New effort launched to demolish dam and restore Hetch Hetchy
By Jim Nickles
Reprinted by permission of Stockton Record.
Originally published Sunday, May 7, 2000 The Record, Stockton, California.
Back to Nature? New effort launched to demolish dam and restore Hetch Hetchy
By Jim Nickles Record Staff Writer
For three-quarters of a century, environmentalists have wanted to tear down the dam that flooded Hetch Hetchy Valley in Yosemite National Park -- a valley, some said, whose beauty rivaled Yosemite Valley itself in its waterfalls, granite cliffs and bucolic meadows.But since rolling over John Muir and the budding conservation movement in the early 1900s to build O'Shaughnessy Dam, the city and county of San Francisco have steadfastly defended the reservoir against all attackers, including an Interior Secretary who proposed demolishing it in the late 1980s.
Ron Good said he knows he faces an uphill battle.
But he and his allies, who include some of the nation's best-known conservationists, are serious about launching a new effort to remove a dam that's blocked the Tuolumne River since 1923 and now supplies water to 2.3 million Bay Area residents.
They say they are interested in a ";win-win"; solution that guarantees San Francisco's current water and power supplies while also bringing Hetch Hetchy Valley back to life.
"We want you to know we are rational, reasonable people -- bankers, lawyers, engineers, scientists," said Good, chairman of a newly formed non-profit group whose name and mission are the same: "Restore Hetch Hetchy."
The group includes David Brower, one of the country's most venerated environmentalists, a former Sierra Club leader who's also proposed tearing down Glen Canyon Dam on the Colorado River; Yvon Chouinard, a pioneering Yosemite climber and founder of Patagonia Inc., the outdoor clothing company; Galen Rowell, a renowned nature photographer and climber, and Gerald Meral, executive director of the Planning and Conservation League.
Web site to raise funds
Restore Hetch Hetchy has not put forth a formal proposal. But the group has launched a new Web site, www.hetchhetchy.org, and is trying to raise funds for detailed studies of various options.
Brower, now in his 80s, was expected to make a presentation on Hetch Hetchy on Saturday at the first California Wilderness Conference in Sacramento.
At a time when many old, outdated dams are on the demolition list, Restore Hetch Hetchy has targeted a biggie -- the 430-foot-high, concrete-arch O'Shaughnessy Dam.
"Let's look at it in a positive way," said Good, an El Portal resident who works in Yosemite Valley. "We want to restore Hetch Hetchy Valley so that the people of the United States, the people of the world, can enjoy this World Heritage site."
Muir, the patron of the American conservation movement, died about a year after Congress approved the dam in 1913. He once described the valley as a "grand landscape garden, one of Nature's rarest and most precious mountain temples."
While on a smaller scale than Yosemite Valley, Hetch Hetchy's waterfalls and 2,000-foot-high cliffs bore a striking resemblance to its more well-known neighbor, at least according to pre-lake photographs.
But San Francisco officials scoff at the notion of removing the dam, which they say would leave the country's fifth-largest urban area without its biggest water source.
Hidden in a little-visited corner of the national park, about 80 miles due east -- as the crow flies -- from Stockton, Hetch Hetchy Reservoir is the pride of San Francisco's water system. It delivers water so pure it doesn't have to be filtered, a product that Mayor Willie Brown once suggested should be bottled and sold like Perrier or Evian.
The system provides water to San Francisco as well as portions of San Mateo, Santa Clara and Alameda counties. Four hydroelectric powerhouses generate 1.6 billion kilowatt hours a year -- and put an average of about $40 million a year in profits in the city's coffers.
"There is no way that I know of that we could replace that water short of taking it out of the Delta, and that would be counter to all of the initiatives that are going on at the moment to both improve Delta water quality and drinking water quality," said Larry Klein, assistant general manager of operations for the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission. "I just don't see how they could be successful at this without asking 2.3 million people to move."
Other environmental groups say they like the concept of reclaiming the valley. But they don't know how feasible it is -- politically, economically, even logistically. No one has ever taken out a dam that size before, and the valley itself is probably covered in layers of silt and debris.
"I don't know if we even have the knowledge about how to restore such a large impoundment," said Jay Thomas Watson, regional director of the Wilderness Society. "I can't imagine how much silt there is behind that dam. ... It (the goal) is bold and visionary but quite problematic. A lot of obstructions will be thrown up in front of them."
Good said Hetch Hetchy Reservoir, high in a pristine Sierra Nevada watershed, may not be as silted-up as many people believe. The valley's natural vegetation and wildlife would re-establish themselves, though it could take decades.
Beyond that, he said, the reservoir isn't needed anymore.
Other dams sufficient?
A 1987 study by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, commissioned by then-Interior Secretary Donald Hodel, concluded that other dams on the Tuolumne River and its tributaries could store the city's water and generate its power.
New Don Pedro Reservoir, built in the 1970s, can hold 2 million acre-feet of water -- five times the capacity of Hetch Hetchy. With a little replumbing, it could hold San Francisco's water, Good said.
"We're not talking about building any new dams or reservoirs. We're talking about just some replumbing of existing systems so that the ... powerplants continue to run, and that good, high-quality water is available to the city and county of San Francisco and the municipalities in the East Bay and South Bay that rely on the water."
Hodel proposed demolishing the dam, but the idea died amid vocal opposition from California's Congressional delegation and San Francisco politicians, including then-mayor Dianne Feinstein.
The 1987 report recommended more detailed studies, something Restore Hetch Hetchy hopes to do if it can raise about $250,000, Good said.
San Francisco's Klein said the federal study was inaccurate and wrong-headed.
"It was done in support of Hodel's initiative," he said. "And it was very quick and very dirty and it was very wrong. There is not enough storage on the river."
The owners of New Don Pedro Reservoir agreed.
"It wasn't built for that kind of capacity," said Allen Short, general manager of Modesto Irrigation District, co-owner of the dam with the Turlock Irrigation District.
At a time when California needs more water storage, tearing down a major dam doesn't seem like a good idea, Short said.
Good likened his campaign to the battle in the 1980s to reclaim some of Los Angeles' water supply to save Mono Lake and the Owens River in the eastern Sierra Nevada. While San Francisco has the clout, Restore Hetch Hetchy proponents believe they have right on their side.
They say they're in the fight for the long term.
"Eventually it has to happen," said Ronald Alessio Allison, a Stockton doctor who is on the group's advisory committee. "Because it (the dam) was a mistake. ... If it takes 100 years, we'll take 100 years. We're not going to quit until it's done."
To reach reporter Jim Nickles, phone 546-8298 or e-mail jnickles@recordnet.com
© Stockton Record 2000. Reprinted by permission.
