In the meantime, a French stone mason was working on a Roman renaissance temple just south of Crystal Springs Lake. As a child Albert Bernasconi worked in his father's stonework business in Annecy, France. As a youth he studied architectural ornamentation in Milan and architecture at l'Ecole des BeauxArts in Paris. He moved to San Francisco in 1911 and soon found employment with John Galen Howard, chief architect for the University of California in Berkeley. He worked on the San Francisco City Hall, the War Memorial Opera House, the Pacific Gas and Electric Building, and Grace Cathedral. Now he was building the Pulgas Water Temple, commemorating the arrival of Sierra Nevada water from 167 miles away. He worked on the ornamentation of other buildings, but the temple was special. Later in his rather broken English, he would say, "This is one I don't forget. I built the temple, myself." In 1934 it was time for a dedication.64
The October 28, 1934, dedication date of the Hetch Hetchy system had a melancholy aspect, however. Just three weeks before the release of the waters, the man who built the system died. Michael O'Shaughnessy had been in good health and had written to a friend that his large dog forced him to walk a mile each day. But a heart attack suddenly ended his life. As the San Francisco Call put it, his death, just days before the final completion of a system "to which he devoted the dreams and efforts of 20 years," was a tragedy. The editorial noted that the newspaper had had its differences, but O'Shaughnessy's "mistakes were matched by achievements. . . . On everything he did was the mark of the sound and thorough craftsman in the engineering art. As a personality, he dominated all about him and his passing leaves San Francisco poorer and less interesting by one salient and colorful individual."65
As at the dedication of the O'Shaughnessy Dam, the Chief's name was on everyone's lips, but this time solemnly and with bowed heads. Nevertheless, October 28, 1934, was a day for celebration as thousands of San Franciscans gathered in a pastoral meadow behind Woodside to watch the water arrive first a trickle, then a roar-at the temple and then depart down a concrete chute to the waiting Crystal Springs Lake. Mayor Angelo Rossi and Lewis F Byington, president of the Public Utilities Commission, made speeches. Supervisor Jesse Colman gave a tribute to O'Shaughnessy. Senators Daniel Murphy and Hiram Johnson attended, as did the widows of two men so instrumental in the project, Mrs. John E. Raker and Mrs. William Kent. The main address, carried over a national radio hookup, came from Harold Ickes, Roosevelt's secretary of the interior. He noted in his diary that he gave a talk on conservation, "with, of course, appropriate references to the occasion that we were celebrating."66
It was a perfect fall day-sunny, yet cool. The crowd milled about, fingering their programs, which featured a nude Venus veiled in mountains and clouds pouring water from a large vessel on the city of San Francisco. They listened occasionally to speeches that added the builders of Hetch Hetchy to the mission padres, explorers, pioneers, and other dreamers and doers who had transformed California.67 The center of the celebration was Ber- nasconi's 6o-foot-high temple. Some listened to the roar of the arrival of 34 million gallons of water per day, while others looked upward to the biblical verse etched on the cornice. I GIVE WATERS IN THE WILDERNESS AND RIVERS IN THE DESERT TO GIVE DRINK TO MY PEOPLE. It seemed a twentieth-century version of manifest destiny-the uses of technology to further the hegemony of a great and dominant civilization. Those conversant with the Bible understood that for such a gift God expected loyalty and sacrifice. So also did San Francisco exact an environmental price and a human price for the arrival of the pure Sierra snowmelt water. A valley was gone and 89 lives had been lost in construction. But those who were present on that bracing Sunday afternoon were of one mind that the assurance of a bountiful water supply for the next 75 or ioo years was well worth the expense, the struggle, the invasion of a national park, the undoing of natural beauty, and the loss of human life. It had even been worth lawsuits, failure of bond issues, political discord, difficult engineering problems, the shortage of men and materials during the war, and the antipathy of many farmers, politicians, and nature lovers. There had been many moments when the people of the Bay Area wondered if the Hetch Hetchy project would ever be finished. Did it represent progress? Would the bad be quickly forgotten and only the good remembered? On that Sunday afternoon they celebrated the good.
FIGURE 23. The Pulgas Water Temple and Reflecting Pool as it looked in 1938. Courtesy of the SFPUC.
THERE HAVE BEEN many changes and additions to the Hetch Hetchy system since its dedication in 1934. Workers added aqueduct lines, engineers designed and built new dams, and electrical engineers reconstructed old hydropower units and put together new ones. Such changes were to be expected, for the demands on the Hetch Hetchy system far exceed those of 70 years ago. After all, Hetch Hetchy would be part of the continual challenge in California of redistributing water "from areas of surplus to areas of deficiency." 68
O'Shaughnessy and chief designer R. P. McIntosh had planned the expansion of their dam from the beginning. It would have been done in 1923, but money was unavailable and the need was not evident. However, in 1935 city officials were determined to move ahead, particularly because the storage advantages were so impressive. Leslie Stocker, who replaced O'Shaughnessy as chief civil engineer, made compilations showing that once constructed, the new dam would increase the depth of the reservoir from 220 feet to 306. However, the reservoir capacity would jump from 67 billion gallons of water to 117 billion gallons. But the expansion was tied to increased hydropower production, not water. It was for this reason, reiterated Stocker, that in 1935 the city decided to build the final section of the O'Shaughnessy Dam.69
On April 8, 1935, San Francisco awarded the Transbay Construction Company a contract for $3,219,265. The company represented a combination of five contracting concerns, of which three had been members of Six Companies, Inc., the firm formed to build the monumental Hoover Dam. In many ways San Francisco's timing was perfect. The Six Companies had just completed construction of Hoover Dam and were looking for work. So were millions of unemployed Americans. Taking advantage of the depths of the Depression, San Francisco could drive a hard bargain. The city could even get help from the state of California and Roosevelt's New Deal government programs. 7u
In the intervening years the Hetch Hetchy Railroad right-of-way had deteriorated. When the State of California asked the city if it could use 500 or 600 men for a public works project, Mayor Rossi knew just what to do with them. By the summer of 1934, the men had replaced 33,000 ties and repaired much equipment to make the railroad serviceable. After completion of the upgrade, many of the men moved onto related work with the Works Projects Administration. Later the Public Works Administration would assist the city with construction of new power lines. The participation by the WPA and the PWA was the first time that San Francisco had received direct aid from the federal government.
With experienced contractors just off the Hoover Dam project, everything went smoothly. The engineers did have to ensure that the new concrete would adhere to the old, which had been cooling, shrinking, and aging for 12 to 15 years. The construction supervisors resolved the problem by mixing more cement into the concrete mix, creating a richer formula. They then artificially cooled the new concrete as it cured. By 1938 the contractors had finished enlarging the dam, and once again it was time for a dedication.
City officials had hoped that President Roosevelt might dedicate the enlarged dam. He had done as much for Hoover Dam. But Roosevelt's secretary of the interior had become incensed over San Francisco's neglect of the power provisions of the Raker Act. When he signed off on the dam enlargement, it was with the stipulation that his approval should not be interpreted as his capitulation to the city. When the dam dedication came, Ickes was locked in a legal case with San Francisco that was headed for the Supreme Court. He let President Roosevelt know that his appearance might signal approval of the city's actions. With a low-key ceremony, the new dam received the blessings of the city in late 1938.71
Although not so
visible as the Golden Gate Bridge or the San Francisco Bay Bridge-the two other great public works projects completed in the 193os-the Hetch Hetchy system was far more expensive to build and the politics exceedingly more distasteful.Yet in the end all three stand today as testaments to the San Francisco Bay Area's coining of age.
However, the story of Hetch Hetchy did not end with the 1934 dedication. San Francisco found that although pure water proved beneficial, significant electricity coming from the Moccasin Creek Power Plant was more advantageous to the struggling city. Yet the way in which San Francisco chose to market this valuable product ran counter to the conditions of the Raker Act and also to the sensibilities of a determined secretary of the interior.
CHAPTER 8
The Power Controversy
[Congress would not have passed the Raker Act] "if we did not believe the 200,000 horsepower of electricity would forever emancipate San Francisco from the collar of the hydroelectric trust."
CONGRESSMAN WILLIAM KENT
THE HETCH HETCHY controversy should be seen nationally not only as a fight about water but also as a battle between the proponents of public power and those who favor private companies. Public-versus-private-power conflicts dominated the world of electricity for half a century. Some of the main advocates of San Francisco's position focused on the hydroelectric power issue, rather than water, national parks, or anything else. Senator George Norris, Congressman William Kent, and the influential Gifford Pinchot recognized that a peaceful social revolution was at hand. Electricity was coming of age, spreading throughout the country, changing the everyday lives of urban Americans. They believed that the benefits from Hetch Hetchy flowed less from water than from electricity. Who controlled this electrical revolution, and who profited from it? Norris, Kent, and Pinchot fought for public ownership of utilities throughout their political careers.1 They were in the vanguard of a determined group of Progressives intent on keeping control of utilities in the hands of the people, or more specifically, municipal governments. They had already seen evidence of monopoly exacting unwarranted profits from customers. By 1907 Samuel Insull captured 20 power companies in the Chicago region, effectively combining them into Consolidated Edison. He maintained his monopoly not only through sharp business practices but also by bribery and favors from local politicians.2 The Pacific Gas and Electric Company was moving in the same direction. Norris wished to stem the tide. Already the California private utilities were gaining a stranglehold on the urban areas. Southern California Edison expanded its capacity, and in the north, Pacific Gas and Electric dominated, spreading its network of wires to serve the needs of both small and large towns. For many in Northern California it seemed that the electrical revolution had spawned a hydra-headed monster determined to tyrannize the people with overpriced electricity, and armed with the political power to resist any sort of meaningful regulation.
PG&E and other companies centered their generating activity in the Sierra Nevada mountains. With no coal deposits available and the vast California oil fields as yet undiscovered, power companies looked to the numerous rivers rushing from the mountains; an ideal, renewable kinetic energy source. Combining its technical expertise and capital, PG&E built hydroelectric power plants and the lines to transmit the power to coastal communities. The company led the nation in developing "white coal" and also in the technology of long-distance transmission of power.3
By the time the Hetch Hetchy controversy reached the halls of Congress, legislators recognized the importance of electricity, although its benefits had not yet reached rural America. Most of the senators understood junior senator George Norris's plea to pass the Raker bill, since "its ultimate effect is going to reach away beyond the lives of any men who lives[sic]. . . . Pass this bill, sir, and millions of children yet unborn will live to raise their tiny hands and bless your memory." Employing an analogy his fellow senators grasped, the Nebraskan reported that ioo,ooo horses were now idle. "Harness them and put them to work-ioo,ooo horses that do not have to be fed, that never will get tired or weary, that never die of old age, that will be working zoo years from now as they can work now, without tiring and without ceasing."4
Norris wanted passage of the act not only to encourage use of electricity but primarily to checkmate a monopoly and reverse the trend toward privately owned utility companies. If San Francisco gained the right to generate electricity, the city would be in a position to establish a municipal power system. Passage would not be easy, for Norris believed that private power companies, headed by the PG&E, bankrolled his congressional adversaries in a nationwide effort. The Sierra Club and the defenders of the valley had been duped: Naively doing the dirty work of the privately owned utility companies, they were sacrificial pawns while the king makers manipulated the game. Much later, Judson King, a confidant of both Norris and Gifford Pin chot and an administrator for the Tennessee Valley Authority, wrote that the power interests, hiding "behind well-meaning nature lovers, launched a nationwide campaign to defeat the Raker bill."5 King offered no evidence for his charge.
When the Raker bill passed, San Francisco secured its electric power, but not in the way the Nebraska senator envisioned. In a sense, the private companies won out. Congress fully expected that the city of San Francisco would purchase and develop a municipally owned power network, ushering in a new era in which ownership of basic services, such as water and electricity, would reside with the people. Costs would be lowered and corruption stemmed. However, corruption or not, private entrepreneurs were well ahead of the city in developing a needed service that might also yield a profit. Both the Pacific Gas and Electric Company and the Great Western Power Company built extensive infrastructure systems in San Francisco by 1913, securing rights-of-way and capturing customers. Neither company expressed any interest in selling a profitable business to the city. Fulfilling the intent of the Raker Act would prove impossible. To this day, Pacific Gas and Electric owns the infrastructure in San Francisco and furnishes power to both residents and corporations. This story, often forgotten, is difficult to unravel, yet it is important, since the electricity the Hetch Hetchy system generates is as consequential as the waters it provides.
As with all Hetch Hetchy issues, the power story started with the Raker Act. William Kent was determined to make a strong statement to free the city from the for-profit water and power companies by adding section 6 to the bill. This section, true to Kent's Progressive principles, must be quoted verbatim, for it became the center of controversy for 70 years and is still at issue today:
Sec. 6-That the grantee is prohibited from ever selling or letting to any corporation or individual, except a municipality or a municipal water district or irrigation district, the right to sell or sublet the water or the electric energy sold or given to it or him by the said grantee:
Provided,That the rights hereby granted shall not be sold, assigned, or transferred to any private person, corporation, or association, and in case of any attempt to so sell, assign, transfer, or convey, this grant shall revert to the Government of the United States.6
There is a certain clarity to section 6.The language is lucid and the intent unmistakable. The city could not, under any circumstances, sell Hetch Hetchy power to a private utility, such as the Pacific Gas and Electric Com- pany.Yet section 6 caused no end of legal briefs, manipulation, and bitter de bate. The Raker Act's intent was that the city of San Francisco purchase the private companies and create municipally owned water and power systems. In 1928 city voters finally passed the bonds necessary to purchase the Spring Valley Water Company. However, the electorate consistently defeated bond elections to purchase the Pacific Gas and Electric Company. Writing his autobiography late in life, a frustrated George Norris devoted a whole chapter to the failure of his Hetch Hetchy concept. "Now, thirty years laterthree full decades-the powerfully entrenched private interests which prevented San Franciscans from enjoying what belongs to them still thwart the express will of the American Congress, the clear-cut mandate of the feder
al courts, and the Department of the Interior, under both conservative and liberal administrations.."7 How could this have happened?
COMPLIANCE WITH SECTION 6 of the Raker Act became an issue in 1923 with the dedication of the O'Shaughnessy Dam and with substantial progress on the Moccasin Creek Power Plant. By early 1924 workers completed the city-owned transmission line to Newark, on the southeast end of San Francisco Bay. Soon an average annual output of 46o million kilowatthours of electric energy would arrive for distribution and consumption. Yet the city had not succeeded in purchasing the necessary infrastructure from Pacific Gas and Electric. Many said the leaders had not tried. The federal government, private power interests, and public power advocates all watched and wondered how the city would negotiate section 6.
City Engineer Michael O'Shaughnessy understood the situation better than any other San Franciscan. In 1916 he placed the highest priority on finishing the Moccasin Creek Power Plant so that he could "put the City's water to actual work," realizing that the power plant would generate significant revenue) Yet how could the city profit from its power plant if section 6 prevented sale to PG&E, the owner of the San Francisco power infrastructure? In 1923 neither the city engineer nor any other city administrator had resolved the dilemma of peddling power without violating section 6. O'Shaughnessy finally concluded that the city must sell, at least temporarily, city-generated power to the Pacific Gas and Electric Company. He asked fellow engineer Herbert Hoover, then secretary of commerce, to do what he could with the Interior Department. "It may be rather a delicate matter for you to interfere in the operations of another department," but still O'Shaughnessy hoped that Hoover might encourage a "hands-off policy" until the city worked out its power problem.9
The Battle over Hetch Hetchy: America's Most Controversial Dam and the Birth of Modern Environmentalism Page 22