John Garamendi
Friday, August 5, 2005

As Californians, we now have the opportunity to do something truly great for our state, our children and for generations to come. We can, and should, restore the magnificence of the Hetch Hetchy Valley in Yosemite National Park. Today, there is great momentum to support this effort. It is a window of opportunity that may not come again. Therefore, we must act now.

With its great waterfalls thundering from towering granite cliffs onto a serene valley floor, Hetch Hetchy was described by John Muir as Yosemite Valley’s “wonderfully exact counterpart.” Like its better-known twin, Hetch Hetchy Valley was born of uplifted granite scoured by glacial forces, leaving a monument of breathtaking beauty.

Read more at The San Francisco Chronicle.

Thu, May 26, 2005
By Mike Taugher

SAN FRANCISCO – The nation’s top natural resources official cast a cup of cold, mountain water Wednesday on an ambitious proposal to tear out a century-old dam and restore Hetch Hetchy Valley in Yosemite National Park.

“We have not closed any doors on anything, but what I see is a scarcity of water throughout the West,” said Interior Secretary Gale Norton.

Norton made the remarks during a brief question-and-answer session with reporters after speaking here to the Commonwealth Club of California.

Hetch Hetchy, which was compared favorably to Yosemite Valley by John Muir before it was flooded, serves as a water supply reservoir for the city of San Francisco and the Peninsula.

Norton said she sees a need for more water storage to counter western droughts. “The issue of Hetch Hetchy seems to be going the other way in terms of doing away with a large supply of water.”

Prompted by recent studies, including one by Environmental Defense, the California Resources Agency is reviewing the feasibility of tearing out the dam, restoring the valley and finding other water storage options for about 2 million people.

Environmentalists say other storage sites are available, including Don Pedro Reservoir downstream on the Tuolumne River.

San Francisco officials have historically been extremely reluctant to even consider tearing out the dam, which is considered by city officials to be an engineering marvel and a source of crisp clean water coming straight out of a granite bowl.

“It is a huge undertaking to remove a dam, as well as find alternative water supplies,” Norton said.

Norton, the first woman to head the Interior Department, oversees the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs and the top federal agencies in charge of water development and delivery and enforcement of the Endangered Species Act.

In her speech to the club, Norton defended the Bush Administration’s environmental policies, saying they are designed to face subtler, more complex issues than the obvious environmental crises of the 1960s and 1970s.

She expressed support for oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, said the administration supports a moratorium on offshore drilling in California and asserted that the nation needs to produce more domestic energy and build nuclear power plants.

Asked why the administration has declined to take aggressive steps on global climate change, Norton said, “There certainly seems to be warming that is occurring. There is less consensus about what is causing climate change and whether it is something that is a fluctuation or truly is a long-term phenomenon.”

Norton’s major water initiative, called Water 2025, was one of the few federal natural resource initiatives in recent years to be well-received by environmentalists. The House of Representatives this week declined to provide any of the $30 million requested by the Bush Administration.

Norton suggested the lack of funding was not important, saying that a bill that would clear the way for money would “not be very extensive or very controversial.”

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?

Spreck Rosekrans, Nancy E. Ryan
Tuesday, November 30, 2004

Sometimes you can have your cake and eat it, too. In this case, we can have Hetch Hetchy Valley and still drink the Tuolumne River’s water. As San Francisco undertakes a major revamping of its water system, the time is right to consider how to provide reliable water and power without a reservoir in Yosemite National Park. The Schwarzenegger administration apparently agrees: It is planning a study that will examine the feasibility and potential benefits of bringing back this national treasure.

Read more at the San Francisco Chronicle.