Ken Garcia
Friday, August 5, 2005

I HATE TO throw a wet blanket on the hopes of all those who want to restore Yosemite’s Hetch Hetchy Valley by tearing down the dam that stores water for 2.4 million Bay Area residents, but reality suggests I must.

The state’s top water experts are currently going through stacks of research and previous studies to determine the potential cost and feasibility of such a venture — an idea fanned by the staid Sacramento Bee and then carried in an ongoing crusade by a number of well-meaning environmental groups. But after talking to a number of state and local officials, the preliminary results are in — it’s a pipe dream.

Read more at the San Francisco Chronicle.

Glen Martin, Chronicle Environment Writer
Monday, June 13, 2005

The debate over the proposal to breach the Sierra’s O’Shaughnessy Dam, drain the reservoir behind it and restore Hetch Hetchy
Valley to its former natural splendor is apt to intensify this summer with the release of a California Department of Water Resources study on the issue.

But preliminary comments from the agency indicate two things:

First, the restoration is technically possible without disrupting water supplies to San
Francisco, Modesto and Turlock, the cities that are the beneficiaries of Hetch Hetchy water.

Second, it will cost a lot of money: From $4 billion to $8 billion, depending on whom you
talk to.

Read more at the San Francisco Chronicle.

4/13/05
By Larry Weitzman, staff writer

As a result of a series of columns on the reclaiming of the Hetch Hetchy Valley in Yosemite National Park, an editorial writer for the Sacramento Bee, Tom Philp, has won a Pulitzer Prize. Located on the campus of Columbia University, the Pulitzer prize is a series of honors awarded to writers, photographers and newspapers within the journalism community. The judges obviously have no concept of California.

Last weekend the Bee republished Philp’s series of Hetch Hetchy articles calling the valley a little Yosemite Valley, its twin brother, a jewel, a national treasure and more. And these same descriptions were used over and over again. But are they accurate?

Since beauty is in the eye of the beholder and considering the fact that Philp has never seen the Hetch Hetchy Valley in its natural state, his series of articles is more a demonstration of propaganda that Philp is using, attempting to make his case for the draining of this resource, while ignoring the largest issue facing California – unbridled population growth.

Philp used an economic argument as well, claiming in one of his pieces that the restoration would be a boon to tourism, citing that Mono Lake’s restoration created a $1.5 billion windfall for the area. Yosemite is already too crowded. Environmental wackos already want to limit visitation through the elimination of campsites, lodging, stores, stone bridges, facilities, automobiles and roads. If Hetch Hetchy is restored to a point in time before the reservoir was built some 90 years ago, who knows how its use will be limited. Will there be roads, campsites or just day walks or walk-in camping?

But there is a more important reason why Philp is all wet. His claims that we could build another reservoir in Calaveras to make up the loss (when was the last large reservoir built in California?) or that Don Pedro has more capacity than the average river flow are all bogus. Yes, the average flow of the Tuolumne River is 1.8 million acre-feet per year while the Don Pedro Reservoir, into which the Tuolumne River flows, has a capacity of 2.03 million acre-feet, but those are average flows. When the river flows more, then more storage can be filled and the 360,000 acre-feet of the Hetch Hetchy is a substantial amount of water, enough to supply San Francisco and some surrounding communities.

And what these studies referred to in Philp’s propaganda pieces don’t tell you is that California is growing like a bad weed on Miracle-Gro. Every study, including Philp’s, ignores this most significant piece of data. California currently has a population of 36 million people and that number will swell to 50 million possibly as early as 2020, with most of that growth fueled by illegal and legal immigration. Where are we going to get the water to quench our thirst for this most precious of compounds, without which we will cease to exist? Here in El Dorado County water is a factor that limits growth.

When Philp talked about the fact that the Hetch Hetchy would be an economic growth engine, how does Philp feel about the growth of malls and businesses in California? Does he support every major shopping center or is that kind of growth not within his obviously limited and narrow vision of butterflies, bees and bears frolicking about the meadows of a valley that, while slightly resembling Yosemite Valley, is not Yosemite Valley. The next time there is a shopping center that will add to the economic vitality of an area that has protesters, let’s see what side of the issue Philp takes.

And finally, where is Philp on the issue of immigration, which is directly responsible for 80-90 percent of California’s growth? Does he support the fence along our southern border? Does he support the Minuteman group that is volunteering their time to alert the Border Patrol of illegal immigrants sneaking into our country? Bee editorials of which Philp is a part have not been in favor of such things.

Perhaps the Pulitzer prize committee should spend a few afternoons in rush hour traffic before accepting such ludicrous ideas as the elimination of invaluable water resources.

What’s next, Hoover Dam or Shasta Dam? Weren’t they beautiful valleys at one time?

Jim Wunderman
Tuesday, November 30, 2004

On this we can agree: Today, the Hetch Hetchy Valley is one of the most beautiful places on the planet. Nearly 50,000 hikers, campers and visitors spend time there each year. Given the valley’s beauty, it’s understandable that a group of people wants to increase access to Hetch Hetchy Valley. Unfortunately, here’s their price: removing O’Shaughnessy Dam and the water supply for 2.4 million people in Santa Clara, San Mateo, Alameda and San Francisco counties — roughly one-third of all Bay Area residents.

Read more at the San Francisco Chronicle.

Published 2:15 am PST Sunday, November 14, 2004

Yosemite National Park’s Hetch Hetchy Valley is going to get the careful rethinking about its future that it deserves. An idea that not so long ago was far beyond the bounds of political convention – to drain San Francisco’s 81-year-old reservoir in this magnificent valley and store the Bay Area’s water elsewhere – has piqued the interest of a most unconventional leader: Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Mike Chrisman, head of the California Resources Agency, sent the signal for the governor by writing two key state Assembly leaders and accepting their request to lead a comprehensive study of Hetch Hetchy. The letter arrived in the Capitol via U.S. mail. There was no press conference, no photo opportunity in Yosemite National Park, no grinning governor (he was off in Japan). The low-key style, and high-substance letter, was precisely what this debate needs. It breathes legitimacy into the idea of retooling a water system and reclaiming an irreplaceable landscape while addressing the state’s broader water challenges.

“California, faced with significant water demands, needs a net increase in water storage capacity, not a decrease. Any plan to remove or modify existing water storage systems would need to be balanced by a viable alternative plan to, at a minimum, replace the water supply now provided by the Hetch Hetchy reservoir.”

Agreed.

The letter arrived just hours after the Assembly’s key champion of a Hetch Hetchy study, Lois Wolk of Davis, held a briefing for legislative staffers who were trying to get their arms around an issue that hasn’t changed very much since 1913, when Congress allowed San Francisco to build this dam in the national park and submerge the smaller twin of Yosemite Valley.

This was a rainy November morning when the halls of the state Capitol are typically empty. Yet hearing room No. 127 was packed, San Francisco’s paid lobbyists standing with their arms crossed at the door, as Wolk urged the staffers to keep an “open mind.” Researchers from UC Davis and Environmental Defense then went about detailing their separate studies that showed how different reservoirs, both existing and proposed by San Francisco, can store this same supply.

The dam is a small portion of the overall Tuolumne River/San Francisco storage system that benefits the Bay Area. But Hetch Hetchy, one of nature’s perfect and pristine granite bowls, holds the ultrapure water that San Franciscans have grown accustomed to drinking. Laws to keep the public away from the reservoir (it is a federal crime to wade in Hetch Hetchy) keep it so pure. But these same Hetch Hetchy restrictions, and this reservoir have made the valley the least visited feature in the national park.

An open mind doesn’t seem to be the norm when it comes to this subject, as the body language and whispers in the hearing room attested. The room clearly had its share of sentimentalists, concrete devotees and San Franciscans clinging to the mystique that what Congress did in 1913 can’t possibly be undone today. Today, the dam is still there, and to restore the valley, punching a large hole at its base and leaving the rest of the structure intact would suffice. But gone is the ability to dismiss the idea of restoring Hetch Hetchy as a far-fetched fantasy.

The Hetch Hetchy evaluation process outlined by Chrisman is both pragmatic and true to the possibilities. The state (ideally with the help of the river users from San Francisco, Modesto and Turlock) seeks to calculate the value of restoring the valley as well as the costs of restructuring the water system, all impacts considered and addressed. More reliable supply, not less. More storage overall, not less. This process is going to take some time. But, finally, this debate has time on its side. It has a governor and a bipartisan coalition in the California Assembly that seems ready to navigate the course, wherever the findings may lead them.

By Herbert A. Sample — Bee San Francisco Bureau
Published 2:15 am PST Friday, November 12, 2004

OAKLAND – The Schwarzenegger administration has decided to assess studies of restoring the submerged Hetch Hetchy Valley in Yosemite National Park, an idea that has been fiercely criticized by San Francisco business and government interests.

The governor’s intentions came to light Thursday in a letter sent on his behalf by Resources Agency Secretary Mike Chrisman to two Assembly Democrats who have pushed for a state examination of re-establishing the valley.

Chrisman wrote that the Department of Parks and Recreation would “review the growing body” of studies on Hetch Hetchy, including analyses by Environmental Defense, a conservation group, and the University of California, Davis.

The department also will work with the National Park Service to estimate the parkland value of a restored valley.

Further, the state Department of Water Resources will “consider” the impact on water supply for 2.4 million residents on the San Francisco Peninsula, parts of Santa Clara County and the East Bay who get their water from Hetch Hetchy Reservoir, which sits behind the 80-year-old O’Shaughnessy Dam.

“As the various interests discuss the prospect of restoring Hetch Hetchy, we must balance our dreams and aspirations, our limited financial resources, and our need for water and power reliability,” Chrisman wrote in the Nov. 8 letter.

Lester Snow, Water Resources director, stressed in an interview that the state will not conduct an exhaustive analysis of restoring Hetch Hetchy, much less take a position on removing the dam.

Rather, he said the two agencies will collect data from studies dating back at least to the 1980s, gather comment and write an assessment within a year.

“Hopefully, we can provide an objective forum where both sides or the many parties that have views on this can provide information and get it treated fairly in our assessment,” Snow said.

Restoration advocates hailed the letter as a leap forward for the politically sensitive concept.

“No one has wanted to study the issue. It’s been a hot potato,” Assemblywoman Lois Wolk, D-Davis, said in an interview. “But this administration is willing to take a look at it.”

Assemblyman Joe Canciamilla, D-Pittsburg, said in a statement that he was “very pleased this administration is ready to give this proposal the serious consideration it is due.”

Assemblyman Tim Leslie, R-Tahoe City, said the state’s first priority must remain water and electricity supplies. “But a prospect as compelling as a restored Hetch Hetchy Valley merits a deep and thorough investigation of all the facts,” he added in a statement.

Tom Graff, Environmental Defense’s regional director, called the letter “a significant step forward.”

In September, the group unveiled a study contending that the water and power provided by the reservoir and dam are replaceable for $500 million to $1.65 billion.

Critics of dismantling the dam have vowed to fight restoration, saying it would wreak havoc on Bay Area water and power supplies. San Francisco city government and the Turlock and Modesto irrigation districts use electricity generated at O’Shaughnessy Dam.

U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., who has long opposed Hetch Hetchy restoration, said in a statement: “I have no problem with a study and will be happy to look at the results. But I can’t see a scenario where I would support tearing down” the dam.

About the writer:

The Bee’s Herbert A. Sample can be reached at (510) 382-1978 or hsample@sacbee.com.