Many are vital pieces of infrastructure that provide reliable water supplies, hydropower, flood control, and recreation. When changes are made there are unintended consequences. The deciding factor was whether or not the land in question had access to water. [20] They hunted, and gathered seeds and edible plants to furnish themselves winter food, trade items, and materials for art and ceremonial objects. Sign up for the email list and join an active community of monthly readers. Dam Hetch Hetchy! RELATED: Meet The Real Life Batman & Robin Of The National Parks. Third, dams alter natural habitats and change the ways in which rivers function. We would be trading flooded acres in one place for flooded acres in another. For instance, the WET company helps people see the beauty of water through magnificent water fountains. An advantage which Phelan, Pinchot and other supporters of the dam project enjoyed was a divided opposition. Gifford Pinchot: A 2021 Lesson From Americas First Forester, Meet The Real Life Batman & Robin Of The National Parks, Natural Rivals: John Muir, Gifford Pinchot, and the Creation of Americas Public Lands, Gifford Pinchot and the Making of Modern Environmentalism, Son of the Wilderness: The Life of John Muir, General Sherman Tree: Everything You Need to Know About The Largest Tree in the World, 11 BEST National Parks Near San Francisco to Visit (Expert Guide), 7 EPIC National Parks Near Santa Ana Youll Love (Photos + Guide). Proponents of the dam replied that out of multiple sites considered by San Francisco, Hetch Hetchy had the "perfect architecture for a reservoir",[43] with pristine water, lack of development or private property, a steep-sided and flat-floored profile that would maximize the amount of water stored, and a narrow outlet ideal for placement of a dam. Then, well need to weigh our options for other new large water supplies, all of which will have enormous environmental tradeoffs: think of building a desalination plant, fighting with Los Angeles over the Sacramento Delta, building a peripheral canal or siting new large dams in presently undammed Sierra mountains and foothills. By 1908, a different Interior Secretary, James R. Garfield, sided with the utilitarian conservationists and issued a permit for the Hetch Hetchy project. Here are just some of the hurdles we would need to cross: Identify water supplies to meet about 18 percent of the regions water demand in dry years (which occur about 20 percent of the time), Permit and build 40 to 90 megawatts of renewable power to supply almost all municipal demand in San Francisco, Build and operate a water-filtration plant, because water stored further downstream than Hetch Hetchy will have to be filtered, Engineer and design a series of expensive and complicated infrastructure projects to re-engineer major components of the regional water system, then get those changes through the environmental review process, Somehow convince senior water-right holders like the Modesto and Turlock Irrigation Districts on the Tuolumne River to let us store our drinking water in their reservoirs. ", "Three Square Miles of Open Space: Is It Enough? That reservoir is New Don Pedro, and it rests over existing pipelines to the Bay Area. Slow down and spend the day at Tenaya Lake a beautiful and easy-to-get-to alpine lake cupped by granite domes. Environmentalists lost what was the opening battle in a fight to preserve Americas natural wonders. The Hetch Hetchy Reservoir, which lies within the Yosemite National Park, supplies 85% of the water needs of San Francisco and surrounding counties. On returning home, he asked an Indian chief the name of the valley. "Dam Hetch Hetchy!": John Muir Contests the Hetch-Hetchy Dam The valley floor consisted of roughly 1,200 acres (490ha) of meadows fringed by pine forest, through which meandered the Tuolumne River and numerous tributary streams. View of the OShaughnessy Dam and the Hetchy Hetchy Road and parking. Download the official NPS app before your next visit. Just before reaching the Bay Area, it passes through the Irvington tunnel near the city of Fremont, and the aqueduct splits into four pipelines at 373253N 1215555W / 37.548104N 121.932041W / 37.548104; -121.932041. DWRs meta-study found a range of costs from $3 billion to $10 billion for restoration and replacement of water and power sources. In this unmanaged scenario, where nature is left to take hold in the valley, eventually a forest would grow, rather than the meadow being restored. [5] The valley was slowly becoming known for its natural beauty, but it was never a popular tourist destination because of extremely poor access and the location of the famous Yosemite Valley just twenty miles to the south. As John Clayton writes, At the height of Progressivism, Phelan and other good-government types believed that the city should administer its own utilities. Worth a Dam? - Earth Island Journal Next to John Muir, the most vocal defender of the Hetch Hetchy Valley was Harriet Monroe. Impounded by O'Shaughnessy Dam, Hetch Hetchy Reservoir water passes through hydroelectric powerhouses before it enters the San Joaquin Pipelines, the Tesla Ultraviolet Treatment Facility, and the Coast Range Tunnel on its journey to the Bay Area. Tom Philp of The Sacramento Bee - The Pulitzer Prizes In spite of Muirs eloquent and heated objections, the Raker Act was signed into law in December of 1913. This option favors building a dam in the Hetch Hetchy Valley to provide hundreds of thou- sands of San Francisco residents with water and electricitybasic necessities for health and well-being, as well as urban development and economic growth. But the reservoir has spared it some of the indignities of Yosemite Valley", "San Francisco Department of Elections, November 2012 Results", "San Francisco vote to study draining Hetch Hetchy Reservoir is defeated", "Hetch Hetchy Water and the Bay Area Economy", "Thesis: Water Supply Implications of Removing O'Shaughnessy Dam", "New Irvington Tunnel latest in Hetch Hetchy water system improvements", Current Conditions, Hetch Hetchy Reservoir, California Department of Water Resources, San Francisco Public Utilities Commission: Hetch Hetchy Water and Power, California Resources Agency Hetch Hetchy Restoration Study, Bay Area Water Supply and Conservation Agency on Hetch Hetchy dam, National Register of Historic Places in Yosemite National Park, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hetch_Hetchy&oldid=1131920349, History of the Sierra Nevada (United States), Wikipedia articles incorporating text from the National Park Service, Articles with dead external links from May 2019, Articles with permanently dead external links, Articles with unsourced statements from May 2022, Infobox mapframe without OSM relation ID on Wikidata, Pages using infobox bridge with empty coordinates parameter, All articles with vague or ambiguous time, Vague or ambiguous time from October 2019, Articles with unsourced statements from October 2019, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 6 January 2023, at 11:49. Guests at these suites receive breakfast on their patios. DWR also found that the planning studies necessary to refine the costs and benefits of restoration would cost $65 million alone. Coming from the San Francisco Bay Area youll pass right through Buck Meadows on Highway 120. His path roughly follows the John Muir Highway State Highway 132 that runs from Highway 49 in Coulterville up through Greeley Hill before connecting back into Highway 120 before Buck Meadows and the turn-off to Hetch Hetchy. [24] It is likely that the edible grass was blue dicks. Hetch Hetchy Valley, far from being a plain, common, rock-bound meadow, as many who have not seen it seem to suppose, is a grand landscape garden, one of Nature's rarest and most precious mountain temples. [36] Muir's friend Robert Underwood Johnson of the politically influential Century Magazine and several other prominent figures were inspired by Muir's work and helped to get Yosemite National Park established by October 1, 1890. The controversy over damming Hetch Hetchy became mired in the political issues of the day. Above all, one's behavior Argument Against The Hetchy Dam 587 Words | 3 Pages Restore Hetch Hetchy and the Environmental Defense Funds own studies support a lower cost estimate, ranging from $1 billion to $2 billion. [31], During this time, the upper Tuolumne River, including Hetch Hetchy Valley, was visited by prospectors attracted by the California Gold Rush. The maximum that the city has put away is 570,000 acre-feet of water. The proposed ballot measure calls for the creation of a task force that would spend $8 million to develop a long-term plan for improving water quality and reliability, remediating environmental damages caused by the water supply system, and identifying new water and renewable energy supplies so that Hetch Hetchy Valley could be returned to the National Park Service. (In fact partially because it is so difficult and destructive to build large dams, we are running out of new supplies of water in California.) Second, the sanctity of the national parks which they believed should not be violated. It's a big job to open the tunnel and close it again. [24] Screech reported that the valley was bitterly disputed between the "Pah Utah Indians" (Paiute) and "Big Creek Indians" (Miwok), and witnessed several fights in which the Paiute appeared to be the dominant tribe. The trail continues to climb for 1.8 miles (2.8 km) above the trail intersection, but you can turn around any time. The battle for Hetch Hetchy was perhaps the first effort at what is now known as "grassroots lobbying," getting individual citizens to contact elected officials in support . San Francisco was able to accomplish this in 1925 by claiming it had run out of funds to extend the Hetch Hetchy transmission line all the way to the city. Appreciate what nature created and what the city built there long ago. Photo: Chris Migeon Hetch Hetchy Valley was once home to a richly diverse ecosystem, surrounded by towering cliffs and waterfalls similar to those in neighboring Yosemite Valley. It then cascades on its westward descent through the Grand Canyon of the Tuolumne, and enters the eastern end of Hetch Hetchy Reservoir. Instead, the magnificence of a valley often described as Yosemite Valleys slightly smaller twin takes center stage. [50] The project is operated by the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission. The dam also provides flood control, irrigation, and water storage along the Colorado River. Due to extreme winter weather, Yosemite National Park is closed with no estimated date of reopening. while birds, bees, and butterflies help the river and waterfalls to stir all the air into music. This is also a place imbued with history: San Franciscos congressional delegation won the right to build the dam in 1913, to secure a reliable source of water in the wake of the 1906 earthquake. Only a tiny proportion of Yosemites visitors explore this out-of-the-way corner of the national park. [46], Work on the Hetch Hetchy Project began in 1914. People have died after being swept off the bridge and onto the rocks below. The O'Shaughnessy Dam is near Yosemite's western boundary, but the long, narrow, fingerlike reservoir stretches eastward for about 8 miles (13 km). This can be very disorienting to fish and disrupt their migrations as they depend on steady streams and flows to guide them. This limits their ability to access spawning habitat, seek out food resources, and escape predation. . Also convince them it would be a good idea to raise the heights of their dams so we can enlarge these reservoirs with our extra water, flooding anew many miles of the Tuolumne River and acres of currently dry land. There is no Starbucks here no daily parade of tour buses and RVs. Application Opening: February 10, 2023 Application Filing Deadline: March 3, 2023 Hourly Compensation: $27.3125 Recruitment ID: RTF0131751-01138303 (131752) APPOINTMENT TYPE: Temporary Exempt: This position is excluded by the Charter from the competitive Civil Service examination process and shall serve at the discretion of the Appointing Officer. [84] Karin Klein has described Yosemite Valley as "so crammed that it looks more like a ripstop ghetto than the site of a nature experience. The reservoir is eight miles long and the largest single body of water in Yosemite. The walls of both are of gray granite, rise abruptly out of the flowery grass and groves are sculptured in the same style, and in both every rock is a glacial monument., (Source: Journal of Sierra Nevada History & Biography, Hetch-Hetchy, Natural History Before The Dam, Joe Medeiros), In defense of Hetch Hetchy, Muir crafted some of his most famous prose. This is why environmental impact statements, which were not required prior to 1969, are so important today. Hetch Hetchy is a valley, a reservoir, and a water system in California in the United States. He had journeyed to Washington to lobby the federal government on behalf of the project. Wapama Fall is reached via a five-mile, round-trip hike that follows the shoreline of the reservoir with moderate up and downhill hiking. Hours: Year-round, but only accessible by car when the Hetch Hetchy Road is open. Copyright © 2023 More Than Just Parks | This post may contain affiliate links - read our Standards, Corrections, & Privacy Policy. [41], In 1906, after a major earthquake and subsequent fire that devastated San Francisco, the inadequacy of the city's water system was made tragically clear. From this work, we have concluded that it is not wise to reduce water storage facilities considering the realities of a growing population and climate change. Congress has set aside the Yosemite Valley as a state park in 1864, established a national park around it in 1890, and then reclaimed the valley as part of the national park in 1903. The water winds between granite features like Kolana Rock and Hetch Hetchy Dome. The dam in the Hetch Hetchy valley of Yosemite National Park, first proposed in 1908, was intended to create a reservoir that would provide water and electricity for the burgeoning city of San Francisco. Consider one project in progress that involves re-routing an entire river . Bierstadts paintings and Muirs writings began to publicize the beauty of the Hetch Hetchy Valley. 2023 Yosemite Mariposa County Tourism Bureau, Yosemite Itineraries: What to Do in Yosemite. History - Hetch Hetchy - Sierra Club High temperatures prevail in summer months, but that is a small price to pay for the reward of vast wilderness filled with stunning peaks, hidden canyons, and remote lakes. Native American cultures were prominent before the 1850s when the first settlers from the United States arrived in the Sierra Nevada. While opponents of the dam were hard pressed for financial support, the city of San Franciscos campaign was well financed. He was a firm believer in utilitarian conservation. Dams, including this one, dont last forever, and perhaps in a few generations the conversation about a different future for the Hetch Hetchy Valley may be worthwhile. In November 2012, San Francisco voters soundly rejected Proposition F,[86] which would have required the city to conduct an $8 million study on how the flooded valley could be drained and restored to its former state. But Hetch Hetchy was a federally protected as part of Yosemite National Park. The Freeman Report artfully depicted reservoirs in Norway, the United Kingdom and the eastern United States showing how nature and public utility worked together to improve their surroundings and provide long-term benefits for everyone. Loss of the reservoir would decrease the Bay Areas water and energy security, requiring new water storage (possibly in reservoirs not owned by San Francisco) and the development of new water and energy supplies. Hetch Hetchy Water's Epic Journey, From Mountains to Tap We have historic photographs to remind us of what Hetch Hetchy Valley looked like before the dam was built. The same features that make Hetch Hetchy Valley so spectacular also make it an ideal location for a dam. These are called Bay Division Pipelines (BDPL) 1, 2, 3, and 4, with nominal pipeline diameters of 60, 66, 78, and 96 inches (1.5, 1.7, 2.0 and 2.4m, respectively). But the ultra-liberal President Woodrow Wilson signed off in 1913 on the multi-decade construction of a series of dams within Yosemite National Park that flooded Hetch Hetchy Valley to create a massive reservoir, hydroelectric plants, and a 167-mile aqueduct for the sole benefit of the City of San Francisco. In the distance, long white plumes of water cascade hundreds of feet down from rocky heights. The Blackberry Inn Bed and Breakfast is just one of many welcoming businesses located on the way to Hetch Hetchy. More Than Just Parks | National Parks Guides. The Dam flooded about nine miles of the river, including the Hetch Hetchy valley. There are four fundamental ways in which dams damage rivers. a strong proponent of restoring Hetch Hetchy Valley and Senator Feinstein is still[when?] Utilizing its superior resources, the city produced a detailed report which made a compelling case that, far from damaging the beauty of Yosemite, the dam would actually enhance it. [9] Formerly, a "small but noisy"[10] waterfall and natural pool existed on the Tuolumne River marked the upper entrance to Hetch Hetchy Valley,[11] informally known as Tuolumne Fall (not to be confused with a similarly named waterfall several miles upriver near Tuolumne Meadows). Most people turn around here anyway. Your email address will not be published. An adjacent building contains another five suites with vaulted ceilings, forest views and soaking tubs. Hiking in Yosemite National Park | AAA Ohio As surely as forests provided timber, so did they provide beauty, inspiration, and the renewal of over-citified spirits. But tearing OShaughnessy Dam down now in order to restore Hetch Hetchy Valley would be a disaster. The reservoir is fed by the Tuolumne River. Standing upon it will give you the chance to appreciate the sublimity of both nature and human achievement. Seventeen species of bats inhabit the Hetch Hetchy area, including the largest North American bat, the western mastiff. The main power facility in the system, the Moccasin Powerhouse, began commercial operation on August 14, 1925. The second concept is preservation. Hetch Hetchy was the first major battle of the environmental movement. [50] The removal of the dam would be extremely costly, at least $310 billion,[76] and the transport of the demolished material away from the dam site along the narrow, winding Hetch Hetchy Road would be a logistical nightmare with possible environmental impacts. The 68mi (109km) Hetch Hetchy Railroad was constructed to link the Sierra Railway with Hetch Hetchy Valley, allowing for direct rail shipment of construction materials from San Francisco to the dam site. . Hetch Hetchy is the incredible story of Americas most controversial dam and the birth of the environmental movement. Then it travels through a series of mountain tunnels. This fight set the stage for future battles between those who believed natural resources were to be used for the greatest good versus those who believed natural resources were to be preserved for the greatest enjoyment. A full breakfast is served in the dining room. If you want to follow the old railroad line today, the Hetch Hetchy Road and most of the Mather Road were built on the old railroad bed and are beautiful scenic drives as well. A national debate ensued between the preservationist and conservationist factions of the young environmental movement. "[65] Harold L. Ickes, Secretary of the Interior in the late 1930s, said there was a violation of the Raker Act, but he and the city reached an agreement in 1945. A) human well-being B) renewable energy C) environmental sustainability D) cultural services E) human population growth, The current total world population has just passed ________. In the Bay Area, Hetch Hetchy water is stored in local facilities including Calaveras Reservoir, Crystal Springs Reservoir, and San Antonio Reservoir. This is a place considered by John Muir to be equal in beauty to Yose. The bustling metropolis of Los Angeles could not have become the city it did without the water which flowed from the Owens Valley hundreds of miles away. Smith Peak (7,751 feet) is the highest point in the area and offers outstanding views. Surrounding the water are a few waterfalls, the most prominent being Tueeulala and Wapama Falls, and countless rock features. A recent report evaluates the economic benefits of restoring Hetch Hetchy Valley. RELATED: A Woman Started The Environmental Movement (Can It Continue?).
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