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

by Robert W. Righter

  Proposition A, as the city designated the Hetch Hetchy bond issue, was not universally popular. Businesses were alarmed by the increases, thinking that the hotels, landlords, and restaurants would be paying far too much. The San Francisco Bay Chapter of the Sierra Club opposed the proposition. The main concern was that San Franciscans would be paying for sprawling development in the outlying towns. Other political issues arose with Proposition A, but none involved the question of the O'Shaughnessy Dam or the submerged Hetch Hetchy Valley. In the final tally, voters approved the bond issue, 53 percent to 47 percent, not an overwhelming vote of confidence.47 Sixty or seventy years ago, when passage of Hetch Hetchy bonds required a two-thirds vote, the Municipal Utilities District would have been seeking other funding options.

  Between passage of Proposition A and the Public Utility Commission's preoccupation with other matters, it is evident that San Francisco has little interest in redesigning a system in order to allow for the restoration of Hetch Hetchy Valley. The commission has no subcommittee on Hetch Hetchy's restoration, and it engaged in no discussion about the proposal during the debate on Proposition A. Hetch Hetchy restoration is not a major issue around City Hall, although three supervisors did introduce a resolution for a feasibility study. It went nowhere. On the federal level, if restoration receives an audience, the city can be assured that now senator Dianne Feinstein will fiercely oppose and kill any federal support for such a plan. When she was mayor, Feinstein admitted that the building of O'Shaughnessy Dam may not have been a good idea. However, that admission has not translated into support for removal. Feinstein believes that water quality would diminish, electricity production would be seriously lessened, and the cost of replacement and demolishing the dam would be too high, "with estimates for the project close to $3 billion." Such resources could be better used, she argues, "to help California plan for its future water needs.."48

  The National Park Service is quite ambivalent. Privately many Yosemite Park officials express pleasure at the thought of restoration. Furthermore, dedicated former superintendents such as Michael Finley and David Mihalic have expressed support for the idea. Yet the Park Service has no desire to pick a fight with the city. In the spring 2001 Yosemite Guide, the handout given to visitors at the entrance stations, touted Hetch Hetchy as a place of "beauty and solitude"-the "quiet corner" of the park, which is well worth the drive.49 Furthermore, in an ironic twist, both the city and the park take pride in noting the designated wilderness areas that border the reservoir. Many park personnel would probably relish restoration both as historical retribution and as an ecological experiment. But as yet, aside from Hodel, persons in power have not signaled their support.

  FIGURE 27. When the city occasionally draws down the water, the reservoir is not a pretty sight. The photographer, Carmen Magana, took this shot in 1993. Courtesy of the SFPUC.

  FIGURE 28. When the reservoir is full and water is flowing over the drum gates, the scene approaches what O'Shaughnessy hoped: the blending of technology and nature. Courtesy of Dan Flores.

  It will take time and much education for the American public to grasp Ken Brower's idea that Hetch Hetchy provides "a potential masterpiece of restoration," especially in the absence of a charismatic environmental leader, a modern-day John Muir. Moreover, there are powerful arguments for retaining the O'Shaughnessy Dam and the reservoir. These economic and engineering arguments are compelling, and could be successfully challenged only through a long-term process of collecting a constituency around acceptance of the position that nature has an intrinsic right to survive and even a right to rebirth.

  As Aldo Leopold's concept of human ethical responsibility to the land takes hold with more and more Americans, restoration may eventually seem more a duty than a preposterous idea. But that day is not yet here. Such sentiments, if they do develop, are likely to arise in places other than San Francisco. In Muir's day he and others were able to rally opposition to flooding Hetch Hetchy Valley from one end of the nation to the other. San Franciscans became particularly enraged when Easterners presumed to tell the city what to do. Today, it is not altogether different. In October 2002 the influential New York Times ran a page i story on the restoration idea. It featured Donald Hodel, living in semiretirement but still committed to his idea advanced 14 years earlier. He likened the argument that San Francisco had a "birthright" to flood the valley with the "arguments made by slaveholders in opposition to abolition." The analogy was surely shaky, but nevertheless memorable. Four days later the Times ran an editorial, "Bring Back Hetch Hereby?" concluding that "the least we can do is endorse a feasibility study. It may well lead to something remarkable."The San Jose Mercury News agreed in an editorial titled "Sure, Study It." 50 Former mayor Willie Brown and the city supervisors ignored this advice.

  Mayor Brown has had some of his own ideas regarding Hetch Hetchy. In 1998, when he dined at a San Francisco bistro, he could not help but notice high-priced bottled water from foreign lands. Why not, he thought, bottle tasty Hetch Hetchy water? "Retch Hetchy has a cachet," announced the mayor, adding that "everyone will pay for this water. It is worth drinking." By 2003 the city began to market the water in a limited way. It seemed half joke, half publicity stunt, but raised the ire of many. Ron Good took the opportunity to state that this was just one more example "of San Francisco exploiting the natural resources of Yosemite National Park." A park ranger commented that the water could be a reminder that perhaps Hetch Hetchy should never have been dammed. However, the most stinging cut of all came from the Los Angeles Times, which loved to tweak its northern neighbor: "Shame. Hetch Hetchy may be as fresh and tasty as bottled water gets, but any good environmentalist with a sense of history would rather drink irrigation runoff." The Times editorial confessed to Los Angeles's own rather unethical drive for water, but in recent years "Los Angeles has given upgrudgingly, of course-much of its Owens water to restore Mono Lake and put water back in the Owens River Gorge. Someday," the editorial suggested, "perhaps San Francisco will recognize that its pride in Hetch Hetchy is misplaced and that dismantling the dam is something that is really worth San Francisco's image of itself"51

  The drama will, of course, go on. While San Francisco may choose to ignore the idea, dam restoration has become an option.52 Even in Yosemite Valley the National Park Service in November 2003 removed the Cascades Dam, a small structure built in 1917 on the Merced River to generate elec- tricity53 Elsewhere darn demolition is a widely discussed topic. Perhaps symbolic in its title, the Aspen Institute recently sponsored a conference entitled, "Dam Removal-A New Option for a New Century"54

  Although in denial, San Francisco, a self-proclaimed wellspring of environmental passion, will continue to wrestle with its conscience. Perhaps in an effort to awaken that conscience, in February 2004 President George W. Bush's budget proposed to raise the rent the city has been paying for over 70 years from the current $30,000 per year to $8 million per year. Senator Feinstein announced her opposition, but Congressman George Radanovich, a Republican from Mariposa, California, and chair of the National Parks Subcommittee, admitted that there should be an end to San Francisco's "overly advantageous deal." 55

  Whatever the outcome of this latest dispute, the restoration of Hetch HetchyValley holds a certain attraction. The Bureau of Reclamation's 1987 report caught that spirit of excitement:

  Initially startling, this idea [of restoration], on second consideration, begins to intrigue the mind and free the imagination to consider the creative potential of such a proposal. One begins to see the possibilities inherent in the opportunity to re-evaluate a past decision in the light of not only today's but tomorrow's needs.56

  As we move into the new century, environmental groups will continue to agitate for change, reminding those in power of the mistakes of history. Defenders of the O'Shaughnessy Dam will decry suggestions of removal as acts of sacrilege, while others will declare such action as an act of salvation. As in the past, Hetch Hetchy will continue as a touchstone, reflecting the n
eeds of San Francisco and society but also acting as a barometer of environmental attitudes.

  Afterword

  IN JULY 2003 three friends and I hiked from Tuolumne Meadows to the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir, ending our seven-day odyssey at the O'Shaughnessy Dam. The trail works its way down the Grand Canyon of the Tuolumne River to Pate Valley, then swings up Piute Creek to PleasantVal- ley, tops out at Rancheria Mountain, and then descends in a long rollercoaster walk to Rancheria Falls and the reservoir.

  Of course, we talked rather endlessly about Hetch Hetchy, as we descended some 4,000 feet along the Tuolumne River, a stream that rarely pauses from its wild rush down the canyon. For 20 miles we exulted in white water rushing over polished granite on its way to the sea. One of our party brought along a copy of Wallace Stegner's brief essay The Sound of Mountain Water and read a portion as we paused on a glistening granite slab to view LeConte Falls:

  By such a river it is impossible to believe that one will ever be tired or old. Every sense applauds it. Taste it, feel its chill on the teeth: it is purity absolute. Watch its racing current, its steady renewal of force: it is transient and eternal. 1

  Of course, the Tuolumne River water, like most California streams, is consumed by our insatiable thirst well before it reaches the sea, its natural destination. But the Grand Canyon of the Tuolumne is a magnificent slice of nature. It features not only rushing water and occasional deep green pools but polished granite everywhere, the result of glacial action thousands of years ago. The slopes, cliffs, and domes reflect light, and if John Muir had not called it "The Range of Light" over a hundred years ago, we would have come up with the description ourselves. Many years ago Muir, who surely was a travel guide as well as a naturalist-philosopher, urged everyone to take this hike. He believed that "every one who is anything of a mountaineer should go on through the entire length of the canon, coming out by Hetch Hetchy. There is not a dull step all the way"2 We could not have agreed more.William Bade, Muir's young friend and admirer, struck off with friends down the canyon ioo years ago, admiring "a river capable of such acrobatics feats, such impetuous abandon," one that "responds to the pull of gravity with almost incredible momentum." Of course they did not have the benefit of a trail. As he tells it, "one of our number lost his footing on a narrow ledge four hundred feet above the churning river, and would have lost his life had he not caught with his left hand a tough-rooted young oak that grew in a crevice." We did not experience such hair-raising scrapes, but neither did we have the pleasure of entering the Hetch Hetchy Valley from what Bade called "the natural entrance or exit of the Tuolumne Canyon." We were further denied Bade's experience of passing through "the portals of Hetch Hetchy, next toYosemite the greatest natural cathedral on the Pacific Coast." One imagines silence, but Bade, a scholar and theologian, wrote that "from the richly carved choir galleries came the joyous music of many waters, and the deep organ tones of full-throated waterfalls pealed forth ever and anon as we threaded its aisles on subsequent days."3 Bade, like so many other visitors, lingered in the deep granite basin echoing with flowing waters.

  What we experienced was quite different. After camping at Rancheria Creek, we paused high above the reservoir on our way to Wapama Falls. The waters reflected the sun, quiet and peaceful. No motorboats or water skiers intruded on our thoughts. The reservoir was full, so our view included no bathtub rings. Perhaps Phelan, Freeman, and O'Shaughnessy were right. Perhaps the reservoir represented the perfect blending of technology and nature. On a windless, cobalt blue-sky day, looking down on a serene mountain lake enclosed by granite cliffs, one could not be too angry over what had happened 8o years earlier.

  As I viewed the scene, I thought about the meaning of the Hetch Hetchy fight. Was this the victory of public power over private utility interests? Did the reservoir represent the triumph of utilitarian scientists and engineers over the "nature lovers"? Was it all about the imperial city of San Francisco's dominance over the rural interests of the Central Valley? Did the valley represent the touchstone of variations of Progressive principles? Would the San Francisco Bay Area have attained its current prosperity and growth without the shining reservoir below? Was this an issue of California as wilderness, or California as suburb and city? Was this an issue of class, with the more refined, educated, white Americans aligned against the teeming masses of variegated immigrants who needed water in crowded San Francisco? Would the San Francisco Bay Area been denied a pure supply of water if the river still flowed through the canyon below?

  All of these questions I answered with a qualified no-qualified because complicated questions require nuanced answers. My study revealed cosn- plexity, and the reasons for favoring or opposing the Hetch Hetchy system were as varied, and as shifting, as the currents of the river. In the end, however, I concluded that if forced to identify one overreaching reason for the dam's existence, it was a failure of the democratic process or, perhaps more accurately, the bias of the democratic process toward San Francisco's power and wealth. Serene as the reservoir appeared at the base of Kolana Rock, it should not be there. I should not have to imagine the valley that Muir first described. It should still exist. Why did it not? Arguments that San Francisco and its surrounding communities would languish without the reservoir were spurious. No one should have believed that the future growth of the San Francisco Bay Area depended on the building of the Hetch Hetchy system. At least three other Sierra Nevada sources of quality water were available, all at nearly the same cost and free of the encumbrances of a national park. But the politicians of San Francisco, with wealth, power, and sympathy engendered by the 19o6 earthquake and fire, insisted on the invasion of the Hetch Hetchy Valley. In the sense of the tyranny of the rich and powerful, the democratic process failed. The valley was lost to money, lobbying, and political pressure that only one side could muster. By legislative caprice and power politics the city got its valley.

  But my somber mood lightened as I looked on the reservoir with greater optimism. In spite of protestations to the contrary, here was a fight in which there were no real villains. Perhaps there were highly emotional nature lovers and arrogant engineers, but both sides were well-meaning and surely embraced the Progressive ideas of their day.4 Rather than wish the reservoir away, maybe one should celebrate that the valley was nearly saved. After all, many other impressive valleys had been and would be dammed without a word of protest. Here at Hetch Hetchy, a new and different constituency had made a stand, and although the odds against it were overwhelming, it came close to winning. Perhaps the reservoir represented a martyrdom to an ideological cause that gained momentum in the new century.

  Walking on to Wapama Falls and a welcoming swim in the noonday heat, I speculated whether the O'Shaughnessy Dam would last a thousand years. Perhaps it would, but it will not last forever. Human accomplishments are so transient, so ephemeral, so insignificant. Through at least 99 percent of its existence, the valley teemed with life. I felt sure it would again.

  NOTES

  INTRODUCTION

  I. Ray W Taylor, Hetch Hetchy: The Story of San Francisco's Stru le to Provide a Water Supply for Her Future Needs (San Francisco: Ricardo J. Orozco, Publisher, 1926), vii.

  2. Articles include Kendrick A. Clements, "Politics and the Park: San Francisco's Fight for Hetch Hetchy, 1908-1913," Pacific Historical Review 48 (May 1979), 185-215; Elmo R. Richardson, "The Struggle for the Valley: California's Hetch Hetchy Controversy, 1905-1913," California Historical Society Quarterly 38 (1959), 249-58. Significant chapters or entries in books include Michael L. Smith, Pacific Visions: California Scientists and the Environment, 185o-1915 (New Haven:Yale University Press, 1987), ch. 8; Roderick Nash, Wilderness and the American Mind (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1967), ch. Io; Jo1n1 Ise, Our National Park Policy: A Critical History (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1961), 85-96; Alfred Runte, National Parks: The American Experience (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1979), 77-81; Norris Hundley, The Great Thirst: Californians and Water, 177os-19
90s (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1992), 169-200; Elmo Richardson, The Politics of Conservation: Crusades and Controversies, 1897-191.3 (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1962), 72-84. One must, of course, include Holway R. Jones's John Muir and the Sierra Club: The Battle for Yosemite (San Francisco: Sierra Club, 1965).

  3. Linnie Marsh Wolfe, Son of the Wilderness: The Life of John Muir (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1945, repr. Madison: University ofWisconsin Press, 1978), 154.

  1. THE USES OF THE VALLEY

  I. John Muir, "Hetch Hetchy Valley," The Overland Monthly," 11 (July 1873), 46. Muir and many other placed a hyphen between Hetch and Hetchy. In the twentieth century most authors omitted the hyphen. For consistency and to eliminate confusion, I have chosen to use only the unhyphenated version, "Hetch Hetchy," throughout this book.