It fell to William Colby to respond. In a lengthy statement, Colby argued that commercial interests should be refused entry into the national parks. He attacked the objectivity of engineer John Freeman, submitting that he simply wanted to enhance his client's cause. Freeman was an engineer for hire, and all his statistics reflected his obligation to the city of San Francisco.
The Colby Brief effectively argued that the future value of the Hetch Hetchy Valley lay in tourism, not water storage. In So or Loo years "the need of the Nation for Hetch Hetchy Valley and the extensive camp and hotel sites on its floor will be greater than the need of San Francisco for its use as a reservoir site."34 Of course both sides played the tourism card. The Freeman Report favored campgrounds and at least one hotel situated above a pristine, reflecting reservoir with roads skirting each bank. The Colby Brief's plan, however, was more extensive. It envisioned a developed valley, complete with hotels, restaurants, campground, trails, horses, and fishing opportunities, all within the lush valley and the ever present cliffs and waterfalls. Freeman suggested limited human use, while Colby favored extensive use of the immediate region. To emphasize the potential commodity value, the Colby Brief looked to Switzerland, where the Alps were "practically unfrequented at the commencement of the 19th Century and now its visitors are counted by millions."35
Particularly surprising was the Colby Brief's advocacy of the valley's potential for winter sports. In a pre-downhill skiing era, winter sports consisted of ice skating, tobogganing and sledding, and a crude form of cross-country skiing-none designed to attract thousands of participants. Yet the report stressed that with a good road and proper facilities, recreationists would "turn to Hetch Hetchy both in winter and in surniner" (emphasis in original). It suggested that Secretary Fisher and Congress again consider comparison with Switzerland, where year-round resorts "were crowded with tourists and the hotels were filled." The number of winter visitors to Yosemite would increase by 1930 to between 30,000 and 50,000 people "if facilities of access are provided." How would these new recreationists be accommodated? "Retch Hetchy is the only other valley in the Park that ranks withYosemite in point of availability for hotel sites; it is the only one comparable to Yosemite for the sublimity of its scenery" Some might question the significance of winter sports, but by 1916 at Huntington Lake, tourists enjoyed a winter carnival featuring skating, snowshoeing, and skiing; horse-drawn sleds; and, of course, blazing fires.36 If there was any question regarding the valley's potential tourist value, Colby erased doubts by stating that "Switzerland's enormous profits from tourist travel show that an economic factor is involved here of such proportion that it will ultimately knock San Francisco's soap and power profits into a cocked hat."37
The key to this development was roads. As earlier mentioned, in 1907 the Sierra Club officially advocated a road into the valley and continued to champion a highway from the west.38 Surprisingly, the Colby Brief went further by endorsing a road from the Hetch Hetchy Valley climbing southeast to Tuolumne Meadows, thus bisecting the great canyon of the Tuolumne River. The brief argued that a reservoir would block that possibility and would "obstruct the natural highway through the Tuolumne Canyon to the Tuolumne Meadows."
Today, such a suggestion would be greeted as sheer heresy not only by environmentalists but by the general public. But the defenders of Hetch Hetchy wanted to open the region to all people, and they were aware that few Americans would visit by foot or horseback. In many ways, the turn-ofthe-century "wilderness cult" was more sentiment than reality. Most people who read Muir's mountain adventures considered the vicarious experience sufficient. If they were to visit mountain country, they wanted roads to get there. The Sierra Club was quite willing that they should have them. Even John Muir saw a place for them. The Mountains of California opens with the almost classic observation that "thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, overcivilized people are beginning to find out that going to the mountains is going home; that wildness is a necessity." How would they get there? Muir said by "means of good roads.."39
In spite of Colby's effort to neutralize the Freeman Report, San Francisco took the offensive. If there was any doubt of the fact, a midday meeting on August 31, 1912-at the same time as the release of the Freeman Reportbetween Mayor Jim "Sunny" Rolph and civil engineer Michael M. O'Shaughnessy would confirm it. The place was the Whitcomb Hotel on Market Street, the temporary city hall. Rolph had just been elected, and he was enjoying his popularity. He was a friend of business interests, having served twice as a trustee of the Chamber of Commerce, and also a friend to labor, having supported collective bargaining during the waterfront strike of 1906. However, his most successful accomplishment came with a humanitarian effort after the earthquake and fire, when he opened his home to the Mission Relief Association, feeding thousands of homeless people.40 Resplendent in his pin-striped pants, cutaway, and cravat and with a boutonniere in his lapel, Rolph was determined to hire a new city engineer.41 Stretching his legs and feet, encased in his ever present cowboy boots, the mayor spoke of the challenges still present in reconstructing the earthquakeridden city, but his primary concern was the water system. O'Shaughnessy listened intently. The Hetch Hetchy system, especially Freeman's plans, appealed to the ambitious civil engineer, a man who wanted to place his mark on the world through a great engineering project.42
However, O'Shaughnessy was not an easy sell. According to his own recollection, San Francisco had not treated him well. He had come from Ireland, having graduated with honors in engineering from the Royal College of Dublin, to San Francisco, working first as a reporter on economic issues for the San Francisco Chronicle. However, he was soon working at his engineering profession. He spent time at the Big Island of Hawaii, building a rather remarkable canal, known as the Olokele irrigation ditch, for a private sugar cane estate.43 Soon he returned to work in San Francisco, but he felt that the city had "cheated" him out of his $5,000 fee after he provided surveys to extend Market Street to the Pacific Ocean. The following year he had a similar experience with the extension of Potrero Avenue, in which his fee "went a-glimmering." Furthermore, he knew the difficulties of politics in the city. In 19o8 he had granted a Los Angeles Times reporter an interview in which he characterized San Francisco leaders as "featherweight political demagogues."44 At that time he was engineering dams in the San Diego area, and he would stay there. When Mayor Rolph wired him for an interview, however, he traveled north, doing so without even demanding what he believed the city owed him.
What attracted O'Shaughnessy back to San Francisco? Certainly working for Mayor Rolph had its appeal, and he did have a strong personal reason. His wife, Mary Spottiswood, wished to return to the city of her childhood. Furthermore, not all his Bay Area consulting had turned sour. He enjoyed working with Francis Newlands in the design of Burlingame, as well as the engineering challenges he faced in planning and constructing San Francisco's California Midwinter International Exposition in 1893-1894. Furthermore, a humanitarian reason may have influenced his decision. San Francisco was still reeling from the earthquake and fire, and his talents could make a difference. But it was the engineering rigor of the Hetch Hetchy system that cinched the deal. Perhaps San Francisco occasionally had wounded his pride, but pride could be overridden by ambition. Hetch Hetchy would challenge his skills until his death in 1934. The project would be his chance to lead in the construction of one of the great civil engineering challenges of his day, one that would open the whole Bay Area to development. He was inspired by not only civil engineering but also social engineering. Mayor Rolph concluded the deal with a pep talk: "Go to it, it's up to you, you must look on the City as your best girl and treat her well."45
There seemed to be no time to spare. After lunch Rolph ushered his new city engineer to the St. Francis Hotel to meet John Freeman. Perhaps the two engineers had met professionally, but at this hotel meeting, the two began an enduring friendship. Certainly part of the friendship was professional admiration. O'Shaughnessy believed the Freeman Re
port for Hetch Hetchy was close to engineering perfection. In the years to follow he enjoyed consulting with Freeman, tweaking the plan here and there, but basically carrying out the engineering challenges. Before engineering, however, came politics. With Rolfe in attendance, the two discussed the forthcoming hearing with Secretary of the Interior Walter Fisher. They also examined the Garfield grant and the needs of the city. Without question the upcoming national election also gained their attention. November would be a crucial month.
In the meantime Michael O'Shaughnessy wanted to visit the mountains. He was a field engineer, not one to spend time only at his desk. It was important to see, and examine, the Hetch Hetchy Valley through the vision of his engineering eye. By railroad and wagon he traveled to the Hog Ranch, nine miles from the valley. On September 16 the new city engineer mounted his horse for the ride with his guide, Hank Williams. On the trail they encountered a large party coining out, headed by Taft's secretary of war, Henry Stinson. The secretary wanted to discuss Hetch Hetchy, suggesting the main valley could be saved by a dam in the upper valley. O'Shaughnessy tempered his response but later rejected the idea as "very undesirable." Once he entered the deep canyon and flat-bottomed meadow, two city employees, Charles Hill and E. J. Koppitz, met him. Both were in their thirties and doing water measurements while bunking in the city-owned cabin, one of four structures in the valley. For the next two days O'Shaughnessy walked the valley, noting the vertical walls of granite and exploring the bedrock on each side of what would become the dam site. The meandering, deepflowing river drew his attention, and no doubt he made mental notes on how it would be diverted if he built the dam. He was excited. One friendly account of his visit indicated that "his eyes sparkled. . . . The engineer triumphed. He saw a perfect spot, a lake-site made by nature. One dam in that narrow pass, one small dam not three hundred feet wide at its base, would hold back in that granite bowl the flood waters of the river, would pour them out again for the city's need, and the lands of the San Joaquin. In that gigantic natural reservoir could be stored water for four million people, water for four hundred thousand acres of fertile farms."46 Clearly this natural receptacle could be made to serve the needs of man. On September 18 O'Shaughnessy left the valley to visit Lake Eleanor and Cherry Creek, jotting notes on the potential for a low dam and on the properties and water rights that the city had purchased from William Hammond Hall. He returned to San Francisco on October i9 and, the next day, held a press conference in which he endorsed the Hetch Hetchy dam site and plan.47
Ironically, only one day after O'Shaughnessy left the valley, a larger, more illustrious party entered. Led by Major James Forsyth, the group included Secretary of the Interior Walter Fisher; Robert Marshall of the U.S. Geological Survey; Marsden Manson, the recently retired city engineer (who had regained his health); and J. Horace McFarland, representing the valley's defenders. Fisher considered the three-day pack trip a pleasant informational event. He brought along Robert Marshall as a personal adviser, while Manson and McFarland would present opposite points of view It was a new venture for J. Horace McFarland, whose experience with nature was a matter of horticulture, specifically tending his rose gardens. However, as he later wrote Colby, camping inYosemite and Hetch Hetchy "seems to agree with me, for I certainly never felt better in my life than at this moment."48
However, not all was perfect. Although Fisher had just left a successful conference in Yellowstone and was certainly primed for the beauties of nature, what he first encountered at Hetch Hetchy were difficulties and discomfort. Colonel Forsyth turned what should have been a leisurely horseback trip into a forced march, resulting in a secretary of the interior who, McFarland noted, was "completely prostrated with the rough and unnecessarily dusty and dirty trip." By evening he had recovered, and for an hour around the campfire the party debated the ultimate fate of the valley that encircled them. Fisher listened, but commented little. Marshall and McFarland judged the discussion "a draw," not bad considering the difficult travel day. In fact, an exhausted McFarland recorded that he "would have given Hetch Hetchy Valley to anybody for a two-cent postage stamp that night."49
Early the next morning Colonel Forsyth insisted, with what McFarland described as "the usual perversity which I find characterizes army officers," that the party ride the steep trail to examine Lake Eleanor. The lake, beautiful enough, would require an i,8oo-foot-wide dam to impound a small amount of water. Manson admitted that the city wouldn't develop Lake Eleanor unless it could get Hetch Hetchy as well. Manson talked nonstop, and McFarland and Marshall let him do so, assuming that his continual prat tle would do his cause more harm than good. In fact, McFarland quipped that if Manson's words "could be transmuted into water, there would never need be any doubt as to the capacity of San Francisco's supply." Returning to the valley, some took a swim in the river, but evidently tired of endless talk, Fisher struck off on a solitary, lengthy hike up the valley. He took a dip in the river, viewed the waterfalls and the magnificent meadows and cliffs. The valley spoke to him in a less contentious way, and he returned refreshed. At the evening campfire no one raised the contentious issue, and in McFarland's memory, "all were of one mind as to the exquisite beauty of the place and as to the undesirability of ever giving it up."50
The last day, they rode out of the valley and then boarded the rough Yosemite stage. On the ride out, Robert Marshall, who was a member of the Sierra Club and opposed to the dam plan, set a trap into which Manson innocently jumped. Marshall suggested that Manson should ask him, in the presence of Fisher, if the city might obtain the Poopenaut Valley (a smaller valley just below the Hetch Hetchy through which the Tuolumne River flowed) to dam and further increase storage capacity for San Francisco. Manson did so, but with poor results. Angrily, Secretary Fisher turned and snapped, "What other valleys in theYosemite, Mr. Manson, is it the idea of the city of San Francisco to absorb?"s' For once, silence prevailed.
FIGURE TO. The perfectV of the river outlet suggests why civil engineers found the valley such an attractive reservoir site.To them, it seemed created for such a purpose. Courtesy of the SFPUC.
McFarland felt that Fisher had been captivated by the magnificence of the Hetch Hetchy country and that Manson had not made a strong case for San Francisco. Marshall, while forced on the trip to feign neutrality, wrote Colby a note that he had "the pleasure of flatly contradicting Mr. Manson on several occasions.."52 No one could read the tea leaves regarding Fisher's attitude, but like innumerable visitors to Hetch Hetchy, he had been enthralled by the beauty, isolation, and solitude of the place. One should remember, as well, that while Manson represented San Francisco, he was really a minister without a portfolio. Whatever impressions he might have made on Fisher, he had been replaced by Michael O'Shaughnessy, and the interior secretary knew it.
As the Interior Department hearing approached, two other interested parties produced and submitted massive documents. The cities of Oakland and Berkeley employed engineer J. D. Dockweiler to report on the East Bay water sources. The Dockweiler Report, more than Soo pages long and partially funded by the city of San Francisco, emphasized the solidarity of the East Bay and San Francisco with regard to their future water needs. At this point San Francisco was courting the two cities with the knowledge that East Bay water needs would enhance the city's ability to "show cause."53
William Bourn, head of the Spring Valley Water Company, ordered the other report. The city still depended on Spring Valley water, and Bourn wished to make it clear that under his leadership the company had become respectable and had grown with the demand, expanding to capture a large watershed in the hills of Alameda County, to the southeast and across the Bay from San Francisco. Now Bourn wished to show Secretary Fisher, as well as the city supervisors, that Spring Valley could provide for the present and future needs of San Francisco and its suburbs. To do that, he hired the well-known former army engineer Hiram M. Chittenden, who in turn employed a dozen engineers to produce an equally long report of more than Soo pages, proving th
at Spring Valley Water Company was quite capable of supplying the needs of San Francisco for many years to come.54
Thus by November 1912 the Interior Department had three massive re ports to peruse. It was a battle of the bulk. However, the Freeman Report clearly had the edge. It was not that the research was better or the facts more accurate. It came down to a matter of presentation and promotion. Although the Hetch Hetchy issue was not yet before Congress, the city of San Francisco distributed the book to every representative and senator. In all likelihood the vast majority never read the detailed engineering material. What they, or perhaps their legislative assistants, did view were the many impressive photographs in the first 50 pages. As the congressional hearings would later reveal, many congressmen accepted Freeman's argument that the valley's beauty could be enhanced by a reservoir.
Secretary Fisher finally convened the hearing on Monday, November 25, 1912 beginning six days of testimony and argumentation, some of it heated. Accounts from both sides understandably differ on what took place. O'Shaughnessy recalled that Fisher vigorously cross-examined some of the "nature lovers" to uncover their state of mind. The city engineer, effusive in praising the testimony by representatives of the city, poured a good deal of scorn on the opposition. He aimed his acidity particularly at the testimony of Robert Underwood Johnson, whom he delighted in calling "Underbrush Johnson." Johnson did not seem to have a good solution to San Francisco's need for water. When Fisher quizzed him about what the women and children of San Francisco would do, he responded that the city would have to "condense the water of the Pacific Ocean." O'Shaughnessy was amused, knowing that such an idea was prohibitively expensive. Such an impractical position annoyed Fisher, and later Horace McFarland noted that "our good friend Robert Underwood Johnson took an absolutely indefensible position and stuck to it, thereby losing all influence with the Secretary"55
The Battle over Hetch Hetchy: America's Most Controversial Dam and the Birth of Modern Environmentalism Page 15