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

by Robert W. Righter

  Related to the immense size and capacity of the system, was the difficulty of financing the project. Although the voters of San Francisco had generously passed a $45 million bond issue in 1909, the city could not sell the securities. Six years later $43,394,000 in bonds were still unsold.5 Construction could not begin until the actual cash was deposited with the city treasurer. Funding the Hetch Hetchy project would remain a more difficult hurdle to clear than its actual construction. Speaking to a local group in 1915, O'Shaughnessy predicted completion of the Hetch Hetchy system by 1919, if he had the funding and was free from political change.6 Of course such a foretelling was wishful thinking, and O'Shaughnessy knew it. Politics and finance would interfere. Still reeling from the earthquake and fire, San Francisco always seemed plagued by an empty purse.

  Besides dribbling funding, construction at Hetch Hetchy faced inflation. With the onset of World War I in 1914, prices began to rise. With the entrance of the United States into that war in 1917, both wages and general prices reflected an accelerating inflation. O'Shaughnessy had figured his labor costs at $3 per worker per day, but by the time he was ready to employ workmen, the going rate had risen to $4.5o. And even at those wages, men were not always available. The wartime draft drained off his laborers, although O'Shaughnessy was able to wrangle a deferment for some of his workers on the basis that the electric power component of the system contributed to the war effort. The same inflationary spiral applied to the supplies and equipment required for construction. For many items prices rose 75 percent between 1913 and the end the war.7

  But inflation or not, many believed the Hetch Hetchy project was far too big and far too expensive. It was "a colossal job," "a stupendous folly" with many "blunders and extravagances" that had wasted the $45 million bond issue of 1909 and required constant spoon-feedings of additional money. In 1919 Eugene Schmitz, the disgraced mayor of San Francisco, questioned the wisdom of the project. Schmitz, who seemed to have more political lives than a cat, had been accused of fraud in 1906, along with Abraham Ruef, the notorious city boss. His charisma resurrected his political career, and by 1919 the city supervisor felt free to criticize the size and the cost of what was going on in the Sierra Nevada mountains. He was particularly annoyed that O'Shaughnessy had, at one point, estimated the cost of the Hetch Hetchy dam at about $3.5 million, whereas, in fact, the city paid Utah Construction almost double that figure. With the planned addition, the cost would be at least $1o million. While the tremendous outlay burdened the city, Schmitz estimated that it would be 10 to 15 years before San Francisco saw a drop of Hetch Hetchy water.S The project constantly required new funding, to the point that it was popularly joked that O'Shaughnessy's initials, "M. M.," meant "more money" Beyond such amusement, the Hetch Hetchy project constantly faced the danger of a shutdown, not because of labor strife, bad weather, or engineering problems, but for lack of funds.

  Yet those problems were largely ahead of them as O'Shaughnessy's staff of engineers and planners tackled the many difficulties and uncertainties of building a dam deep in the mountains. Before even thinking of building the Hetch Hetchy dam, the city had to complete a transportation infrastructure. City attorneys secured the necessary rights-of-way and engineers laid out the route of a nine-mile road into the Hetch Hetchy Valley, giving access to automobiles and trucks. City engineers surveyed a 58-mile railroad, snaking its way through the Sierra Nevada foothills.They saw to the orderly transformation of tiny Groveland into a thriving construction town. At the Hetch Hetchy dam site, San Francisco planned and built a camp for at least 400 workers. Soon city workers drilled a i,ooo-foot tunnel to divert the Tuolumne River, and then built a cofferdam to protect the construction site from flooding. All of these preliminary projects, and many others, had to be completed before the city could accept bids by dam contractors.

  The first displacement of dirt, rocks, and trees came when the Utah Construction Company took on the task of building the nine-mile road into the valley, replacing what had been a trail. Although the U.S. Army believed the road would cost $52,000, the city accepted a bid at $18o,ooo. Why so much? The roadbed was 22 feet wide, graded, and surfaced so that one side of it would soon be the railroad bed. When it was completed, trucks immediately began to bring in construction materials and equipment. By September 1915 city carpenters began nailing together the Hetch Hetchy camp, designed to feed and sleep hundreds of workers. The first building was a dining room large enough to seat 500 men, followed by a substantial bunkhouse to replace the tents that gave temporary summer shelter. In quick succession the carpenter crew erected a cement warehouse of 14,000 square feet, a threeroom cottage, a hospital, wood house, oil house, meat house, and various other buildings. A water tower and two-inch line, plus a road system, completed the camp, home to many workers for almost six years. Downstream from the camp, telephone workers strung lines and loggers built a sawmill at Canyon Ranch, both essential for the coming dam construction. O'Shaughnessy reported that his men took great care to preserve the natural forest appearance at the ranch, as by leaving a screen of trees immediately next to the railroad line. He hoped in this way to lesson the city's impact on the national park.9

  ticuith 12. Before the railroad, teamsters and loggers began work in the valley, cutting and transporting sawlogs to the mill. The lumber was used in San Francisco's many buildings necessary for the undertaking. Courtesy of the SFPUC.

  FIGURE 13. Financing the Hetch Hetchy project proved a difficult task. Here Mayor James Rolph (seated front row, center) and City Engineer Michael O'Shaughnessy (to Rolph's right) pose with a number of supervisors and Bank of Italy executives. The commitment of A. P. Gianniui and the Bank of Italy, which evolved into the Bank of America, assured that the project would move forward. Courtesy of the SFPUC.

  The building of the Hetch Hetchy system was a combination of public and private efforts. The first major city effort was to build a darn at Lake Eleanor. Out of the Hetch Hetchy Valley to the northwest snaked a rough gravel-and-rock wagon road to Lake Eleanor. Following an old trail, in 1916 a city crew had used generous amounts of dynamite to blast a road up the steep canyon and then cut the road to the lake, some 12 miles away. The city always assumed that Lake Eleanor and Cherry Creek would be tapped as part of the water system, but there was a reason for immediately developing Lake Eleanor. Both at Hetch Hetchy and at the city headquarters in Groveland, contractors had to have electricity, and a darn at Eleanor Lake and a turbine placed downstream on the combined Eleanor and Cherry creeks would provide it. By August 1917 "trains" of trucks, six in a row, wound their way up the treacherous, switchback road. They made three trips every 24 hours, hauling the cement necessary to construct the attractive, multiplearch 1,260-foot-long dam. By late spring of 1918 workers had finished the dam, catching the spring runoff for power production. Kerosene lamps could be cast aside as electricity flowed up and down the river, from Groveland to the Hetch Hetchy site. 111 Electric power, necessary to move the project forward, was now assured. Soon the city engineers would begin plans for the much larger powerhouse at Moccasin Creek.

  FIGURE 14. A group of city supervisors and engineers return from Lake Eleanor. O'Shaughnessy always said the supervisors were much braver and cantankerous in city hall than on this road to Lake Eleanor. Courtesy of the SFPUC.

  While city workers constructed the Lake Eleanor Dam, sawyers working for a private contractor cleared the Hetch Hetchy Valley. O'Shaughnessy paid A. J. Reeder $30,050 to strip the valley pine and oak trees, as well as riparian vegetation, with the understanding that all the trees would become either sawlogs or cordwood.11 Denuding the valley did not cause O'Shaughnessy even a second's reflection. It was all business. One wonders if Secretary of the Interior Franklin Lane, establishing in May 1918 that "national parks must be maintained in absolutely unimpaired form," ever reflected on the paradox of the ongoing destruction of the Hetch Hetchy Valley and his principle of park management.12 Deep in the Sierra Nevada mountains, loggers and hundreds of laborers did ex
actly what Lane proclaimed against.

  Completing the infrastructure was the 58-mile Hetch Hetchy Railroad. The city needed to find a way to transport men, huge amounts of equipment, and thousands of tons of cement to the dam site. The city engineer's office considered constructing a road capable of handling large trucks, but in the end they decided that a railroad offered the most economical solution. Because San Francisco had no desire to own or operate a railroad, O'Shaughnessy tried to interest the Southern Pacific, the Santa Fe, and even the small Sierra Railroad in building the line and providing the service. But the prospect of building a line that would have little use after completion of the dam did not appeal to the companies. In the end San Francisco reluctantly decided that there was no alternative. The city would have to build and operate the railroad. It would be, according to Railway Age, "the first steam railway of any considerable extent to be built and also operated by a municipality""3 By the summer of 1914 city crews picked the general route and surveyed the roadbed. In October 1915 the construction job went to Frederick S. Rolandi of San Francisco, the low bidder at $1,543,080. The contract called for Rolandi, a former railroad engineer who had turned to construction, to grade and lay track on 58 miles of line and then lay rails over the nine miles of new road into the valley, a total of 67.6 miles of track.14 Although everything seemed in place, construction by Rolandi would be delayed, simply because the money was not available.

  The railroad, when finally completed in 1918, became the artery that gave life to the project. Connected in the west to the Sierra Railroad, a local line, the Hetch Hetchy Railroad wended its way through 27 miles of Sierra foothills to project headquarters in Groveland. From Groveland the track stretched to Moccasin Creek and then up the long, twisting 17-mile Priest grade, then along a ridge above the Tuolumne River, before terminating at the Hetch Hetchy station. Although the line was not officially designated as a common carrier until July 1918, the tough Shay steam engines moved vast amounts of materials to Groveland and then on to the end of the track, the flat cars loaded with cement bags, earth-moving equipment, and all the supplies necessary for a large workforce. In time the railroad carried approximately 300,000 tons of cement for the dam, the aqueduct, and various con struction projects. Trucks, gasoline and electric engines, turbines, lumber, and vast amounts of iron and steel construction materials, all arrived by rail. Often the returning trains hauled logs to sawmills for private lumber companies, providing a little income for the city.

  FIGURE is. The valley had a tragic, naked look after sawyers had stripped it of tress and much of its vegetation. To the city's credit San Francisco did clear the valley, something that the Bureau of Reclamation often neglected, leaving graveyards of trees along reservoir banks. Courtesy of the SFPUC.

  Besides carrying vast amounts of materials, the Hetch Hetchy Railroad provided the most convenient transportation for workers, engineers, city supervisors, and various dignitaries. Even prior to the powerful locomotives, O'Shaughnessy converted gasoline cars, buses, and trucks for use on the rails. Tiny "Sheffield" cars, fitted with railroad tires stretched over the wheel rims, were the railroad's official vehicles. They were fast, zipping along over the tracks at speeds as high as So miles per hour. They transported city officials and visiting dignitaries, but more often provided quick trips for construction supervisors. In a medical emergency, the Sheffield cars could transport an injured worker to the Groveland hospital. Most workers rode the rails in a streetcarlike bus that held up to 20 persons. But also one might see a converted Cadillac, one or two Packard trucks, or a Pierce-Arrow car at Groveland or at various work camps along the route. During the winter months, when snow blocked all roads and when turning out a steam train for just a few people was too expensive, these railroad vehicles were the transportation of choice.15

  By 1919 human agency had transformed the Hetch HetchyValley and the Tuolumne Canyon below Engineers and laborers had completed the Lake Eleanor dam and the Hetch Hetchy Railroad. Loggers had cleared the valley of its rich natural covering, electricians had built power units and strung wires, and carpenters had erected the many necessary buildings. Everything seemed in place for the major project: a dam that would submerge the valley under 200 to 300 feet of water.

  Although O'Shaughnessy and his city engineers designed the Hetch Hetchy darn, it was the Utah Construction Company that won the bid and built it.The company consisted of William H.Wattis and his older brother, Edmund. The two cigar-smoking Mormons left their ranch and hometown of Uinta at a young age to work as teamsters for the Great Northern and Canadian Pacific railways. When they learned what they needed to know, they moved on. Soon the boys contracted to do their own railroad tunneling and grading. The Panic of 1893 destroyed their business and sent them back to the family ranch. But in 1900 they ventured out again. This time they were successful, perhaps keeping in mind the verse in the Book of Mormon "Inasmuch as ye keep the commandments of God ye shall prosper in the land." 16

  Now in their early fifties, the two hardworking, risk-taking brothers were interested in more than grading and paving the nine-mile road they had built into the Hetch Hetchy. Valley. They hoped this small job would lead to a big one. The Wattises wanted to get into the dam-building business, and the proposed Hetch Hetchy Dam would offer them that chance. They knew that they could work with Michael O'Shaughnessy. The brothers and O'Shaughnessy, although not of the same religious persuasion, shared an ambitious, entrepreneurial, hard-driving attitude that spelled success. They believed that calluses on the hands were greater marks of accomplishment than three-piece suits and oak-paneled corporate boardrooms. Presumably, O'Shaughnessy encouraged William and Edmund to take the plunge after successful construction of the road. The brothers managed to bid under $7 million for the great gravity arch dam on the Tuolumne River. They won. It was their first attempt at dam building, the beginning of an adventure that would culminate in the building of Hoover Dam.17

  FIGURE 16. City Engineer Michael O'Shaughnessy encouraged visitation to Hetch Hetchy Valley especially after the city completed the railroad in 1918. Here a guide gives a group of San Franciscans an idea of what will happen in the next year or two. Courtesy of the Yosemite National Park Archives and Library.

  When the city engineering office prepared the specifications for the dam, utility trumped Freeman's illustrations of ornate Doric gateways with ivy covering the upper dam and a lovely esplanade with motorists and tourists enjoying themselves. These architectural frills, as O'Shaughnessy labeled them, were too extravagant.18 Beauty, for O'Shaughnessy, would be rnea- sured by utility and structural integrity. The 92-page bid document provided extensive details about the dam's specifications and measurements. Primarily designed by City Engineer R. P. McIntosh, it would be 298 feet thick at its base (almost ioo yards of concrete), tapering to a height of 341 feet, 227 feet above the valley floor. McIntosh designed the dam so that it could be raised and the water capacity increased as demand required. When full, the reservoir would back up the length of the valley, about 7.5 miles. The massive concrete dam would be the largest civil engineering project on the West Coast and purportedly the largest dam in the world.19

  The bidding document spelled out the responsibilities of the city and of the successful bidder. For instance, the city would provide electricity, but the contractor would purchase that power. The city would provide a hospital at the site, but each month the contractor would pay $i per employee for the upkeep of the facility. The city would receive $3 per cord for the firewood it stacked in the valley, but the contractor's employees would load and transport the wood. Bond forms were included, but no specific amounts were entered.20

  Since the city had constructed the diversion tunnel and the cofferdam, the company could get right to work. Once again, financial problems arose. The city issued bonds but at such a low interest rate that bankers and investors ignored them. To get the project under way, the Wattis brothers had to purchase a couple million dollars' worth of bonds, an arrangement between contrac
tor and contractee that was quite common in the world of large-scale bidding. Essentially the Utah Construction Company took out a loan to buy San Francisco bonds at face value, although the securities might be discounted as much as io percent. Once the city had the money, the project could begin and Utah Construction could draw on the funds it had provided. All of this worked to the city's advantage and seemed to be the price a contractor had to pay to win a bid. And, of course, a smart contractor understood the system and built the bond expense into his bid.

  Utah Construction first excavated the dam site to granite bedrock. This required steam shovel operators to remove hundreds of tons of sand, gravel, and boulders from the riverbed. Down and down went the shovels, searching for bedrock. Below 65 feet the granite walls became too narrow and the steam shovels had to be retired. The company brought in derricks, which could reach further down and then deliver "skips" of debris to waiting railroad cars. When loaded, the narrow-gauge cars were pulled by locomotive into the valley, where they were dumped and steam shovels spread the contents across the floor. After digging for months, the Utah Construction foreman "would periodically say, `Well, it's deep enough.' Chief O'Shaughnessy would hurry up from San Francisco, take a look, then say, `No. Go deeper."'21

  Finally, at 1i8 feet, there was no more debris. The workers could now sandblast and roughen smooth bedrock surfaces to provide adhesion, and think about pouring concrete. In preparation, Utah Construction built a double-track, narrow-gauge railroad 1.5 miles up the valley to what would become the gravel quarry. "Dinkies," small four-wheel locomotives, pulled a string of filled four-yard-long dump cars to the darn site, where Ransome mixers combined gravel, aggregate, and cement. Cement-weighing machines assured that the engineers had the proper formula. Describing the work to the Commonwealth Club of San Francisco, O'Shaughnessy called it "cyclopean masonry," consisting of poured concrete with boulders weighing more than one ton deposited throughout the mass.22