The story of Hetch Hetchy did not end, of course, with the passage of the 1913 Raker Act. An ongoing battle over the conditions of the act flowed through the current of the twentieth century. Often city leaders, frustrated by the Raker Act's regulations, wished that they had never heard of Hetch Hetchy and the Tuolumne River. In retrospect, leaders could have met the city's water and power needs in less perplexing and less expensive ways if they had chosen one of the alternative sites.
Inappropriate engineering decisions head the list of problems. Although John Freeman, the engineer who designed the Hetch Hetchy system, commanded the respect of his profession, he was a man who liked to think bigtoo big. His system produced far more water than the city could consume, and cost far more money than the city could afford. Freeman believed in what we call today "economies of scale": build big and let the city grow into its future projected population. This may be wise planning, if you can bear the expense. However, with no federal or regional funding, the city depended upon its citizenry. Could the city afford it? Initially the voters said yes, but then they said no. The result was that the city received only So percent of what Congress granted under the Raker Act. In other words, Congress anticipated that San Francisco would establish municipally owned water and electrical systems. With great difficulty, the city finally purchased the water system, but the idea of public power soon became a distant memory. Today the Pacific Gas and Electric Company still owns the city infrastructure and provides electrical power to companies and residents. The Hetch Hetchy colossus, with its insatiable appetite for dollars, partially explains the city's rejection of public power. An engineering design that could be adjusted to the needs and growth of the city would have made better sense.
Because Freeman designed such an elaborate system, the challenge of its construction comprises a story in and of itself. Civil engineer Michael O'Shaughnessy took on the challenge of building a mighty dam high in the mountains, transporting pure water some 167 miles, and generating electricity along the way. Aside from the Panama Canal, and perhaps New York City's Catskill Mountains water project, it was the largest civil engineering undertaking of its day. In this demanding enterprise engineers faced problems and devised new solutions. Many hundreds of workers labored in a difficult environment. They took pride in their accomplishment, and I have tried to tell a little of their long-neglected story.
However, the greatest significance of the Hetch Hetchy fight lies in the legacies it has left us. Past decisions often have unforeseen consequences. Gifford Pinchot, the head of the United States Forest Service and a stalwart supporter of San Francisco's claim for the valley, devoutly wished to bring the national parks under the mantle of his agency. However, by his vigorous support of the city's position, he alienated influential people who would largely determine the future leadership of the parks through the National Parks Act of 1916. In effect, he ensured that his desire would never be realized. In a classic sense, he won his battle but lost the war. Moreover, ever since workers cleared the valley and built the dam, the Hetch Hetchy story has been involved or invoked in many fights over land use, often causing bureaucrats or civil engineers to wince or squirm at mention of the famed controversy. As an example of what should not be done to a scenic mountain valley, the story has no equal. While the sacrifice of Hetch Hetchy is not the sole factor, most darn proposals in national parks over the course of the twentieth century have been contested and successfully stopped.
Part of the legacy of Hetch Hetchy has surely been in the realm of historical memory. Many people, particularly Californians, are aware of the controversy. It is a saga that people with claims to environmental sensitivity can recite. Because it is the keystone to the San Francisco Bay Area water system, it has strong name recognition. Area residents, who consider Hetch Hetchy an ongoing issue, raised a furor when Secretary of the Interior Donald Hodel proposed in 1987 that the O'Shaughnessy Dam might be breeched and the valley restored. The book's final chapter suggests that the reservoir may not be the final chapter in the story of the submerged valley. As one advocate of restoration told me in a hushed voice, "The valley is holding its breath." In 1913 San Francisco and its allies prevailed, but the final step, and one increasingly advocated by environmentalists, might be the breaching and removal of the dam and the restoration of the flora and fauna of the valley. Such a proposal is fraught with both financial and resource concerns. Although San Francisco officials have shown little interest, they may be in denial. In the new century, engineers will likely dismantle more dams than they build. In the years to come we can expect more proponents of restoration to arise.
Should San Francisco have fought for possession of the Hetch HetchyValley, and then made it, once acquired, the centerpiece of the city's municipal water system? For many, the answer is clearly no. The beauty of the valley is certainly a factor. But more important, alternatives existed. San Francisco officials became obsessed with developing Hetch Hetchy, to the point that they dismissed or discarded other rivers and valleys that would have served them better. Engineers became enchanted with the valley's water-storing capacity, as if it was created for their purpose. They were also fascinated with the daring challenges of creating a gravity water system originating high in the mountains and building a lengthy aqueduct to get the "product to market." Politicians fell under the sway of the engineers. They depended too heavily on the authority of technical experts. Rather than question the objectivity of city engineers Marsden Manson and Michael O'Shaughnessy, city politicians deferred to their judgment. Both men, competent in their profession, possessed the unfortunate trait of inflexibility.
The city turned its back on at least three respectable water alternatives to Hetch Hetchy. Regrettably, men of questionable character presented two of these options, thus precluding serious consideration. Later Oakland and the East Bay cities took up one of the alternatives-the Mokelumne Rivercreating a pure water system in less time, at much less expense, and with little political discord and no environmental controversy. Downriver from Hetch Hetchy the Modesto and Turlock irrigation districts built the Don Pedro Dam, and the enlarged structure today stores, mainly for irrigation purposes, almost six times the amount of water as the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir. There were plenty of viable alternatives, and the defenders of the valley pointed them out. Stubbornness, political power, and a sense of entitlement sent San Francisco leaders down a costly path. Initially opportunities to reconsider the city's direction occurred, but as both money and egos became invested, side trails became difficult and turning back, impossible. By 1930 San Franciscans could only shake their collective heads in wonderment, and continue building and spending money to bring the project to completion. Today, city leaders praise the system. Hetch Hetchy delivers abundant and pure water, as well as valuable electrical power. However, to simply say that the end justifies the means is to deny the importance of reflection and of history. Flexibility and resilience among San Francisco's leaders could have resulted in an equally fine water system, built at less expense, without the invasion of a national park and the loss of a remarkable valley.
THIS BOOK reflects more than an academic interest. Since my childhood experience with the Pulgas Water Temple, I have been linked to Hetch Hetchy. My parents raised me in the San Francisco Bay Area. Settling in the "Peninsula" community of Burlingame meant we consumed Hetch Hetchy water and seemed to be quite healthy for the experience. But for a youth, water from a spigot or faucet held no particular attraction. More intriguing was the Crystal Springs Reservoir and the extensive San Francisco watershed. The reservoir stored Hetch Hetchy water after its long journey from the Sierra Nevada mountains. A short hike from my home, the reservoir and watershed lands were forbidden land, de facto wilderness and were closed to all human trespass, save officials and employees of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission. That, of course, was reason enough for an adventurous 12-year-old to climb the fence and enter what was off-limits. Twice a friend and I hiked over the hills to Lake Pilarcitos. The
steep, wooded, brushy, trailfree land was impenetrable, so we cautiously kept to the gravel road, quick to scurry into the brush should we hear an official car or truck. But there were few cars, and in many ways the San Francisco Municipal Utilities District offered me my first experience with a natural environment.
In the summer, my parents took my brother and me camping in the Sierra Nevada. On our way we often stopped at the John Wilims Ranch, near Knight's Ferry on the Stanislaus River. My mother's grandfather founded the ranch. He and a friend homesteaded in the late 1850s and, by adroit use of land laws, built up a sizable land base. My family still runs part of the ranch, and often my parents stopped to see relatives or check on the condition of the grass. Across the property curve three, mainly buried, 48-inch pipes-the Hetch Hetchy aqueduct.The ranch itself is sometimes the direct recipient of Hetch Hetchy water when the pressures of the gravity system back water out onto a neighbor's land and the spillover flows down to what I call our Hetch Hetchy pond.
My parents' mountain destination was Tuolumne Meadows. Sometimes we camped in tents, but usually Mom and Dad pulled their i6-foot trailer up the Big Oak Flat Road and then negotiated the Tioga Pass Road's 21mile horrendous stretch. Once in the meadows, our trailer would stay for the summer. Obviously, it was a different era, one in which National Park Service rangers knew the regulars, and worried about neither camping time limitations nor fees. We would come and go, and in a sense it was like having a small cabin in the heart of theYosemnite high country. By the time I was fifteen, the small trailer became a base camp from which I would take day hikes and increasingly long backpack trips. At age 17 I hiked 150 miles of the John Muir Trail with 2 friends.
John Muir, of course, is the touchstone of the whole Hetch Hetchy struggle. I knew of Muir because I was raised in Northern California. No doubt my parents spoke of him, although they were not members of the Sierra Club nor were they inclined to rhapsodize over nature or wilderness. My appreciation of Muir emerged from my connection with his country-the Yosemite. After college I retreated to the trails of Yosemite. I worked at various jobs in Yosemite Valley and later spent two summers as a Tuolumne Meadows Lodge employee. I devoured Linnie Marsh Wolfe's Pulitzer prize-winning book, Son of the Wilderness: The Life of John Muir, shortly after it was published. Wolfe's wonderful portrait of Muir and my own association with his country made me one of Muir's large cadre of admirers. For my part, I remained unsure if Jesus Christ was the son of God, but I knew that John Muir was. I was in awe, like William Keith, his friend and artist. Keith met Muir in Yosemite Valley in 1872.The wild Muir emerged from the high country, Keith recalled. "We almost thought he was Jesus Christ. We fairly worshiped hiin!"3 His end-of-life struggle to save a valley that few had ever seen suggested to me, at the time, Muir's cross of Calvary borne for Nature. I have since realized, as did Keith, that my ideas about Muir were a bit romantic. As this book suggests, he was not divine, but rather very human. He did not die from the loss of Hetch Hetchy, but rather from natural causes. On the other side, the San Franciscans were not from the kingdom of Hades, but rather honorable men committed to doing what they believed was right.
For many years Hetch Hetchy has absorbed my interest, both as a place and a subject. I can only hope that this work creates a fresh, more complete, more nuanced understanding of its story, one that will continue to reverberate from California out across the nation.
CHAPTER 1
The Uses of the Valley
"We lay by the fire and revealed our inmost selves . . . until we were overcome by sleep."
ROBERT UNDERWOOD JOHNSON
"IMAGINE YOURSELF in Hetch Hetchy," wrote John Muir. "It is a bright day in June; the air is drowsy with flies; the pines sway dreamily, and you are sunk, shoulder-deep, in grasses and flowers.."" These are the words Muir penned to describe his first visit to the enchanted valley. Alone, he sauntered up and down, east and west, describing cliffs, waterfalls, and various wonders. From this 1871 exploration he seemed to bond with the valley, and his rhapsodic prose reflected his infatuation. Freed from the tame, rolling hills of his Wisconsin youth, Muir exulted in vertical landscape, in high mountain meadows, in granite, in ancient redwoods, and the exuberance of sparkling waterfalls. Yosemite Valley often claimed his attention and passion, but the Hetch Hetchy Valley, a geological replica, did not suffer Muir's neglect. The valley represented all that he loved, and it would never be far from his thoughts until his death in 1914.
Muir delighted not only in Hetch Hetchy's grandeur but also in its geology, and this dual interest reminds us that humans used the Hetch Hetchy Valley in different ways. The Central Miwok and Paiute Indians tribes certainly altered the landscape, while European American miners fervently wished to do so on a larger scale. Sheepherders with their flocks changed the nature of the valley grasses and ferns. Writers and artists, such as Muir and Albert Bierstadt, recorded their impressions, but their enthusiasm also represented change through visitation. The nineteenth-century story of Hetch Hetchy was, then, one of human agency, a progression of use in which people with varied interests gently used the valley, but without compromising its material wholeness or its integrity.
Muir's enthusiastic, gazelle-like rambles throughout the Yosemite high country were surely motivated by sheer pleasure, but also by a scientific purpose. He was convinced of the glacial origins of the domes and canyons of Yosemite Valley, but a "higher authority" thought otherwise. Josiah Whitney, Harvard professor and head of the California Geological Survey, had pronounced that Yosemite Valley resulted from a cataclysmic event in which the valley subsided when "support" was "withdrawn underneath." With unjustified scientific certainty Whitney pronounced that the glacial origin idea represented an "absurd theory . . . based on entire ignorance of the whole subject"2 To contest Whitney's beliefs, Muir observed not only Yosemite Valley, but also what he would often call his "Tuolumne Yosemite." There he studied the "Great Canon of the Tuolumne," envisioning an immense ice river scouring the canyon, creating a chain of lakes that would eventually be filled with glacial drift. Hetch Hetchy Valley evolved from one of those ancient lakes. The similarities of Hetch Hetchy with Yosemite Valley were definitive evidence for the young Muir. He concluded that "the Yosemite Valley is a canon of exactly the same origin" as Hetch Hetchy.3 He disputed Whitney's description of the former as an "exceptional creation." In a philosophical mood, he noted that "among the endless variety of natural forms, not one stands solitary and unrelated."4 Thus Hetch Hetchy would always be especially close to him because, along with mentors such as geologists Louis Agassiz and Ezra Carr, it was a great teacher and Muir was a devoted student.
FIGURE i. This is the first photograph taken of the valley, probably by a member of the Whitney Survey in 1869. Courtesy of the Bancroft Library.
This spectacular geology fated the Hetch Hetchy Valley for controversy. Those who initiated the dispute also found the valley attractive, but for very different reasons. One such man was San Franciscan James Duval Phelan, born of wealth, a native Californian destined to make a difference. While Muir worshiped his valley, Phelan loved his peninsula. At the tip of this peninsula, like a fingernail, spread the city of San Francisco, a noble city that looked to the Pacific Ocean and Asia on its west and to an inland empire on its east. Phelan hoped to forge San Francisco into an imperial center, stretching its economic tentacles in all directions. His vision extended beyond mere wealth to include building a "city beautiful," featuring wide boulevards, distinguished architecture, classic public buildings, grand fountains, parks, vistas of the surrounding water, and of course, social harmony.5 But location posed a problem. Water surrounded the city, but salt water would slake no one's thirst. One can imagine Phelan, with his penchant for poetry, looking out from the hills of his city and reflecting on Samuel Coleridge's "Rime of the Ancient Mariner":
To realize Phelan's imperial vision, the city had to have fresh water in large quantities. So he looked to the pure streams of the distant mountains and he dreamed of the aq
ueducts of Rome. Although other Sierra water sources could be tapped, Phelan wanted the Hetch Hetchy Valley, and as his friend novelist Gertrude Atherton noted, "he could talk the hind legs off a donkey, and when he applied himself to win a point he won it "7 For Muir, Phelan would prove a determined adversary.
Phelan's desire to harness the valley represented the final phase of human use. Long before, perhaps 3,500 years earlier, Native Americans found Hetch Hetchy attractive for very different reasons. These first humans relished the valley as an escape from the summer heat of the San Joaquin Valley, and perhaps as well from the winter cold. The valley is only 3,800 feet in elevation, a paradise for a Paiute Indian from the east who had labored up Bloody Canyon and over frigid io,ooo-foot Mono Pass. But daily subsistence occupied much of California Indians' lives, and the valley provided for their needs through the harvesting of black oak acorns and the seeds of grasses. Fishing in the river and hunting in the vast meadows and nearby mountains were presumably common activities. Evidence suggests that these people adjusted to their impressive environment, allowing them to live well.S
The Battle over Hetch Hetchy: America's Most Controversial Dam and the Birth of Modern Environmentalism Page 2