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

by Robert W. Righter

  In the end, Udall and Dominy could not overcome those who fought with "blood and bone." David Brower organized and publicized his way to victory with the memory of Hetch Hetchy and Glen Canyon as inspirations. However, this time he had powerful allies. Chief among them was Senator Henry "Scoop" Jackson of Washington State, who had distrusted Udall ever since he promoted a plan to import water from the Pacific Northwest to the Southwest. Jackson feared a "water steal" as strongly as Brower dreaded another Hetch Hetchy. In the final analysis, Udall, Senator Barry Goldwater, and the irascible Floyd Dominy could not overcome the opposition. In 1968 President Lyndon Johnson signed the Central Arizona Project bill without the two controversial dams. In future years both sites became protected through the expansion of National Park Service hegemony up and down the great canyon.66

  LESS TANGIBLE BUT no less significant, there has been a growing appreciation by Americans for national parks and grand scenery. Americans realized that nature, while bountiful, was also finite and, once lost, could not be easily replaced. For some, Hetch Hetchy was a painful reminder. Late in life, Harriet Monroe had not forgotten Hetch Hetchy: "I cannot think of the lake which today covers the flowery vale without a pang for the nation's loss of something too beautiful to perish, one of those miracles which Nature flings out for perpetual delight, and which man too often destroys."67

  In a sense, Hetch Hetchy was a national awakening. Through organization, through support, through a rather major transformation in societal thinking toward the out-of-doors, no longer could the Bureau of Reclamation or the Army Corps of Engineers expect that their efforts to marry technology with scenic land would go unchallenged.

  Harold Bradley remarked that the arguments regarding the Echo Park and Hetch Hetchy darn projects were so similar that only the names need be changed. Not only the arguments but also the modern techniques for convincing the public and politicians owe much to the defenders of Hetch Hetchy. The fight has lost little of its symbolic importance in almost Ioo years. It constantly reminds many Americans that the sanctity of our national parks and scenic lands cannot necessarily be taken for granted. There will always be those who can find sufficient reason for invasion of a park or monument. Yet, because of the memory of the Hetch Hetchy fight, such inroads will not be easy, and in most cases, will be impossible.

  CHAPTER 10

  Restoration

  "Waiting inYosemite National Park, under water, is a potential masterpiece of restoration."

  KEN BROWER

  "For the restorationist, nature is of intrinsic worth as well as being valuable for human use."

  FREDERICK TURNER

  FOR OVER So years environmentalists lamented the loss of the Hetch Hetchy Valley. But what could be done? It seemed a fait accompli, an irreparable mistake. Now there are new questions and new challenges to the dam. Can restoration be the next phase in the evolution of the Hetch Hetchy Valley? Can the great O'Shaughnessy Dam be dismantled? Can the valley come full circle to what it once had been? In 1913 Senator William Borah of Idaho did not think so. He cautioned his fellow legislators that "we ought to pause and consider well our act. What we undo in the way of defacing and marring these marvelous scenes, nature in all her majesty and strength can not re- store."l Never did Borah imagine that humans could resurrect a canyon once transformed into a reservoir.

  However, that was 1913. In an age when construction of dams was just beginning, no one could conceive of removing a dam. Even in 1955, when David Brower made the film TwoYosernites, he did not think anything could be done about the O'Shaughnessy Dam. He believed it destroyed Hetch Hetchy for all time. "So," he recently reflected, "I just gave up." Forty-five years later he changed his mind. By then restoration was not only desirable but feasible.2 When I recently walked across the massive O'Shaughnessy Dam, the idea of breaching and removing it seemed a herculean task. Michael O'Shaughnessy built a dam to last, and with a 298-foot base, about the size of a football field, neither nature nor man could remove it easily. The sheer technological difficulty of breaching the dam, though, has not eased San Francisco's concerns for its security. During World War II the Park Service closed the area to visitors, and six full-time guards patrolled against sabotage. More recently, after September 11, 2001, the city increased security once again, taking extra measures to protect the dam as well as the water supply. However, not all potential foes of the O'Shaughnessy Dam come from overseas. In the last 40 years environmental-radical groups such as Earth First! have protested development through acts of sabotage, such as spiking trees, removing fences, and dismantling construction equipment. Major dams, such as Glen Canyon, have been the object of political and environmental pranks. O'Shaughnessy Dam has not been spared. In July of 1987, during the dark of night, a climber rappelled down its sheer cement wall, rolled out a long black plastic crack as he went, and then finished off his handiwork with the words "FREE THE RIVERS J. MUIR." City workers soon sandblasted the graffiti, but not before photographer David Cross recorded the event. Although Muir did not embrace such direct action or civil disobedience, one wonders whether he would have approved of such symbolic action.

  FIGURE 26. In July of 1987 a protester under cover of night rappelled down the side of the O'Shaughnessy Dam, spreading a plastic crack and evoking John Muir's thoughts. San Francisco employees quickly sandblasted the offensive inscription, but not before photographer David Cross recorded the event. Courtesy of Restore Hetch Hetchy.

  This graffiti expressed the frustration of a growing number of Americans who believed that rivers ought to run free and that growth should have limits. By i96o the new environmentalists looked at darns with a more critical eye. Wallace Stegner, so instrumental in fighting the Echo Park dam proposal, wrote in Saturday Review that the structures' disadvantages often outweighed their benefits. He used as a primary example Hetch Hetchy, including a photograph of the O'Shaughnessy Dam with the caption "built over conservationists' protests."3 Stegner wrote with a purpose. He wanted to undercut the power and authority of the two great dam-building federal agencies, the Bureau of Reclamation and the Army Corps of Engineers. He wished to question projects "begun in narrow engineering terms, or devised by politicians and handed to one or the other bureau for feasibility studies." At that moment Stegner was busy chastising the Bureau of Reclamation and Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall for advocating the Marble Canyon and Bridge Canyon darns, both of which, if built, would inundate and impact parts of the Grand Canyon of the Colorado River. Stegner wanted a more reflective process-in essence, an environmental impact report that would reflect losses as well as gains.4 The renowned novelist and historian of the American West ended his message with a paraphrase of Robert Frost's "Mending Wall":

  Before I built a dam I'd ask to know

  What I was damming up or drowning out,

  And to whom I was like to give offense . . .

  Stegner never suggested, however, that dams ought to be torn down (as Frost suggested concerning his neighbor's fence). Neither the Stanford professor nor any other reputable environmentalist was ready for that step. Rather they adopted a defensive strategy, reacting to feasibility studies with argument and options. Restoration-or in a cruder sense, tearing down a dam-would be proactive. It represented deconstruction, rather than nonconstruction. And while novelists such as Edward Abbey, in his book The Monkey Wrench Gang, fantasied sabotage to remove Glen Canyon Dam, no individual or organization suggested the same fate for Hetch Hetchy throughout the turbulent r96os.

  In 1977, however, a San Francisco journalist-writer named Christopher Swan and his coauthor, Chet Roaman, wrote a book titled YV88, an abbreviation for "Yosemite Valley, 1988."5 Published by the Sierra Club, the fictional account transformed Yosemite National Park into a more environmentally friendly, more primitive place. In the book a light railroad system replaces roads. An expanded El Portal village outside the valley allows for removal of buildings from the park. But most germane, the last section of YV88 advocates the removal of the O'Shaughnessy
Dam and the restoration of Hetch Hetchy Valley. Visitors board the restored Hetch Hetchy Railroad to the newly reopened valley. Swan and Roaman note that increased Hetch Hetchy visitation offsets any loss of electricity income, and Bay Area recycling efforts mitigate the loss of water. While provocative and imaginative, YV88 was, in the end, fiction. National Park personnel certainly read and discussed the book, but it quickly fell out of favor as too impractical. Certainly among a select audience, the book planted a seed, but much like Ernest Callenbach's Ecotopia, it provoked thought among a few, but no action.

  A restoration suggestion by visionaries is one thing. The same suggestion advanced by the sitting secretary of the interior is quite another. During the first week of August 1987, Secretary Donald Hodel sat down at his personal computer and hammered out a memo to his staff. He proposed creating "a second Yosemite Valley" through the removal of the O'Shaughnessy Dam and the restoration of the Hetch Hetchy. Valley. Two days later he wrote San Francisco mayor Dianne Feinstein, reassuring her that this was just a single step in what could be "a thousand mile journey." Mayor Feinstein did not react warmly to this first step. Publicly she announced that Hodel's idea was "the worst thing since the sale of arms to the ayatollah [Khomeini]." "The idea belongs in Ollie North's shredder." Other prominent Californians immediately weighed in, but on Hodel's side. David Brower called on the mayor and the secretary to "correct the biggest environmental mistake ever committed against the National Park System." William Penn Mott, the highprofile former California park director, was "elated." Yosemite superintendent Jack Morehead thought the proposal "a very exciting idea."6

  But beyond the initial reaction, officials on both sides were scratching their heads. What did this mean? Why stir up a hornet's nest? Had Hodel experienced some sort of environmental epiphany? Theories ran rampant as to why this interior secretary proposed such an idea. From the perspective of environmentalists, Hodel represented an improvement over the departed Secretary James Watt, but he opposed many environmental programs. Moreover, he was Ronald Reagan's choice, and the former California governor was not known for sympathy to environmentalists' concerns. Probably most would agree with Robert Hackamack, a Sierra Club member of the Tuolumne River group: "Hodel isn't going to propose a deal like this without requiring a compromise that I wouldn't want to compromise on. But it's a wonderful, wonderful thing to talk about.."7

  However, Secretary Hodel insisted that he was serious about the idea. "I have no ulterior motives," he insisted, and claimed that when the first phase of knee-jerk reactions and one-liners dissipated, he hoped to meet "with those people who would like to get serious about talking about it.."8 Meanwhile in Washington, Deputy Assistant Secretary Wayne Merchant tried to satisfy a curious press, lamely explaining that this was only a concept, devoid of any plan. Immediately, however, speculation emerged that the suggestion of restoration of Hetch Hetchy Valley was, as Robert Hackamack suspected, merely a diversionary bone thrown to environmentalists. At issue was the proposed Auburn dam on the American River, a Bureau of Reclamation project. Congress authorized the dam in 1965 at a cost of $465 million. The bureau had spent approximately $330 million in planning and initial construction, but in 1975 an earthquake rattled the Sierra Nevada. Opponents of the dam raised significant questions regarding cost-benefit ratios, but the earthquake sealed the dam's fate, especially since Sacramento would be in the water's path should it fail. But with such an investment, critics suspected that Hodel wanted to resurrect the Auburn dam project. Those given to conspiracy theories believed that Hodel's Hetch Hetchy idea was merely a ruse by the Reagan administration to threaten San Francisco with loss of water while assuring the city that replacement water would come from the Auburn darn-if the city supported the Bureau of Reclamation plan.9 The Sacramento Bee willingly accepted such an interpretation, asking in an editorial, "Is Interior Secretary Donald Hodel's plan for tearing down San Francisco's Hetch Hetchy water system really just another desperate ploy to resuscitate the Bureau of Reclamation's faltering plans for the Auburn dam site?"1 ° The Bee believed the answer was yes. However, representatives of both Friends of the River and the Sierra Club vigorously denied that the removal was coupled to the Auburn dam proposal. They considered that replacement water could be found from the Tuolumne River by "reoperation" of the river flows. Hetch Hetchy manager Dean Coffey admitted candidly that through "reoperating" and reconstructing the Tuolumne system, the dam could be removed and yet provide for the city's water needs.' 1

  Charles Washburn, a professor of mechanical engineering at California State University, Sacramento, supported this view In his article "No Hetch Hetchy or Auburn Dam," Washburn argued that the first reservoir on any river "yields a large return in water, but as more and larger reservoirs are built, the incremental gains in water yield diminish." The enlarged Don Pedro Reservoir, along with other reservoirs in the Tuolumne watershed, "make[s] Hetch Hetchy redundant as a water conservation reservoir." The Hetch Hetchy Reservoir in 1987 controlled only 26 percent of the river's flow Washburn believed that "there seems no reason in principle why San Francisco couldn't divert its water from Lake Don Pedro," since the aqueduct tubes run under the reservoir and the gravity system could be retained. Admittedly, the wild and scenic stretch of the river would be changed, "maybe for the worse," but "tearing down the dam might restore good trout fishing." 12

  HAVING DROPPED HIS bombshell on a nervous city, Secretary Hodel disappeared for two weeks in the wilds of Alaska, after vigorously denying that the Auburn Dam influenced his Hetch Hetchy announcement. 13 In Alaska, he unexpectedly encountered a delegation of Sierra Club members at the tiny Deadhorse Airport. A spontaneous, informal meeting resulted. Michael Fischer, the Sierra Club's executive director, took notes:

  He is committed to the principal [sic] involved-that of restoration. He sees this as a Io-year project, and is surprised by Dianne's [Feinstein] inability to look beyond the immediate problems raised by the suggestion, especially since she's leaving office shortly. Even if no action on Hetchy is possible in the near future, he agreed to push the idea for its own merit. When Doug [Horn] suggested that David Brower would want to extend the precedent to Glen Canyon Dam, his response was "that day may come."

  Hodel expressed his eagerness to work with the Sierra Club and asked that his staff be given access to the club's archives to develop a case for the restoration of the valley. It was a rather remarkable meeting, and Doug Scott paid the secretary a compliment by stating that "only Nixon could have gone to China, and only Hodel could credibly open such a serious discussion." Later, typing up his notes at Sadlerochit Springs, Fischer noted that a caribou grazed within a ioo yards-approvingly.14

  The analogy to Nixon opening China was apt. It was surprising that Hodel should suggest restoration of the Hetch Hetchy. Valley. However, he offered an explanation. During that summer of 1987 the secretary visited Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado, observing three potentially majestic valleys submerged by small dams. The dams had been constructed by the nearby city of Longmont, but the city faced expensive repairs. In fact two dams might burst. Hodel suggested that they be dismantled by human intervention rather than nature. Perhaps the city of Longmont would agree to their removal if the Park Service purchased the sites and also found replacement water? Longmont agreed. Having participated in a win-win agreement, the secretary was in an expansive, creative mode as he and his entourage made their way west to Yosemite. At Tuolumne Meadows they participated in the dedication of Mount Ansel Adams. Afterward, Hodel stretched his legs on a climb up Lembert Dome. On the descent, Hodel mentioned the Colorado dams and, according to David Brower, someone thrust David Cross's "Free the River" photograph of O'Shaughnessy Dam before him and asked if the secretary might wish to consider dismantling a larger dam. Little more was said, but in Sacramento Hodel called a meeting and Brower attended. The secretary's staff displayed the 1915 Hetch Hereby Valley photographs by "Little Joe" LeConte. Hodel, remarkably, embraced the idea of restoration. It was Hode
l's initiative, but of course Brower, who has often been described as a near clone of John Muir, loved the suggestion. 15

  As already noted, Hodel's proposal unleashed a flurry of activity. In Sacramento the lawmakers authorized $ioo,ooo for the state Department of Water Resources to estimate the economic and environmental impacts of tearing down the O'Shaughnessy Dam. Some state senators, such as Quentin Kopp of San Francisco, believed Hodel's proposal was a "wacko idea.."16 Senator Milton Marks, also from San Francisco, saw the proposal as a thinly veiled first step to divert water from San Francisco to California Water Project customers in Southern California.v Generally the state legislators looked on the idea with a mixture of horror, curiosity, and amazement, for it was a thought that had never crossed their minds. However, in the Golden State any plan that changes water distribution attracts detractors and defenders. It seemed reasonable to at least study Hodel's idea, although many believed that California needed to be creating more water reservoirs, rather than tearing them down.