Restore Hetch Hetchy

History

The Hetch Hetchy Valley was sculpted by glaciers as recently as 10,000 years ago (like nearby Yosemite Valley). It has an elevation of 3,800 feet above sea level and is 3 miles long in an east to west orientation. The Hetch Hetchy Valley is in the northwest corner of Yosemite National Park which was established in 1890.

Even before the establishment of Yosemite National Park, the city of San Francisco began considering the Tuolumne River and Hetch Hetchy Valley as a possible location for a reliable water source. This sparked a social and political debate which lasted until the issue was brought before Congress. John Muir, a naturalist and president of the Sierra Club, fought vigorously against the proposition of flooding the valley, stating, "Dam Hetch Hetchy! As well dam for water-tanks the people’s cathedrals and churches, for no holier temple has ever been consecrated by the heart of man."

The construction of the O'Shaughnessy Dam (built 1915 - 1923) flooded the valley, creating the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir.

In the late 1980s, in response to an initiative by the Reagan Administration, the national Sierra Club created a group dedicated to restoring Hetch Hetchy Valley in Yosemite National Park called the Hetch Hetchy Restoration Task Force. In 1999 the Club recognized the need for a more focused independent organization and created a separate non-profit organization called Restore Hetch Hetchy (RHH).

For ten years, RHH focused on building a body of scientific evidence demonstrating the Hetch Hetchy Valley could be restored without harming the interests of the City of San Francisco. Multiple organizations including the State of California, the University of California, Davis, the Environmental Defense Fund, the federal Bureau of Reclamation, the National Park Service, and the University of Wisconsin all issued reports supporting restoration.

Recognizing that the citizens of San Francisco could unilaterally restore Hetch Hetchy Valley without an act of Congress to reverse the Raker Act, RHH opened an office there in 2009. It currently works to educate San Francisco residents and others about the opportunity to bring Hetch Hetchy Valley back to life. In 2014, Restore Hetch Hetchy relocated its office to downtown Oakland.

Because the reservoir in Hetch Hetchy is part of a water-diversion and electric-generating system on the Tuolumne River that includes the much larger downstream reservoir, Don Pedro (51% funded by the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission), as well as SFPUC's own Cherry and Eleanor Reservoirs near Hetch Hetchy, RHH filed comments in 2011 before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) on the 2015 relicensing of Don Pedro Reservoir.

Related Organizations

The following organizations support the restoration of Hetch Hetchy Valley:

Lungren Feinstein Conflict

Representative Dan Lungren (R-Gold River) has decided to legally find a way to restore Hetch Hetchy. He is challenging the law requiring that no more water be imported than required for the municipal purposes. He questioned whether the 190 million gallons per day from the Tuolumne River was being used irresponsibly by the city of San Francisco. This he believe would violate the Raker Act, which states that the river can be dammed as long as the water in the reservoir is not exploited. In 2007, Lungren proposed to the Bush Administration to allocate $7 million to the Department of the Interior to study the practicality of restoring the valley. That bill was met with opposition. Then in 2011, Lungren sent a letter to the Interior Department Secretary Ken Salazar stating that San Francisco failed to sufficiently invest in a water recycling system or develop ground water supplies that would harvest natural water fall (about 20 inches each year). His opposition, Democrat Dianne Feinstein, California’s senior senator and a former mayor of San Francisco believes otherwise. Feinstein claims the Bay Area residents are some of the most frugal in California, using less than half of the state’s per capita average. The restoration of Hetch Hetchy would also cost around $1 billion to return Hetch Hetchy to its natural state. This would include the compensation for the loss of power generated by the dam according to a survey done in 2006 by the California Department of Water Resources.

In opposition to the RHH plans, campmathermatters.com advocates for keeping the dam, and for preserving the San Francisco family camp, Camp Mather. Camp Mather fears that visitors to a restore Hetch Hetchy Valley will disturb the tranquility that exists today and prefers that few park visitors to Yosemite venture to Hetch Hetchy.

Studies and Surveys

A study done in 2004 at the University of California at Davis led Lois Wolk and Joe Canciamilla to demand a follow up study from Governor Schwarzenegger. Mike Chrisman, Secretary for Resources, responded in 2006 by instructing the Department of Water Resources (DWR) and the Department of Parks and Recreation (DPR) to compile all the information gathered from surveys over the last 20 years on the potential removal of O’Shaughnessy Dam and the restoration of Hetch Hetchy Valley. The study revealed the estimated cost to remove the dam would be around $1 billion. Depending on the level of development and visitors per year, the Hetch Hetchy Valley could bring in an estimated $14.68 million to $26.12 million per year.