Did you recognize Yosemite Valley used to have an identical similitude ? It was dammed in the former 1900s to provide San Francisco with water it swear on to this day , but recently , conservationists have been address for its restoration .
How San Francisco Sacrificed a Valley in Yosemite for Water and Power
Yosemite Valleyis a spectacular glacial valley in the Sierra Nevada , forming the crown jewel of Yosemite National Park , if not the National Parks system as a whole . Its scenery is so stunning that it draws closely to 3.7 million one-year visitors . In fact , it ’s sort of pointless describe it because you already know what it look like .
One of Ansel Adams ’ many famous photos of Yosemite Valley , this is the famous “ tunnel opinion . ”
But , did you get laid that a near - identical valley used to lie just to Yosemite ’s north ? TheHetch Hetchy Valleyalso have sensational rock organization and dramatic waterfalls . A huge sway spire call Kolana Rock bulge out 5,772 feet from the south side of the vale flooring , with the Hetch Hetchy Dome ( 6,197 feet ) directly to the North . The locations of those two recognise features mimics that of Cathedral Rocks and El Capitan in Yosemite Valley . If you ’ve seen Yosemite from Tunnel View ( and you have , it ’s one of the most photographed spots on dry land ) , that ’s what Hetch Hetchy used to look like .
This photograph of Hetch Hetchy before the dam give you some appreciation of the equivalence .
John Muir famously described Hetch Hetchy as , “ A toppingly exact counterpart of the smashing Yosemite . ”
Until , that is , 1919 when workplace began on the O’Shaughnessy Dam , which would eventually stand at 312 feet high and totally satisfy the Hetch Hetchy Valley with water .
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The San Francisco Earthquake , Clean Water and Dirty political science
At 5:12am on Wednesday , April 18 , 1906 an earthquake of between 7.7 and 8.25 in magnitude strike San Francisco . The fires that broke out in its aftermath swept through the urban center , destroying 80 percent of it . A natural tragedy so swell that it ’s remembered as one of the three worst in United States story , up there with the Galveston Hurricane of 1900 and Katrina .
The urban center ’s water organization — thought to be unequal for decades — utterly give out and , if San Francisco was to reconstruct itself , it needed something entirely raw .
Using the Hetch Hetchy ’s Tuolumne River as a water rootage for the metropolis had been aim as far back as 1850 , but efforts to diver its water to the Bay Area had been spoil first by competing H2O rights possess by municipalities closer to its source and then by the valley ’s cellular inclusion in Yosemite National Park when it was established in 1890 .
The earthquake was the motivation take for the Department of the Interior to reconsider the city ’s access to Tolumne water and , the yr follow the quake , James Garfield granted San Francisco the right to develop the river .
It was plain that Hetch Hetchy made a everlasting site for a reservoir from the beginning . With steep valley wall and a minute outlet on the west side , it could hold a Brobdingnagian amount of water for comparatively minimal effort . At 3,812 foot in pinnacle , the valley was equal to of issue San Francisco with water system via gravity , with the add potency for hydroelectric power contemporaries as the aqueduct , pipes and tunnels fall towards the west .
These were the early days of wild conservation and any arguments to preserve the valley ’s rude state were apace superseded by onward motion . In 1913 , Congress , along with President Woodrow Wilson , granted the urban center the right to glut the vale , but only under the condition that the magnate and water it provided could only be used for the public goodness , with no individual profit derive .
forge on the Hetch Hetchy Project begin in 1914 with the structure of The Hetch Hetchy Railroad , which would enchant structure stuff and crews to the eventual land site of the dam . Work on theO’Shaughnessy Damwas then able to start out in 1919 and it was discharge in 1923 .
Before dam .
So far , so good . Construction of the 137 - mile line that would eventually carry the Hetch Hetchy ’s H2O to San Francisco was capable to commence , as was the twist of hydroelectric exponent station and the phone line they would habituate to transmit that baron to the city .
After , damn .
Until 1925 , when the city short harbinger that it had run out of money to fund the task . Construction of the power lines inexplicably reached as far as the Pacific Gas & Electric ’s newly constructed substation in Newark , California , just across the bay from San Francisco . Conveniently , PG&E had just installed a new high-pitched voltage line across the bay and it was herald that the company would temporarily take over the deliver of that power to the city , buy the power from it and selling it back to its citizens at a profits . Over the next decade , a National Park Service investigation found the arrangement to be illegal under the deed that granted the city access to the Hetch Hetchy , but the temporary nature of the arrangement meant the Department of the Interior was unable to take action . PG&E spend over $ 200,000 support its interests in eight effectual challenges in San Francisco and the issue finally move to the Supreme Court in 1941 , where it was ruled illegal . But , the handover of power contagion dissolved into a political quite a little that stay on to this Clarence Shepard Day Jr. . Legal challenge to the situation began in 1941 and have been made as recently as 2012 .
One of the great and most successful gravitation - fed and power - generating municipal water supply system in the globe today .
As it remain firm , it could be argued that PG&E continues to profit from Hetch Hetchy ’s piss and power in unmediated irreverence of the act of Congress that originally flood the valley .
So You desire To Go Backpacking For The Very First Time
Conservation Efforts Then And Now
The Hetch Hetchy was not dam without protestation .
“ Dam Hetch Hetchy ! As well dam for body of water - tank the people ’s cathedral and church service , for no holier temple has ever been consecrated by the heart of military man , ” wrote male parent of conservation John Muir in 1912 .
In fact , this matter was the first clock time a interior audience weighed the virtues of progress versus the preservation of nature . Until that time , the prevailing view was that nature was something to be conquered by man and that its resources — oil , woodwind , weewee , fauna , ravisher — were basically infinite . Hetch Hetchy was the source of a sea change in American attitudes on their relationship with nature and the beginning of a widespread conservation apparent motion . It was the Sierra Club ’s first major struggle and nurture the creation of the National Parks Service , transferring management of the parks from the Forest Service ( a resource management body ) to the Parks Service ( commit to saving ) .
Hetch Hetchy was the touchstone moment in which the modernistic conservation movement spread into both the public consciousness and public insurance and we have it to thank for the protection of the Sierra Nevada and other wild domain that exists to this day .
Muir argued that San Francisco ’s weewee could just as easy be collected downriver on the Tolumne , in an area of less ecological importation . That argument uphold today , with a new movement give to restore the Hetch Hetchy Valley to its original glory .
Some of the massive piping that carry water downhill to San Francisco .
Restore Hetch Hetchyseeks to drain the vale , shift its water supply to the much large Don Pedro Reservoir and touch on the arena ’s diverse bionomics . The dyke would remain in position , too pricy and too environmentally damaging to bump off . They argue that Hetch Hetchy ’s 360,000 acre - feet of water is now insignificant in the broader picture of California ’s water supply and that transferring that capacity to Don Pedro would necessitate only a 20 - foot upgrade in that reservoir ’s capacity . A study by the state Department of Water Resources estimated the monetary value of this project at between $ 3 and $ 10 billion .
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That sounds expensive , until you factor in in the steady maintenance command by such a immense system of infrastructure . presently , a $ 4.6 billion labor is afoot to earthquake - proof some of the original pipeline . Another project , estimated to be in the hundreds of millions of clam range is underway , replace concrete tunnels damaged , waitress for it , by the water system ’s purity . It ’s so destitute of mineral that the water has been leeching them from the concrete tunnels it pass through shortly below the reservoir . Something that , almost 100 years afterward , has pitted the concrete and dampen it .
The indigence for most of that maintenance would not be withdraw by draining the valley , but it does put the potentially $ 10 billion cost of the project in position . The Parks Service backs the programme and has studied its potential wallop . The finding ? If right supervise , “ … the integral vale would come along much as it did before construction of the reservoir . ”
An creative person ’s interpretation of what Hetch Hetchy could await like berth - restoration .
The Hetch Hetchy Today
As it stands , flooding the Hetch Hetchy has been far from an environmental disaster . It provide over 2 million residents of San Francisco with drinking water so clean , it ’s one of the few city in the nation not require to care for it . They do add a slight chlorine just to be dependable .
Hetch Hetchy piddle also powers thee major hydroelectric powerfulness stations , providing a clean , renewable energy source for California . Together , they generate 1.6 billion kilowatt hours of electrical energy each year or about 1/100th of the res publica ’s entire demand .
But what of the Valley ? you’re able to stillvisit it today , hiking a way that skirts the magnetic north side of the valley . Because it ’s a source of imbibition water , swimming and boating in the reservoir are proscribe , but the fishing is sound out to be good . Because much of its visual splendor has been lost , the arena is also much less frequently impose than Yosemite Valley , with most hikers reporting seeing only five to 10 other humanity there a day .
dividing line that flooded portion with its overcrowded , overdeveloped Twin Falls to the south and some would reason that Hetch Hetchy is not as break as it seems .
InfrastructureRestorationsierra nevadaWateryosemite
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