The Battle over Hetch Hetchy: America's Most Controversial Dam and the Birth of Modern Environmentalism
Page 8
With the Right-of-Way Act of 1901 in place and Phelan's water rights filed, it was time to take action. But San Francisco had to clear one more hurdle. The city had to gain permission from Secretary of the Interior Ethan Hitchcock. On the surface city leaders were confident, particularly because no significant interest group objected. Yet certain aspects of the project might complicate the secretary's decision. Above all, the city wished to invade a national park. Furthermore, there was no love lost between city leaders and the U.S. Army, administrator of the park. The San Franciscans appeared to have a certain aloofness and sense of superiority, which annoyed those officers and enlisted men sworn to uphold the park regulations. Friction became public when, in 1896, Colonel S. B. M. (Samuel Baldwin Marks) Young ordered the detention of a camping party of prominent San Francisco lawyers, businessmen, and aspiring politicians. In defiance of park regulations and Colonel Young's instructions, the San Franciscans carried loaded pistols and rifles on an outing near Hetch Hetchy. When the army patrol intercepted them, the soldiers faced a belligerent group that resisted arrest. When they attempted to ride off, Lance Corporal James F. Keilty grabbed the lead horse's reins and then disarmed the riders. He then led them on a three-day march to Wawona, where they received a severe dressing down by ColonelYoung, giving notice that class privilege would not be extended to Yosemite National Park. Aside from the humiliation, the San Franciscans' horse trip was over, ruined, they believed, by an overzealous officer. The outraged dignitaries returned to the city and then complained to California senator George Perkins.
The senator sent a long letter to both the secretary of the interior and the secretary of war, representing the San Franciscans as gentlemen who occupy "high positions in this commercial community" and "are all influential men in their respective spheres." Lieutenant Colonel Young's action had been "hasty, ill-considered, and very reprehensible." Perkins called for disciplinary action, but what he got was an unrepentant military officer who refused to be browbeaten by a senator or his San Francisco friends. Eventually the whole incident was forgotten, and Young continued to enforce regulations in an egalitarian fashion. 17 The incident was merely the opening round of a lukewarm relationship between the city and the park that would continue until 1930.
In early January 1903 the city application for water rights in the Hetch Hetchy Valley and at Lake Eleanor lay on Secretary Hitchcock's desk. It did not take him long to make a decision. On January 20 he informed the General Land Office of his intent, and on January 3o he officially denied the city's request. He based his decision on the fact that the reservoirs were within Yosemite National Park. There was also a technical question whether some of Phelan's claim lay on private land, over which the secretary had no authority. The city immediately appealed, and to alleviate the question of Phelan's rights, the former mayor transmitted to the city his "right, title and interest" in both Hetch Hetchy Valley and Lake Eleanor.18
City Attorney Franklin K. Lane spearheaded the appeal process and journeyed to Washington in April to present the city's case in person. Lane argued that Hetch Hetchy water would go to the "highest possible use," but he primarily addressed Hitchcock's national park concerns. He maintained that the proposed darn would transform the meadow into a "highly attractive feature of the mountains." Furthermore, a bridge at the dam site would make the area north of the Tuolumne River accessible for recreation.19 Lane's aesthetic argument that the darn and reservoir would enhance the overall beauty of the park would be proffered often in the next decade. In time it would win over other interior secretaries and Congress, but Hitchcock remained unconvinced. The darn would be a violation of Yosemite National Park, which he would not sanction. Hitchcock denied the appeal on December 22, 1903, and soon after wrote President Theodore Roosevelt that "if natural scenic attractions of the grade and character of Lake Eleanor and Hetch Hetchy Valley are not of the class which the law commands the Secretary to preserve and retain in their natural condition, it would seem difficult to find any in the Park that are unless it be the Yosemite Valley itself"20
Secretary Hitchcock's decision boiled down to a legal issue of whether, under theYosemite National Park Act of 189o, he was sworn to preserve the park in a natural state, or if the Right-of-Way Act of 1901 authorized-some said required-the secretary to grant water development for beneficial purposes. The secretary found his role as park protector more legally sound, as well as more appealing. No doubt Roosevelt found such an argument attractive, but he also had ears for Gifford Pinchot, his chief forester and confidant, who would soon use his influence on behalf of the city. Meanwhile, soundly rebuffed by Secretary Hitchcock, Franklin Lane returned to San Francisco to consult with Phelan and the new mayor, Eugene Schmitz. For the first time, but not the last, San Francisco realized that the invasion of a national park would not come easily, and when it did, it would be overlaid with frustrating conditions.
The first chapter in the Hetch Hetchy fight thus ended in the city's defeat. However, Phelan would not abandon his dream. Many of the city reformers were surprised and disappointed when the mayor did not seek a fourth term. For reasons he never recorded, he walked away from the office, satisfied that he had brought honest government to his city. His biographers suggest that stress, brought on by those who did not share his dream for "San Francisco the beautiful," may have influenced his decision to retreat to Mon- talvo.21 Certainly other factors weighed on him, perhaps even his Hetch Hetchy plan, which now lay moribund. His withdrawal, of course, was short-lived, and soon his latent political ambitions and his commitment to Hetch Hetchy made him the unofficial ambassador for the city. Independently wealthy, he often traveled to Washington to lobby and fight for the Hetch Hetchy project. Later, as senator from California (1915-1921) he continued his support. Of all the persons subsumed by the Hetch Hetchy Valley fight, it was Phelan-who lived until 1930-who had the greatest longevity.
Into the office vacated by Phelan came Eugene Schmitz, a handsome theater musician and occasional band director. Charming in his way, he had few principles and considerable political obligations. One debt was to Abe Ruef, San Francisco's most notorious political boss. Ruef had orchestrated the musician's election in both 1903 and 1905, pulling the political strings to lead him to office. Relegated to the sidelines during the Phelan years, Ruef was anxious to get back into the game of graft, which he played with increasing boldness, especially after Schmitz's reelection. Certainly one of the most lucrative plays could be found in setting water rates. But even more profitable could be selling supervisors a new water plan. With the Hetch Hetchy system mired in controversy and with little reason to believe that Secretary Hitchcock would reverse his decision, the stage was set for new water ideas. In early January 1906 Ruef entered into an informal agreement with William S. Tevis, the president and major stockholder of the Bay Cities Water Company. The company controlled major water rights in what was known as the Blue Lakes Region, as well as claims on the headwaters of the South Fork of the American River and the North Fork of the Cosumnes River. If Ruef could convince Mayor Schmitz, his maestro of mischief, and the city supervisors to adopt the Bay Cities plan for a municipally owned water system, Ruef's cut would be approximately $i million to be distributed to the mayor and cooperative supervisors, with the considerable residue to be kept for himself 22
Aside from the sordid nature of San Francisco politics, the city was determined to divorce itself from the Spring Valley Water Company. Furthermore, the Charter of 1900 mandated a municipally owned water system. To make recommendations, Mayor Schmitz appointed a committee composed of Jennings J. Phillips, James L. Gallagher, Charles Boxton, James F. Kelly, and Edward Walsh. Their report dismantled the Hetch Hetchy scheme by noting that the senior water rights claims of the Turlock and Modesto irrigation districts, never adequately addressed by Phelan, would make Tuolumne River water unavailable. Furthermore, "the utilitarian uses [in a national park] of a city is one [sic] that the Federal Government is not likely to tolerate." If the city persuaded the
government to grant a license, it might soon be persuaded to revoke it. The committee believed that Congress would never take action on the matter, and as long as other sites were available, no secretary of the interior would grant the Hetch Hetchy Valley to San Francisco. Playing off Secretary Hitchcock's decision, the committee believed that insurmountable barriers existed with the Tuolumne River site and that the city ought to seek other options.23
This report resulted from a Board of Supervisors resolution on January 29, 1906, just three weeks after the board assumed office. The new board re solved to waste no more time or money on Hetch Hetchy, but rather to invite water project proposals from other sources. They received 14, but soon winnowed the choices down to 5. The supervisors preferred the proposal of the Bay Cities Water Company, but to give some legitimacy to the final decision, they appointed an "Advisory Engineering Board." Charles E. Marx, a respected professor of civil engineering at Stanford University, headed the short-lived board. Marx and the other engineers agreed that before recommending one plan, they had to study all of the proposals. The supervisors disagreed. They were in a hurry, especially after the April 18 earthquake and fire destroyed the heart of San Francisco. When the supervisors announced that they could not wait, the engineering board resigned.24
With the pendulum swinging its way, the Bay Cities Water Company pushed its advantage. Edwin Duryea, the company's chief engineer, appeared before the Commonwealth Club, the most prestigious forum in San Francisco. Duryea took the offensive by exposing some of the rather loose Hetch Hetchy facts presented by Phelan and Grunsky. The Tuolumne River watershed was not 1,500 square miles, but 536.The Blue Lakes area (South Fork of the American River and North Fork of the Cosumnes River), although smaller in size (396 square miles), received a greater mean annual rainfall. Whereas the mean in the Tuolumne watershed was 36 inches, that of Blue Lakes was 59.7 inches. The audience was invited to do the math: "The dependable stream-flow or water-producing capability of the Bay Cities Water Company's Catchment-area is in average years over one and two-thirds as great as that of the Tuolumne." Duryea noted that the water quality of all the Sierra sources was of unusual purity. Blue Lakes was no different, particularly since outside of a few campers in the summer, virtually no one lived within the catchment area. He believed that with stream flow and reservoir storage, the Blue Lakes system could provide the city with over 317 million gallons per day, even during dry years. Such a water supply would last until the year 1995 or 2040, depending on growth predictions. Finally, the Tuolumne River project would not be "free," as some proponents argued. On the contrary, the difficult access, the dams, the ditches and tunnels, the railroad, and roads would all require large outlays of money. However, the Blue Lakes system's proposed price, Duryea reminded his audience, would include "the transfer to the City not only of lands and water-rights, but also of all the completed structures necessary to develop a water-supply one-half greater than Mr. Grunsky's proposed Tuolumne supply"25
Engineer Duryea made his presentation in support of an official offer that William Tevis, president of the Bay Cities Water Company, had made to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. In a draft dated April 9, 1906, the com pany proposed to sell for $10.5 million all of its improvements and water rights. Tevis judged that the distribution system to convey the water to San Francisco would "not exceed $27,500,000, and might be constructed for considerably less."Thus the total cost would be $38 million. Grunsky had estimated the cost of Hetch Hetchy at $39.5 million; thus the city would save $1.5 million by adopting the Bay Cities Water Company proposal.26
What was conspicuously missing from William Tevis's proposal was a discussion of power production. At a time when an electric revolution was under way and hydroelectricity development was occurring up and down the Sierra Nevada, neither Tevis nor Duryea broached the subject, aside from one sentence in which Duryea stated that 30,000 horsepower of energy could be developed.
Duryea declined to discuss hydropower because three founders of the Pacific Gas and Electric Company had already developed powerhouses, or at least acquired the rights to do so. The development of hydropower in the Mokelumne-Cosumnes river system came with the rather romantic involvement of a French prince with the unlikely name of Andre Poniatowski. Prince Andre, as he was commonly called, gave evidence of the cosmopolitan nature of California and the international interest in mining. After learning the mining business in South Africa, the prince was drawn to California. However, he soon abandoned mining for a new source of wealth: power production. Like many European noblemen, the prince had a fine lineage but little money. He resolved that problem when he married Elizabeth Sperry, the sister-in-law of William H. Crocker. With his marriage he also consummated his power interests. After a series of mergers, Andre had controlling interest in the Consolidated Light and Power Company, which served the San Francisco Peninsula. In 1903 the prince decided to return with his family to France. He sold his power company interests to John Martin, Eugene de Sabla, and Frank G. Drum, three of the founders of the Pacific Gas and Electric Company, incorporated in 1905.These power transactions did not directly involve William Tevis or Lloyd Tevis, his landholding father, but clearly William understood that while San Francisco might have the water of the Bay Cities Water Company, the power would be reserved for Pacific Gas and Electric.27
The Bay Cities Water Company proposal had some merit, although historians have dismissed it as nothing but a graft scheme that would have saddled the city with essentially worthless claitns.28 However, in 1900 the city professed to be interested in a water supply, not a power source. If that was true, then it might have been wise to pursue Tevis's proposal. Surely, a number of the company's water rights claims were suspect, but the city could easily have written a contract that withheld payment until Bay Cities made good on its promises. Furthermore, the Hetch Hetchy water system was not without its payoffs to private water interests.
The problem with Bay Cities, therefore, was not so much with the message as with the messenger. By the time that Duryea argued before the Commonwealth Club, the San Francisco graft trials were underway. A court convicted Ruef and sentenced him to serve time in San Quentin prison. Mayor Schmitz also faced corruption charges but would escape the penitentiary. City government, in disarray, dropped the Bay Cities water plan like a hot potato. In a hostile atmosphere, the Bay Cities proposal became a casualty and the city shelved it forever. Furthermore, the episode stoked popular prejudice against offerings by private enterprise to resolve the city's water problem. In a different political climate, Bay Cities might have received a serious hearing, and the waters of the Tuolumne River might still flow gently through the Hetch HetchyValley.
FOR SAN FRANCISCANS everything changed on April 18, 19o6.At 5:12 A.M. the city shook for 28 seconds, the quake measuring 7.9 to 8.3 on the Richter scale by modern analysis. Buildings fell, power lines separated, gas lines broke, and of course, water mains ruptured. Many people never woke. Some of those who did perhaps wished they had not. With overturned kerosene lamps and broken gas mains, fire engulfed four square miles in the city center for four days. Thousands of refugees fled the city, mainly to the East Bay. Others camped out in Golden Gate Park or anywhere that was free of fire and falling walls. Enrico Caruso left the city in haste, never to return. John Muir, fossicking in the Arizona desert, returned to his much damaged home. His daughter, Wanda, wrote that all the houses in the surrounding Alhambra Valley were a wreck. The Muir home had lost all five chimneys, and as Wanda put it, "I never saw such a smash in my life. The whole house has to be rebuilt. What shall I do?"29 In the passion of the moment, Wanda exaggerated. Muir headed for home, and aside from the chimneys, the cracks and fissures in the old house were repairable.
The earthquake was a natural disaster that few San Franciscans could blame on anyone, save those who viewed the event as God's wrath unleashed on a sinful, pleas ure-loving city. However, the fire was another matter. As the flames spread across the city, firefighters and citizens called for
water. They found little. The violent shaking had broken many of the main lines. The fire hydrants of the Spring Valley Water Company delivered only a trickle. It is unlikely that even if water had been available, it could have made a significant difference, but the helplessness of being unable to do anything but watch the flames leaping ever higher was galling. Residents looked for answers. It was only natural to blame the water company for such a fiery tragedy. In truth, it mattered not a whit if the broken water mains were privately or publicly owned, yet people looked for a scapegoat and the company became an easy target.
Almost immediately the city supervisors authorized a Committee on the Reconstruction of San Francisco, with a subcommittee appointed to investigate the water supply and fire protection. Its eight members were mostly engineers, headed by C. H. McKinstry of the Army Corps of Engineers. Both Charles Marx of Stanford and Marsden Manson, the city engineer, sat on the committee. The supervisors asked for not only recommendations to avoid the recent catastrophe but also ideas regarding future water sources. The committee refused to address the second question, reasoning that the answer would involve an extensive engineering survey. In regard to the fire recommendations, however, the members concluded that "the protection against fires afforded by the system of Spring Valley Water Company was inadequate" for the crisis it faced. The committee felt it imperative that the city control its own water supply. Having gently chastised the water company, the engineers paradoxically declared that they had no criticism of the workmanship or the materials provided by Spring Valley. What they did recommend was a "special fire-protection system and the acquisition of a municipal system . . . as quickly as possible." 30