The Battle over Hetch Hetchy: America's Most Controversial Dam and the Birth of Modern Environmentalism

by Robert W. Righter

  Works found support from Senator William E. Borah of Idaho. Born on a Midwestern farm, Borah believed that the project would "destroy the San Joaquin Valley" as a great agricultural breadbasket. The grant would give San Francisco a monopoly of water and power. Studying the reports, Borah was convinced that the Sacramento, the Eel, or the McCloud River could do the job for the city. Perhaps the cost would be $io million or $20 million more, but Borah believed the additional cost should not be the deciding factor. It made sense for the city to tap a more northerly river source, for the Sacramento River drainage had much more water than the San Joaquin, into which the Tuolumne River flowed.30

  Senators Borah and Works found surprising support from Senator Asle J. Gronna of North Dakota. A farmer himself, he was sympathetic to the worried irrigators, but he was one of a handful who argued the Society for the Preservation of National Parks' position. He had heard sarcastic remarks about the "nature fakers," but he disagreed, claiming that he "respected and honored those who unselfishly try to protect the property of the people of the United States." He appreciated the scenic value of Yosemite National Park, and he believed one ought not "to commercialize every bit of land and all of the landscapes of our country." He announced that "it is a mistake to destroy the handiwork of God's creation, for that cannot be duplicated." Eloquent as Gronna's speech may have been, it fell on deaf, or more accurately, absent, ears. Delivered in the late evening of December 4, few senators were in attendance.31

  By December 5 the mood had swung to the San Francisco position. Senator Marcus Smith, representing the newly admitted state ofArizona, had practiced law briefly in San Francisco. In sympathy with his former city, he lashed out against those opposed to the Raker bill, calling them "financed by venal, selfish interests . . . forgetting or ignoring the wants and necessities of living men and women." He made certain the Senate understood his priorities. "We all love the sound of whispering winds amid the trees, but the wail of a hungry baby will make us forget it for the while as we try to minister to its wants." "You lovers of nature," he declared, "will do well to give less attention to nature's beauties and more sympathy to the wants of men. Love nature all you please, but do not forget its crowning glory-man."32 Echoing Kent's social philosophy, Smith declared that he "loved trees, but I love men more, far more. To give to a million people a necessary of life and in so doing violate no right of any other person is a duty so evident, and action so imperative, that my earnest support is gladly given to this bill."33

  Led by California senator George Perkins, the proponents soothed the irrigators and countered the environmentalists. Perkins presented a long list of prominent Californians who supported the bill. Perkins hammered away at the Spring Valley Water Company's hold on San Francisco, capping his argument with a Los Angeles Examiner editorial titled "Set San Francisco Free from Monopoly." A private corporation had long held up and sandbagged a great municipality. It was time to get rid of the "robber barons of a benighted age." However, in the give-and-take of the debate, those opposed to the Raker bill heard from William Bourn, the president of the Spring Valley Water Company, the corporation in question. Bourn wired Perkins that the company "has no lobbyist or representative in Washington; is not in communication directly or indirectly with anyone there, and no one in Washington has any authority or warrant . . . to oppose the bill in its [Spring Valley's] interests." Obviously annoyed by the charges against his company, Bourn requested that his telegram be read to the Senate, and Perkins obliged.

  The debate revealed somewhat of a sectional split. For instance, Charles W. Eliot, president of Harvard University, wrote in defense of national parks and against the presumptions of San Francisco. However, David Starr Jordan, president of Stanford University and a charter member of the Sierra Club, supported the city. Benjamin Ide Wheeler, president of the University of California, was adamant in his advocacy of San Francisco's position. It would seem that the East wished to preserve and the West to develop. The sectional difference inspired Senator James Reed to quip that "college professors who never have been near enough theYosemite Park to know anything whatever about it are enlightening us with reference to our duty. The degree of opposition increases," noted Reed, "in direct proportion with the distance the objector lives from the ground to be taken. When we get as far east as New England the opposition has become a frenzy."34

  A young freshman senator from Nebraska posed very different concerns. In time George Norris would become the great champion of publicly owned electrical power, an issue, according to his biographer, that highlighted his senatorial career.35 Norris believed that if the Senate eliminated the power part of the Raker bill, there would not be "one-thousandth part" of the opposition to passage. He believed that the majority of the more than 5,000 letters he received were not true nature lovers, but part of an effort by private water and power companies to frustrate the effort of San Francisco. This "great campaign which somebody has carried on that must have cost somebody a great deal of money" has been waged "because San Francisco would now offer competition to private water and power companies." However, the evidence against the electric power companies was not exactly a smoking gun. In presenting detailed data, which must have caused the assembled senators to nod off a bit, the Nebraska senator tried to show that the ties between the Pacific Gas and Electric Company, Southern California Edison Company, and Great Western Power Company constituted a monopoly. If broken, utility rates could be halved. In a moving peroration, Norris called on his colleagues to

  hold up your calloused hands, you senatorial strap hangers, who for years have been riding on cars here and paying for something you did not get. Hold up your hands, and if you can not give relief to the citizens of the District of Columbia from an intolerable situation, at least let your brethren out on the coast get some relief. Defeat this bill and you will receive the plaudits, the acclaim, and the praise of every hydroelectric corporation in the State of California. Pass it and you give into the hands of the people a power that God intended should do some good for man.36

  Norris, of course, strongly supported Representative William Kent's insistence on section 6 of the Raker bill, which prohibited the city of San Francisco from selling Hetch Hetchy power to any private utility company.

  The debate carried on into December 6. By late evening there were no minds or votes to be changed. Everyone had settled on his position or had, in disinterest, simply turned away from the whole controversy. In truth, the evening sessions had difficulty keeping a quorum on the floor. As the hours slipped away, senators attempted to amend the bill or at least delay a vote. Some felt, as did Senator Clarence Clark of Wyoming, that the bill was simply "a log rolling proposition." He introduced an amendment. Defeated. Close to the end of the day, senators began to shout "Vote, Vote." At 12:00 RM. they did: 43 yeas, 25 nays, 27 absentees.37

  The San Francisco delegates, who had been listening intently from the balcony for six days, were jubilant. Victory was finally at hand. After shaking hands all around, they retired to the Willard Hotel to, as O'Shaughnessy put it, "wet our whistles." But by the time they got there, Sunday had arrived, and no liquor could be sold. Still pleased, yet a bit disappointed, they toasted their triumph with cold water-not so satisfying but perhaps more symbolic. O'Shaughnessy wired his wife: "Victory at Midnight. San Francisco Knows How"35 Within a few days they were riding the rails west, in plenty of time for Christmas. O'Shaughnessy thought of the great project that lay ahead.

  The defenders maintained a forlorn hope that President Woodrow Wilson would veto the Raker Act, but the likelihood that Wilson would go against his secretary of the interior on an issue in which he had little investment was slim indeed. On December 19, 1913, Wilson signed the act, acknowledging that "good and well meaning people opposed the act" but their arguments "were not well founded." He had weighed the evidence and was following the public interest.39

  For those who had fought to spare the exquisite valley, it was a bitter loss, but one that was expected.
Their forces had been depleted. McFarland had suffered a nervous breakdown. Muir was not in good health. Colby seemed to tire. There was, as usual, very little money. The Western Branch of the Society for the Preservation of National Parks left most of the work of leaflet circulation, as well as any monitoring of Congress, to the Easterners.40 Rumors persisted that, consciously or unconsciously, the naive "nature lovers" had been the pawns of the water and power companies. When Senator Norris suggested that "somebody" was financing the nature lovers' campaign, every senator understood that "somebody" to be the Spring Valley Water Company in cahoots with the Pacific Gas and Electric Company. The fact that such assumptions were false mattered very little.

  The preservationists were at a disadvantage that could not be overcome. San Francisco's strategy of a well-funded, well-organized effort, especially in 1913, provides an example of what could be accomplished through determination and adroit management in moving a bill through the halls of Con- gress.41 From Mayor Phelan through Mayor Rolfe, from City Engineer Grunsky through engineer John Freeman and City Engineer Michael O'Shaughnessy, the city spoke with one mind. Outside of a two-year period, from 1904 to 1906, the supervisors, most of the newspapers, and the political leaders kept their collective eye on the prize. They had also made an invest went of close to $2 million in water rights land purchases, which they were unwilling to forfeit. The investment in time, energy, and perhaps even ego made the city determined, even to the point of irrationality, to turn a blind eye to alternative possibilities. There were points along the road of this 13year struggle when the city might have abandoned the Hetch Hereby plan, but no leader seemed to consider seriously any side roads, at least not publicly.

  Sheer luck had something to do with it. No one would consider the San Francisco earthquake and fire as luck, but from the point of view of the dam project, it was. Federal officials, politicians, and the nation would find it too difficult to deny the prostrate city its water, especially since some proponents blamed a lack of it for the devastating fire. The appointment of Franklin Lane, a man who had, with Phelan, initiated the Hetch Hetchy idea in 1901, as secretary of the interior seemed almost serendipitous, as if the desires of San Francisco had unconsciously influenced the president-elect's choice. Lane's appointment seemed to suggest a cyclical view of history, with the Hetch Hetchy issue coming full circle from 1902 to a dramatic conclusion, one that pleased the proponents committed to "the greatest good for the greatest number."42

  For the valley defenders it was a hard defeat. However, they tried to view the loss as a skirmish in which they learned winning strategies to be used in the century to come. They came out of the fight bruised, but much wiser politically. RichardWatrous lamented that the "end has come, at least on this particular fight," but he believed they had fought well and were much more sophisticated in the ways of protecting nature and the national parks.43 For those who had actually spent summer and fall days in the valley, it was an emotional blow. Muir wrote Vernon Kellogg, his Stanford zoologist friend, that "the loss of the Sierra ParkValley [is] hard to bear. The destruction of the charming groves and gardens, the finest in all California, goes to my heart "44 Muir's intimate affection and attachment to the place made the image of bulldozers stripping the valley of all life a devastating thought. He could accept that the valley would change with roads, campground, many people, and hotels, but the metamorphosis from river to reservoir, of stripping the oaks, the pines, and meadows for still water, depressed him. It was fortunate that he never lived to see that day.

  Some writers have suggested that the loss of Hetch Hetchy killed Muir. Robert Marshall visited him in Martinez and wrote that it was sorrowful to see him in his "cobwebbed study in his lonely house . . . with the full force of his defeat upon him." Marshall wished that Congress and the president had waited on any action "until the old man had gone away-and I fear that is going to be very soon."45 He was suffering from depression over his lost valley, but just as much from the weather. Influenza, or the "grippe" as he called it, was his annual winter malady. On January 12 he wrote his daughter Helen that he was enduring "black foggy rainy lung-choking weather," lamenting that "this day is one of the darkest of the melancholy winter." He had been "grippe-choked [for] several weeks."46 He did find the will to carry on. He took some solace that "some sort of compensation must surely come out of this dark damn-dam-damnation." To another friend he wrote: "I'm glad the fight for the Tuolumne Yosemite is finished. . . . Am now writing on Alaska. A fine change from faithless politics to crystal ice and snow"47 He knew that time would vindicate the rightness of their cause. And he understood the enduring nature of fundamental issues. "The battle for conservation will go on endlessly. It is part," he wrote, "of the universal warfare between right and wrong."48

  Perhaps as devastating as the loss of the valley was the passing of loved ones and friends. Louie Strentzel Muir, his wife, had died in 1907. William Keith, Scotsman, artist, fellow mountaineer, and friend, passed away in 1911. John Swett, so helpful with Muir's frustrations with writing, left this world in 1913. Edward Parsons, so loyal to the Hetch Hetchy fight, died in early 1914. His friends were leaving him, and he increasingly relied on his daugh- ters,Wanda and Helen, for support, both emotional and physical. But they could do nothing regarding their father's failing health and lung infection. Muir finally succumbed on Christmas Eve, 1914, just over a year after Wilson signed the Raker Act.

  In the meantime City Engineer Michael O'Shaughnessy studied Freeman's grand Hetch Hetchy plan. If all went well on the political and financial fronts, the determined Irish engineer would soon transform the valley into its final use.

  CHAPTER 7

  To Build a Dam

  "I give waters in the wilderness and rivers in the desert to give drink to my people."

  ISAIAH 43:20

  THERE IS AN excitement to building, to actually creating what you have dreamed and planned on paper for years. Michael O'Shaughnessy felt that intensity when he returned to San Francisco. He knew that the Hetch HetchyValley and the immense water system would occupy his thoughts for the next decade. As a dirt-under-the-fingernails engineer, O'Shaughnessy never felt comfortable as a lobbyist in Washington. At one point, thoroughly tired of the food at the Willard Hotel, City Attorney Long offered to treat the delegation to a famous local restaurant known for its delicacies, including frog legs. When the waiter nodded to him, O'Shaughnessy ordered plain ham and eggs, which, he recalled, "caused considerable mirth and consternation amongst my less democratic associates." But the Irish civil engineer shook off any criticism, remembering that he longed "for the smell of the construction camp.."I

  With the Raker Act in place, he would now be able to get back to construction camps. The 49-year-old engineer, soon known simply as "the Chief," would get his chance to build a great dam and a complex water system, one that would fulfill his professional desire to make a difference and also partially carry out James Phelan's wish to make San Francisco and the Bay Area the premier region of the American West. As construction began in 1915 and finally concluded in 1934, there was no end of controversies. It is impossible to detail all of them. The scale of John Freeman's plans would test even a crusader's zeal. It is an unwise property owner who builds a 5,000- square-foot home when he needs only 2,000. Freeman's Hetch Hetchy plan was far too grandiose for San Francisco in 1920. Considering that the Spring Valley Water Company provided every gallon of water for San Francisco and the peninsula until 1934, it is obvious that when the Hetch Hetchy system came on line, it practically flooded the city. Freeman, for all his engineering skill, missed a design opportunity. In retrospect, he might have given the city a more functional system if he had projected to 1950, with following increments to be funded through the growth of the city and particularly the surrounding communities. In his defense, however, he believed in a regional water system, one that would serve the East Bay. But Richmond, Berkeley, and Oakland did not join in, leaving San Francisco with a costly project producing a commodity that was n
ot needed. Electric power production may have saved the city from financial disaster and possibly bankruptcy, for it did have value. The following narrative celebrates the construction of a great water system, but one that could have been planned and performed differently, saving San Francisco a good deal of anguish.

  O'Shaughnessy first picked a planning and engineering staff from a host of applicants.2 He also did his best to heal the wounds of a decade of controversy. J. Horace McFarland gracefully admitted defeat, writing O'Shaughnessy that he felt it unnecessary "to add any to the general water supply by shedding large amounts of post mortem tears."3 Once hired, his staff began the job of securing land and rights-of-way for reservoirs, aqueducts, power development, and a railroad. Easements across private lands had to be obtained and/or purchased for the 167-mile aqueduct. Water rights, always a contentious subject, had to be clarified. Such tasks kept City Attorney Robert Searles running to the law library to keep covetous men at bay. Landowners were always anxious to profit at the city's expense. Searles spent much time in court defending the city against suits such as that brought by the owner of a mining claim along the railroad grade near Moccasin Creek who demanded $ioo,ooo for the right-of-way. The presiding Tuolumne County judge awarded the recalcitrant landowner $16o.4