Middle Fork Eel River

California Coast Range, in Trinity and Mendocino Counties. Its watershed comprises roughly 745 square miles (1,930 km²) of land, or 20% of the entire Eel River basin. The river provides groundwater recharge and is used for recreation and for industrial, agricultural and municipal water supply by residents.^[5]

Round Valley Indian Reservation, passing within a few miles of Covelo before receiving Mill Creek from the right. Hayshed and Elk Creeks both enter from the left as the river rounds a bend to the north. Afterwards, the river's final miles are spent flowing westwards through a gorge to the confluence with the main stem near Dos Rios.^[8]

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers proposed to build an enormous dam just above the confluence of the Eel River and the Middle Fork Eel River at Dos Rios. The Dos Rios Dam would have been 730 feet (220 m) tall, creating a reservoir that covered 110,000 acres (450 km²) of land (including Round Valley, the Middle Fork Eel River watershed's primary agricultural area and also the location of the town of Covelo, plus the Round Valley Indian Reservation).^[9] If built, this dam would have diverted most of the flow of the river into the Central Valley for irrigation purposes.^[10] The project was defeated by outcry from local residents and the intervention of then-California governor Ronald Reagan.^[11] Reagan remarked, "Enough treaties had already been broken with the Indians".^[12]

DFG and USFS from 1966 to 1999. In 1999 they described the Middle Fork summer steelhead run as “The largest remaining wild run of these magnificent fish”. It was noted to be “...probably the only population that has not been touched by a hatchery program, and as such, is most likely the State’s most important summer steelhead population”. Counts from the annual surveys indicated that the Middle Fork summer steelhead population has declined since 1987, to a count of 471 fish in 1999.^[6]