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

by Robert W. Righter

  For Bay Area residents observing the progress of the Hetch Hetchy project, there were questions. Why had the city completed the long transmission line to the Bay Area, whereas it had not even begun the aqueduct and pipe? Had not the voters in 1909 authorized $4 million to bring Sierra Nevada water to the city? Why was O'Shaughnessy totally ignoring water? The public, believing that the purpose of the Hetch Hetchy project was to bring pure mountain water to the city, was confused. There was an explanation. The Raker Act required the city to use only water provided by the Spring Valley Water Company until such time as the city purchased the system or more water was needed. In 1924 the city had not yet succeeded in purchasing Spring Valley, and the company continued to provide for the city's water needs. In short, there was no reason to transport Hetch Hetchy water to the city, and to defer aqueduct construction would minimize the city's financial burden.46

  Spring Valley had become respectable. Under William Bourn's leadership the company showed no signs of capitulating to a municipal system. In 1910 Bourn contracted with architect Willis Polk to build a water temple and place it at the point where the waters of the Alameda watershed gathered. Patterned after the water temple in Tivoli, Italy, the classic structure served no real function, but it replaced an old rough wooden shed with a classic temple that bespoke a glorious past and a hopeful future. One could imagine Isadora Duncan dancing at its base in a gauzy, flowing Roman toga. It was also a reminder of the hegemony of San Francisco, spreading its water tentacles into the hinterlands. Above the pillars and around the tower, stone masons etched an inscription: I WILL MAKE THE WILDERNESS A POOL OF WATER. THE STREAMS WHEREOF SHALL MAKE GLAD THE CITY. Surely the great temple celebrated the value of water, and Bourn felt that his company could, indeed, "make glad the city"47 To accomplish that task, Spring Valley continued to expand its system to meet demand. In 1913 the company built the Calaveras Dam. It suffered a near catastrophic failure in 1918, but still Spring Valley adequately met San Francisco's needs. City residents did not seem inclined to pass the bonds necessary for purchase. On three occasions bond issues failed. There was much speculation about the failure, but Bourn could assume that his company would continue to provide the city's water for some years to come. Unless the city came to its senses and purchased Spring Valley, it could be decades before Hetch Hetchy water could flow through San Francisco faucets.

  O'Shaughnessy and his Irish and Swedish laborers were, of course, committed to completion of the project. But what would the city do with a flow of 400 million gallons per day (GPD)? This was the figure Freeman consid ered sufficient for the year 2000! In 1915 the city and its participating suburbs consumed about 133 million GPD. The only logical strategy was to slow down construction of the aqueduct.

  The hope of O'Shaughnessy, Mayor Rolfe, and the city supervisors was to create a regional water system. At the time of the Raker Act debates, there was every indication that Hetch Hetchy water would flow through household pipes in Oakland, Berkeley, and Richmond. These three cities participated fully in the Washington hearings and debates. They shared information and put together studies demonstrating their joint needs. Oakland representative Joseph R. Knowland made a long, impassioned speech in 1913 promising cooperation. "What I desire to impress upon this House," preached Knowland, ". . . is the fact that this grant is not for a single city, but for the entire bay region." He cited a population statistic of 829,955 for the six counties adjacent to San Francisco Bay-35 percent of the entire state and rapidly increasing. To those who feared that San Francisco might not consent to participation by the East Bay cities, he maintained that such speculation was groundless.48 Knowland's regional approach surely helped in the passage of the Raker Act, and when the Senate tallied the votes, at least two attorneys representing the East Bay were in the gallery seated alongside the San Francisco delegation.

  FIGURE 22. Schoolgirls visit the Sunol Water Temple circa 1912. The temple became a favorite place for picnics and hikes. Courtesy of Rebecca Douglas.

  The communities had every reason to cooperate, fulfilling the promises of Representative Knowland. However, there was no urgency for a decision. East Bay people knew that not until the 1920s or later would the aqueduct be completed. Periodically San Francisco representatives made overtures, but essentially Oakland took the issue "under advisement" In retrospect city attorneys should have come to an agreement by 1915. As in San Francisco, a private water company served Oakland and Berkeley, and residents were every bit as discontent as their neighbors across the bay. In 1920 O'Shaughnessy wrote an article on Hetch Hetchy for a Bay Area magazine, concluding that it was logical that the East Bay cities join with San Francisco, sharing the system and profiting from San Francisco's experience with "clever manipulators" who might lead the cities down a crooked path. When that time came, San Francisco would be generous, for "the prosperity of neighboring communities is inevitably linked with the advancement of our own city.

  Time was on the side of the East Bay cities. Although their water was expensive, they also understood that the longer they waited, the more desperate San Francisco would become. The East Bay cities realized they could drive a hard bargain. In early 1923 Oakland and Berkeley made the first step toward independence by voting to organize their own municipal utility district. The first question that the East Bay Municipal Utility District addressed was whether to build their own system or join with San Francisco. EBMUD secretary J. H. Kimball began a correspondence with O'Shaughnessy first querying the city engineer whether it would be 15 years before Hetch Hetchy water was available. O'Shaughnessy assured him that it could be available within four years if $30 million or $32 million became available. The message was clear:A paying partner could accelerate the project and get the water flowing.

  However, Berkeley and Oakland leaders were not prepared to commit. They preferred to gather information and debate, rather than sign agreements. In February 1924 Marston Campbell, president of the EBMUD, wrote Mayor Rolfe, asking that the city staff respond to 24 questions regarding the Hetch Hetchy system and the East Bay cities' possible participation.50

  Of course the San Francisco city engineer's office provided detailed answers, although O'Shaughnessy was not pleased. To John Freeman the Chief wrote that Campbell used to be "a hardware clerk in Honolulu" and "is seeking to flash himself into our Hetch Hetchy problem at this time." O'Shaughnessy confided that it was not surprising Campbell was creating problems for "he is an old student of Dr. Manson" and was raising construction issues "which I thought were permanently scrapped 12 years ago." Free man answered sympathetically, reiterating his belief that "the whole district and separate communities should be supplied at wholesale by a metropolitan water system, almost precisely like that in Boston."51

  However, San Francisco was not Boston. Whatever O'Shaughnessy may have thought of the EBMUD president, he was moving the East Bay cities inexorably away from San Francisco. In March 1924 O'Shaughnessy took the ferryboat across the bay to make his pitch to the Soroptimist Club of Alameda County. He believed that since Oakland and San Francisco were the two largest cities in the United States suffering the high rates of private water companies, they must work together to create a regional system. In the near term, he explained, the East Bay cities must face the problem of selecting a future water source. Although he refrained from saying so, he believed that anyone with his wits about him would choose Hetch Hetchy. He had worked out a formula for cost sharing. The East Bay, with a population of 350,000, would contribute $27 million, while San Francisco, with a population of 6oo,ooo, would contribute $54 million. The East Bay cities would receive 133 million gallons per day, enough to take care of a population of 1,650,000 people. He mentioned that there could be prejudices and local difficulties to overcome, "but by approaching the subject in a good spirit all those objections could be overruled."52

  "A good spirit" did not prevail. At the same time O'Shaughnessy was attempting to entice the EBMUD, the district hired consulting engineer Stephen Kieffer to investigat
e an independent system. Kieffer surveyed the possibilities of the Mokelumne River and took options on the necessary land and water rights. He also brought in the consulting firm of Alvord, Burdick & Howson, Chicago-based engineers. Their report was damaging to San Francisco's hopes. The engineers noted that an independent system would be free of actions by San Francisco and that the proposed water source would be 40 miles nearer than the Hetch Hetchy system. Also, the Mokelumne project would not be saddled with electric power controversies. The consultants pointed out other features, most significant that the Mokelumne River project could be progressively built, expenditures made as the water was needed. In that way, Oakland, Berkeley, and Richmond would not suffer extensive loss on unused construction.53 The consultants might have been compiling a list of Hetch Hetchy project weaknesses. As a member of the San Francisco negotiating committee, O'Shaughnessy continued to work, but the opportunity seemed to be slipping away, and there was nothing the city could do. Friends of San Francisco formed the East Bay Hetch Hetchy League with the intent of electing a new EBMUD board, but it was all to no avail, especially when an engineering committee made up of Arthur Davis, George W Goethals, and William Mulholland recommended the Mokelumne River project.54

  On November 4, 1924, East Bay residents went to the polls and ratified a $39 million bond issue to build an independent water system. Key to the system would be the Mokelumne River and a high darn at Lancha Plana, storing sufficient water to supply an 81-mile aqueduct to the East Bay.55 By early 1929 the district completed the Pardee Dam, one of the highest in the world at that time, and finished the Mokelumne aqueduct. The first water deliveries of Sierra Nevada water arrived in late June 1929.56 Ironically, the Mokelumne River source had been suggested by the Army Corps of Engineers in 1911 for San Francisco but had been rejected by a city obsessed with the Hetch Hetchy Valley and the Tuolumne River. Freeman and O'Shaughnessy's idea of a regional water system would go by the wayside, as the East Bay cities threw off the dominance of San Francisco to develop their independent water system.

  More than water influenced the East Bay cities' decision to go alone. The leaders of Oakland saw no reason to perpetuate a subservient position. Oakland had the better location as a port city to serve the inland cities by road or rail. It was pushing toward annexation of neighboring communities, creating a "Greater Oakland." San Francisco had very little to offer, and its dream of creating regional hegemony through a water system did not win friends. It would take more than San Francisco could offer to bring the recalcitrant child into a regional family in which Oakland's independence might be tested. Why not declare independence, twisting the tail of the San Francisco lion? In a sense, the Hetch Hetchy water system reaped a basketful of ill feel- ings.The Sacramento Union put it well: "San Francisco has pursued for many years a policy of belittling Oakland, yet wonders now why the big city across the bay should object to the submergence of its identity by consolidation."57

  Oakland's refusal to be dragged into the quagmire of San Francisco politics proved sensible. San Francisco leaders were constantly squabbling, and the high cost of Hetch Hetchy was often the subject. By 1924 the supervisors, Mayor Rolfe, the city attorney, O'Shaughnessy, and many others were bitterly fighting over the legality of selling electric power from the Moccasin Creek plant to the Pacific Gas and Electric Company. Equally vexing was the refusal of city voters to allow purchase of the SpringValley water system. It seemed that the city just hoped to wear out problems, rather than solve them. There was plenty of bad blood at City Hall.

  In retrospect, criticism could be expected. The Hetch Hetchy project had been under construction for io years, and still there was no water. If the city sold electric power to the Pacific Gas and Electric Company, it would be in defiance of federal law By 1924 the project seemed like a perfect mess. Major Kendrick, a member of the San Francisco Advisory Water Committee, spelled it out: "We have spent $45,ooo,ooo and we have got to spend $33,000,000 more to get water. After we have done that . . . we can't use a gallon of that water until we have used up the entire resources of the Spring Valley [Peninsula watershed, Alameda watershed, and Calaveras Dam]." Kendrick estimated that unless something was done, it would be 20 years before Hetch Hetchy water could be used, 1o at the minimum. Another $38 million would be required to purchase Spring Valley. To conform to the Raker Act, the city would have to purchase the electrical infrastructure from Pacific Gas and Electric for $35 million.55 Kendrick failed to mention that the National Park Service was adamant that the city must live up to its Raker Act agreement to fund roads and trails in and around the darn. The San Francisco Bulletin noted that if all the public projects were undertaken, the city would incur a bonded indebtedness of $296 million, approximately 46 percent of the value of all taxable property.59 The city's financial problems were daunting. More and more, Hetch Hetchy seemed less like a reservoir and more like a bottomless pit, consuming vast amounts of the taxpayers' money. In many ways, the Freeman plan, magnificent as it was, placed a significant burden on a city whose ambition outstripped its capacity. San Francisco had placed itself in a perilous economic situation, hanging out on a half-cut limb with no safety net from the East Bay cities or anyone else.

  Mucking is a word used in tunnel construction to mean the removal of debris as the tunnel goes further into the earth. Muckers have dirty jobs, often working with wet, oozing soils that tax a worker's fortitude. More common in our lexicon is muckraker, referring to journalists who expose scandals and generally rake through news dung heaps for rumor, either true or false. Both muckers and muckrakers were much in evidence in the final io years of the Hetch Hetchy project.

  As noted, O'Shaughnessy's critics found ample material for secondguessing, particularly with regard to his decision to blast a 29-mile tunnel from the Central Valley to near the San Francisco Bay. Civil engineer John Freeman had designed the tunnel and the gravity system, but there were plenty of naysayers who believed pumping the water over the mountains was the more sensible route. It would be less expensive, and by 1929 the East Bay Municipal Utility District had successfully pumped water into the Oakland region.Yet O'Shaughnessy stayed with the Coast Range Tunnel, a project that would employ almost 2,000 men at the height of construction. Such a long tunnel had never before been attempted, and the difficulties of working through rock and sinking fresh-air shafts were daunting indeed. Injuries and deaths were not uncommon. One July night in 1930 the project supervisor, Buddy Ryan, got a phone call. There had been a bad accident. Rushing to the site, Ryan found that 12 men had died instantly from a methane gas explosion-probably caused by one of the men illicitly lighting a ciga- rette.Work stopped.An investigation ensued, the state of California enforced new regulations, and the work continued.

  The muckrakers had plenty of work to do, as well. Ironically, in 1930 the city of San Francisco became dependent on the newly constructed EBMUD system. Four dry winters had depleted the reservoirs of the Spring Valley Water Company. No Hetch Hetchy water was yet available. In desperation San Francisco contracted with the EBMUD for water to be delivered through a 12.5-mile emergency pipe. The city contracted for the water and the pipeline, paying $i million from the Hetch Hetchy account to pay for it.60 Journalists subjected O'Shaughnessy and his staff to a good deal of abuse, as well as humor. Thousands of San Franciscans must have shaken their heads in wonder at being dependent on the East Bay cities for water.

  Perhaps such ironies finally loosened the pocketbooks of San Francisco voters. In a remarkable flurry of economic activity, voters approved a $24 million bond issue in 1928 and another for $6.5 million in 1932 to finish the Hetch Hetchy project. When the city issued the bonds, however, the interest rate was again too low to draw many takers. In a remarkable instance of civic duty,A. P. Giannini, founder and president of the Bank of Italy (later the Bank of America), picked up millions of dollars of the bonds, thus allowing the water-power project to move forward. City officials, including O'Shaughnessy, also prevailed on tunnel and ditch workers to take city
bonds in lieu of cash. Most did, although participation likely stemmed from the desperate need to keep a job during the deepening Depression, rather than loyalty to the project.61

  Probably the most remarkable reversal came in 1928, when voters approved a bond issue to buy out the Spring Valley Water Company for $41 million. Primary-stock owner William Bourn, so long at odds with the city of San Francisco, was in ill health and confined to a wheelchair on his marvelous FiLoLi estate. He wanted to clear up financial matters, and thus he offered Spring Valley at what he considered a bargain price. On February 1, 1929, voters of the city and county of San Francisco agreed. Given the hard times of the 1930s, William Bourn and the Spring Valley stockholders did very well.62 By March 1930 the San Francisco staff moved into the Spring Valley building on Mason Street. The struggle to acquire a municipally owned water system, begun in 1877, was finally over.

  By 1932 the Hetch Hetchy project moved toward completion. Out in the San Joaquin Valley, Youdall Construction Company workers trenched and then laid more than 47 miles of pipe.When the workers finished the 8-footdeep trench and laid and covered the pipe, they held an intriguing cere- monyWith the Oakdale town citizens in attendance, 33 workers celebrated by placing their fedora hats in a big pile and burning them.63 Presumably the hats had done their duty by shading faces from the hot valley sun. Meanwhile Charlie Shea and his Pacific Bridge Company successfully laid the pipe under the San Joaquin River. Over at the Tesla Portal, muckers and drillers continued their work, and by 1934 they completed the coastal tunnel and connected the Hetch Hetchy pipeline to that of Spring Valley.