos Rios Dam would have flooded 110,000 acres (45,000 ha) of Mendocino County, creating a reservoir of 7.5 million acre-feet (9.3 km)–the largest in California, at nearly twice the size of Shasta Lake . Water would have been diverted from English Ridge north to Dos Rios and through a 40-mile (64 km) tunnel to the offstream Glenn-Colusa reservoir in

17160-481: The major species. In its natural state, it was the third-largest salmon- and steelhead-producing river system in California, with over a million fish spawning annually, after the Sacramento and Klamath rivers . The annual chinook salmon run was estimated at 100,000–800,000, coho at 50,000–100,000, and steelhead may have numbered as high as 100,000–150,000. About 22,000 years ago, a massive landslide off Nefus Peak dammed

17316-532: The most water because of the higher rainfall in its basin. The Eel River watershed is located entirely in the California Coast Ranges . The topography creates a general drainage pattern that runs from southeast to northwest, except in the Middle Fork basin and the Eel headwaters, where water flows from east to west. The watershed is bordered on the north by the basin of the Mad River , on the east by that of

17472-399: The mountainous terrain and heavy precipitation in the Eel River watershed, erosion rates are particularly high. Much of the anadromous fish spawning habitat in the river system was covered by sediment or blocked by debris jams. Record flooding in 1955 and 1964, which destroyed or damaged large amounts of habitat along the Eel and its tributaries, was generally regarded as the final blow. After

17628-439: The mountains between Potter Valley and Lake Mendocino includes stretches of white water that are challenging for kayakers and rafters. The East Fork Russian River is a 15 mi (24 km) long tributary of the Russian River in Mendocino County. It drains the northeastern part of the Russian River basin. The region has a Mediterranean climate . The fork's watershed covers 67,073 acres (271.43 km ). The mouth elevation

17784-673: The negative impacts the project has on fish populations. Eel River monthly mean discharge at Scotia (cfs) The Eel River drains an area of 3,684 square miles (9,540 km), the third-largest watershed entirely in California, after those of the San Joaquin River and the Salinas River . The Colorado , Sacramento , and Klamath River systems are larger, but their drainage areas extend into neighboring states as well. The Eel River system extends into five California counties: Glenn , Humboldt, Lake, Mendocino, and Trinity. The main stem traverses four counties, excepting Glenn. The majority of

17940-447: The north of the ridge at the north end of Potter Valley, and in this section is 475 ft (145 m) higher than the headwaters of East Fork Russian River. The Potter Valley Project was begun in 1900 to exploit the hydroelectric potential. The concrete gravity and earth filled Cape Horn Dam was built to impound a reservoir called Lake Van Arsdale on the Eel River. A tunnel 8 ft (2.4 m) in diameter lined with redwood timbers

18096-631: The object. Preverb sequences, which consist of up to four syntactic prefixes, are the first step in expanding the derived and inflected verbal form. A great deal of morphological information can be conveyed in this prefixed element: aspect, mode and tense are all commonly expressed using preverbs, as is quantitative information and polarity . Nominal forms round out and complete Wiyot sentences, frequently serving as adjuncts to verbal phrases. Nouns are categorized as either principal or modifying phrases. Principal phrases include nominalized forms and possessive phrases, while modifying phrases typically refer to

18252-418: The particulars of each system are different. Stems are non-affixal morphemes , and can appear individually or as compounds. For example, thig- , meaning 'out', can appear as the only stem of a given word, or be joined to another stem, such as -atol , 'go'. Their compound, thigatol- , 'go out', is also a stem. Stems are either initial or medial. Initial stems may appear, as their name implies, as

18408-714: The past explains why there are many fish species common to the Russian River and the Sacramento River. Native fish species that currently inhabit, or that have historically inhabited the East Fork of the Russian River, include steelhead trout ( Oncorhynchus mykiss ), chinook salmon ( Oncorhynchus tshawytscha ), coho salmon ( Oncorhynchus kisutch ), rainbow trout ( oncorhynchus mykiss irideus ), hardhead ( Mylopharodon conocephalus ), Pacific lamprey ( Entosphenus tridentata ), Sacramento pikeminnow ( Ptychocheilus grandis ), Sacramento sucker ( Catostomas occidentalis occidentalis ) and Russian River tule perch ( Hysterocarpus traskii pomo ). Numerous non-native species also inhabit

18564-726: The present mouth of Cold Creek down through Coyote Valley to Russian River proper was also called Cold Creek. In 1908 the Potter Valley Project transferred water from the Eel River to the powerhouse in Potter Valley , and its discharge flowed out through the East Fork Russian River, to which Cold Creek is a tributary. Before the Eel River water was diverted, the East Fork would nearly dry up in July, August and September. A flour mill in Coyote Valley had water to drive its wheel carried from Cold Creek, which runs year round, along 1.5 mi (2.4 km) of flume. The upper Eel River runs to

18720-407: The protection of California's remaining wild rivers. The great floods of 1955 and 1964 brought renewed interest in building large dams on the Eel River, especially in the case of the Army Corps of Engineers, which attempted to justify the construction of Dos Rios for flood control. However, among all the proposed dams on the Eel River, Dos Rios would have the lowest impact on flood control–a fact that

18876-426: The rediscovery of Humboldt Bay by land. The bay had been seen by earlier Spanish and Russian explorers but never settled. After camping and restocking at Humboldt Bay, they traveled to San Francisco to report their discovery. They crossed the Eel River on their way south where they traded a broken frying pan to the local fishermen in exchange for a large number of Pacific lamprey, which they mistook for eels. They named

19032-474: The remainder flows to Lake Mendocino. In 1969 water diversion from the Eel River into the Russian River basin ranged from 83,000 to 221,000 acre⋅ft (102,000,000 to 273,000,000 m ). Spent water from the power station averaged 175,000 acre⋅ft (216,000,000 m ) and allowed for more croplands in the Potter and Ukiah valleys to be irrigated, as well as allowing more urban and industrial development along

19188-430: The river above the lake occasionally migrate downstream for brief periods in the spring and fall, when dissolved oxygen levels in the lake are higher. A 2.6 mi (4.2 km) stretch of the river between Three Rocks Falls below Potter Valley down to Lake Mendocino is a class II+ run for kayakers. Its gradient is about 20 ft/mi (3.8 m/km) and flow is about 300–600 cu ft/s (8.5–17.0 m /s). Flow

19344-467: The river system. The non-native Sacramento pikeminnow is present; it competes with and preys on young salmonids. The Eel River has never contained true eels, but is named for the Pacific lamprey, an eel-shaped parasite that attaches itself to other fish during its ocean life-cycle. Like salmon and steelhead, lampreys are anadromous , meaning they live part of their life in the ocean but return to fresh water to spawn. They are Cyclostomes (Circle mouths),

19500-421: The river's salmon run. Due to huge earth-flows caused by the record rain in 1964, 105 million tons of sediment were carried down the Eel River between December 21–23 as measured at Scotia–more than in the previous eight years combined. This sediment scoured away or buried spawning grounds for salmon and steelhead trout, causing the populations of these fish to drop to dangerous levels by the mid-1970s. The flooding

19656-411: The river, which had the effect of suffocating resident fish such as squawfish, suckers, roach, carp, hardhead minnows, green sunfish and lampreys, as well as smallmouth bass, and steelhead trout. Some migratory game fish were also killed. Since 1959 the Coyote Dam has blocked steelhead trout from returning to the river, so the valley's streams are dominated by rainbow trout . The state regularly restocks

19812-465: The river. The power meets the needs of the city of Ukiah, and the water is valuable for agriculture, fish and recreation. The East Fork Russian River is impounded near its mouth to form Lake Mendocino by the Coyote Dam, a rolled earth embankment built by the United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE). The reservoir's catchment area is about 105 sq mi (270 km ) and holds

19968-448: The scenic area. There are two hydroelectric dams on the Eel: 130-foot (40 m) Scott Dam, which forms Lake Pillsbury, and 50-foot (15 m) Cape Horn Dam , which forms Van Arsdale Reservoir just north of Potter Valley . At Cape Horn Dam, the majority of the water is diverted through a tunnel and hydroelectric plant, and then to the headwaters of the Russian River in Potter Valley and

20124-600: The second member of a compound with a special initial l- . This compound has essentially the same meaning as the medial itself. For example, the medial -athohl , meaning 'throw' or 'jump', can appear with an initial 'l-' as lathohl- , meaning 'throw'. Wiyot affixes are classified as either derivational , inflectional or syntactic . Derivational affixes are attached to stems and serve to classify them. Together, stems and derivational affixes form 'themes', which can be further modified by inflectional and syntactic affixes. The stem rakh- , meaning 'laugh', may take

20280-459: The settlers also faced conflict as they pushed deeper into Native American lands. American negotiator Colonel Reddick McKee 's treaty would have given the Indians a large reservation around the mouth of the Eel, but the treaties were never ratified. American settlements were made along the flat terraces of the Eel, near the confluence with the Van Duzen River and toward the mouth of the river where there

20436-537: The south in Mendocino County . Although the effect on the total annual flow is negligible (only about 3 percent of the total flow of the Eel River) the impact is much larger during the dry season, when the Eel's already-low natural flows are further reduced by diversions. Since 2004 the dams used by the project have been required to provide additional flow to the Eel River during the dry season, primarily to mitigate

20592-414: The subject and object of the theme. Wiyot makes a sharp distinction between definite and indefinite subjects, and each of these classes has its own set of inflectional affixes. Certain classes of Wiyot verbs can also take benefactive and instrumental affixes. The benefactive characterizes the verb as being done to a third person object for the benefit of a second object. Instrumental affixes convey that action

20748-428: The subjects or objects indicated in verb forms. The personal pronouns distinguish three persons, each with a singular and plural variant. Thus, this set of pronouns is frequently used to clarify number in verb forms, as Wiyot verbs themselves do not. The first person plural pronoun hinód , for example, is often employed alongside verb complexes that are inflected for the indefinite third person or impersonal, such as in

20904-405: The subordinate noun theme wapt- and the inflectional suffix -ahl . Possessive inflection is conveyed using prefixes. There are three different sets of possessive prefixes, though the majority of Wiyot nouns are inflected using only one of these. This most productive set distinguishes three persons : first- duh ; second- khuh ; third- huh . The final h seen in these stems

21060-400: The summer and early autumn provide only minimal precipitation, if any, causing the sometimes-mighty river to slow to a trickle. At its mouth, the Eel River produces an estimated annual runoff of 6.9 million acre-feet (8.5 km) per year, or about 9,500 cu ft/s (270 m/s). The Eel's maximum recorded flow of 936,000 cu ft/s (26,500 m/s) on December 23, 1964, was

21216-419: The summer of 1958 volunteers cleared most of the basin, cutting down and burning the trees. Highway 20, which had crossed Coyote Valley, was rerouted around the new reservoir. The dam began to store water in 1959. It serves the dual purpose of protecting against floods and supplying water. The USACE is responsible for flood control and Sonoma Water controls water release. Operations are not coordinated with

21372-462: The upper Eel River, causing the summer and winter runs to interbreed. Thus, there is an unusually high genetic similarity between summer-run and winter-run steelhead in the Eel River system, in contrast to other rivers in the Western United States . Human impacts have led to a dramatic decline of salmon and steelhead populations in the Eel River system. Large-scale commercial fishing began in

21528-455: The upper part of East Fork Russian River used to dry up in the summer leaving isolated pools along its course. This changed when the Potter Valley Project was completed in 1908. The project involved construction of two reservoirs on Eel River to the north of the Russian River basin, and a tunnel to the head of Potter Valley that carried water from Eel River to a hydroelectric station that discharged into East Fork Russian River. The Eel River water

21684-408: The use of a subordinative derivational suffix. Locative inflection is indicated by one of two affixes: the suffix -okw and the prefix ho- . Both have general meanings which can be translated as 'at, on, near, above, over, under, behind, etc.'. -okw is employed with the great majority of Wiyot nouns, as in kwásokw , meaning 'on the hill', and bíhwadawawokw , 'in the smoke'. ho-

21840-428: The various relationships and categories already expressed in verb forms. Like verbs, nouns consist of stems and affixes. Nominalization is the most important process in Wiyot for deriving nouns. Typically, nouns are created from verbs by adding one of twelve nominalizing affixes to the verb complex. The most common nominalizing suffix is ił , and there are many examples of nominalized forms that employ it. ( ił

21996-408: The verb form rakhohw- shown above: -al is the nonterminal suffix that encodes a first person object, and -ił is the terminal suffix for a third person subject. Syntactic affixes, many of which are prefixes, also known as preverbs, are affixed to verb themes and often convey aspectual information. For example, in the phrase łekowa khúhnad , meaning 'finally it starts to get dark',

22152-460: The verb theme khuhn- , 'to get dark', is modified by two syntactic suffixes, łe- and kowa- . łe- means 'finally', and kowa- marks the inchoative aspect , translated here as 'it starts'. khuhn- is also inflected for the third person subject by the inflectional terminal suffix -ad . Verbs form can take up to four preverbs, which appear in a fixed order according to their syntactic class. There are nine classes in total, with

22308-421: The watershed is located within Mendocino and Humboldt Counties. The Eel's major tributaries–the North Fork, Middle Fork, South Fork and Van Duzen Rivers, drain 286 square miles (740 km), 753 square miles (1,950 km), 689 square miles (1,780 km), and 420 square miles (1,100 km), respectively. The Middle Fork drains the greatest area of all the tributaries, but the South Fork is longer, and carries

22464-685: The west and then the Middle Fork Eel River from the east at Dos Rios . About 20 miles (32 km) downstream, the North Fork Eel River –draining one of the most rugged and remote portions of the watershed–joins from the east. Between the North and Middle Forks the Round Valley Indian Reservation lies east of the Eel River. After this confluence the Eel flows briefly through southwestern Trinity County , past Island Mountain , before entering Humboldt County near Alderpoint . The river cuts in

22620-507: The word hutóphahl , tóph , meaning 'spruce root' is aspirated, [tɑpʰ] ; when the same morpheme appears in isolation, though, it is articulated without the final aspiration, [tɑp] . When any element ending in /o/ is followed by another element beginning in /b/ or /w/ , /la/ is inserted. In the example kado-la-wal-áh , 'I don't see it', la follows the negating element kado , and itself conveys no meaning. When any two vowels, or any three consonants that cannot occur as

22776-547: Was a major rail transport corridor for the Northwestern Pacific Railroad beginning in 1914 and continuing throughout the 20th century, and also forms part of the route of the Redwood Highway (US Highway 101). Since the early 20th century, the Eel River has been dammed in its headwaters to provide water, via interbasin transfer , to parts of Mendocino and Sonoma Counties. During the 1950s and 1960s, there

22932-489: Was also deleterious to rail service through the Eel River canyon. After the 1964 flood, much of the topography in the Eel River drainage has been permanently transfigured, and landslides occur more often, frequently damaging local road and rail infrastructure. In 1998, after another large flood in the winter of 1996–1997 washed out sections of the line, the Northwestern Pacific became the first railroad to be shut down by

23088-402: Was directly in the storm's path. With no major dams to control its flow, the main Eel reached a peak of 936,000 cu ft/s (26,500 m/s), with 200,000 cu ft/s (5,700 m/s) from the South Fork alone. Ten towns were obliterated with dozens of others damaged; at least 20 bridges were destroyed, and some were never rebuilt. The heavy damage was due not only to the water, but to

23244-514: Was excavated for more than 1 mi (1.6 km) south to emerge above the northern end of Potter Valley. The water then fell through a penstock with vertical elevation of more than 450 ft (140 m) to the Potter Valley Powerhouse, which came online in April 1908 to deliver 4 MW. It was upgraded to 7 MW in 1910, a second penstock was built in 1912, and in 1917 the powerhouse

23400-597: Was great interest in building much larger dams in the Eel River system, in order to provide water for the State Water Project . Although the damming would have relieved pressure on greater California's overburdened water systems, it stirred up decades of controversy, as some of the proposals made little economic sense and would have been detrimental to an ailing salmon run. The Eel was granted federal Wild and Scenic River status in 1981, formally making it off-limits to new dams. Nevertheless, logging, grazing, road-building,

23556-493: Was lightly populated by Native Americans before, and for decades after, the European settlement of California. The region remained little traveled until 1849, when Josiah Gregg and his exploring party arrived in search of land for settlement. The river was named after they traded a frying pan to a group of Wiyot fishermen in exchange for a large number of Pacific lampreys , which the explorers mistook for eels. Explorers' reports of

23712-427: Was more arable land than the steep upper canyons. Most of these areas were appropriated for agriculture and grazing land. Salmon canneries flourished on the lower Eel between the 1870s and the 1920s, and declined thereafter because of decreasing runs caused by overfishing and other manmade environmental changes. Logging companies also took hundreds of millions of board feet of timber from the basin, which were floated down

23868-550: Was named in 1849 at the dawn of the California Gold Rush by an exploring party led by Josiah Gregg . Except for Gregg, who was a physician, naturalist and explorer, the remainder of the party were miners from a temporary camp on the Trinity River at Helena . The party took months to travel overland by an extremely arduous route from Helena to the Pacific Ocean between November and December 1849, when they are credited with

24024-472: Was recorded between 1910 and 2012. This station measures runoff from an area of 3,113 square miles (8,060 km), or 85 percent of the basin; however it does not include the flow of the Van Duzen River, which joins several miles downstream. Monthly average flows at Scotia range from 19,700 cu ft/s (560 m/s) in January to 138 cu ft/s (3.9 m/s) in September – a 143:1 difference. The annual means also experience huge variations, with

24180-427: Was upgraded to 9.4 MW. At first the powerhouse only ran at full capacity in the winter, and had to shut down completely in summer due to lack of water. In 1920 work started on Scott Dam, a large concrete ogee gravity structure 12 mi (19 km) upstream from Van Arsdale which collects water from the upper 7.3% of the Eel River watershed. It was completed in 1922 and began to fill Lake Pillsbury , which has

24336-401: Was used to irrigate Potter Valley, and supplied water to Ukiah below the convergence with Russian River. In 1958 Coyote Dam was built on East Fork Russian River just above its mouth on Russian River, flooding Coyote Valley to form Lake Mendocino. The lake provides additional water storage as well as flood control. The continuous flow from the Potter Valley Project changed the fish ecosystem in

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