. The first Moccasin Powerhouse in Moccasin, California began commercial operation in 1925 followed by the Holm Powerhouse in 1960 (the same month the Early Intake Powerhouse was taken out of service). The battle for the Hetch Hetchy Valleys future was not simply preservation versus conservation. This limits their ability to access spawning habitat, seek out food resources, and escape predation. Rounding the corner and catching the first glimpses of Hetch Hetchy Valley reveals the play of light on water. In some cases, however, including the Klamath and Hetch Hetchy, the benefits of restoration clearly outweigh the benefits provided by the dams. "[85] However, she does support breaching the dam once it has reached the end of its lifespan, and not replacing it. All offers, including but not limited to, bonus amenities, upgrades, prices, and group benefits are based on select dates, resorts, room categories, and/or fare codes. John Muir knew that without public support, the Hetch Hetchy Valley would be lost. The Hetch Hetchy system's supporters say it has one of the smallest carbon footprints of any water system in the United States because its water is of such high quality that it requires no. If youre especially in the mood to relax and let yourself be taken care of, The Blackberry Inn is a luxury bed and breakfast situated on 36 acres and surrounded by National Forest land. Smith Peak (7,751 feet) is the highest point in the area and offers outstanding views. Topic: Hoover Dam - Water Education Foundation Muir observed:[3]. When changes are made there are unintended consequences. 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. For instance, the WET company helps people see the beauty of water through magnificent water fountains. The imputed motive was to divide the environmental movement: to see residents of the strongly Democratic city of San Francisco coming out against an environmental issue. San Francisco Hetch Hetchy Reservoir Initiative, Proposition F Pinchot was Americas Forester. He served as the first head of the United States Forest Service. It involved the unintended consequences of efforts to shape the environment to meet human needs. [31] Its meadows provided abundant feed for "thousands of head of sheep and cattle that entered lean and lank in the spring, but left rolling fat and hardly able to negotiate the precipitous and difficult defiles out of the mountains in the fall. Spring snowmelt runs down the Tuolumne River and fills Hetch Hetchy, the largest reservoir in our water system. Hetch Hetchy Water and Power also wants to remove the giant bulkhead that seals up the tunnel with 40 nuts and bolts, Ritchie said. Hoover Dam. Residents drink it in 26 cities and water districts from San. A Dam Removal in Progress. Copyright © 2023 More Than Just Parks | This post may contain affiliate links - read our Standards, Corrections, & Privacy Policy. Three strikes for San Francisco | Restore Hetch Hetchy From the turn-off, the road winds for 16.5 miles up the old Hetch Hetchy railroad grade (26.5 km) to the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir, passing many lonely trails along the way. [42] This provoked a seven-year environmental struggle with the environmental group Sierra Club, led by John Muir. The SFPUC and other Hetch Hetchy users are currently implementing plans to meet this demand through recycled water, groundwater and conservation. Not far from there, youll find more budget-minded lodging at Buck Meadows Lodge. Sign up for helpful guides, beautiful videos, and insider tips on the national parks. 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. The larger issues at stake would frame environmental debates for years to come. Forests might provide for the material well-being of human beings, but they did not exist for this reason alone. 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. The Hetch Hetchy Valley underwent a monumental transformation when the City Of San Francisco received the approval of Congress in 1913 to build a dam in the Hetch Hetchy Valley, thus storing the water of the Tuolumne River and flooding the valley to a height of over 350 feet. Wapama Fall is reached via a five-mile, round-trip hike that follows the shoreline of the reservoir with moderate up and downhill hiking. The Hetch Hetchy Road drops into the valley at the dam, but all points east of there are roadless, and accessible only to hikers and equestrians. The U.S. Congress passed and President Woodrow Wilson signed the Raker Act in 1913, which permitted the flooding of the valley under the conditions that power and water derived from the river could only be used for public interests. If the dam were not to be built, it would only benefit the small percentage of Americans who actually visited the site and were concerned about the park's pristine condition. But Hetch Hetchy, one of nature's perfect . It marks the first catchment in a 160-mile long water system that brings high quality, superb-tasting water to 2.6 million residents of the Bay Area every day. ", "Fall in the Main Tuolumne River at the Head of Hetch Hetchy Valley", "Fly Fishing Poopenaut Valley Tuolumne River", "Screech Brothers Find Hetch Hetchy Valley", "Big Oak Flat (No. But what about when the lake dries? Divide the class into four small groups. In 1987, President Reagans Secretary of the Interior, Donald Hodel, proposed that Hetch Hetchy be restored. As we all know, there is no use of water that is higher than the domestic use., He went on to say, We come straight to the question of whether the advantage of leaving this valley in a state of nature is greater than the advantage of using it for the benefit of the city of San Francisco.. Located at 3,900 feet, it boasts one of the longest hiking seasons in the park. Yet it also highlighted the division within the conservation movement over two fundamental principles: utilitarian conservation versus preservation. 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). Now San Francisco wanted to dam one of the two principal watersheds in the park, the Hetch Hetchy valley through which ran the Tuolumne River, to create a reservoir for its water supply. Hetch Hetchy: Pros and Cons of Restoration - Yosemite Tales It is the source of water for the city of San Francisco. The idea of punching a hole in or removing the dam and allowing the valley to be restored to its pre-development conditions has been around since the late 1980s. Since the valley was within Yosemite National Park, an act of Congress was needed to authorize the project. Construction of O'Shaughnessy Dam began in 1919 and was finished in 1923, with the reservoir first filling in May of that year. Gravel, logs, and other important food and habitat features can become trapped. Third, dams alter natural habitats and change the ways in which rivers function. In an effort to build this support, he published his bookThe Yosemitein 1912. Although Hetch Hetchy is included within the boundaries of Yosemite National Park, the entrance is separate from the rest of the park. Storage and Delivery Updates | SFPUC Through the manipulation of water, the company also had the power to determine which real estate became valuable and which languished. 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. (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.) It carried workers and materials for the dam, as well as tourists, postage and other amenities. After Hetch Hetchy, many realized the National Parks needed more protection. [citation needed] The George W. Bush administration proposed allocating $7 million to studying the removal of the dam in the 2007 National Park Service budget. "[19], People have lived in Hetch Hetchy Valley for over 6,000 years. In 1913, Woodrow Wilson appointed Lane his Secretary of the Interior. Your email address will not be published. If youre up for a driving adventure, try taking a little extra time to retrace parts of the route John Muir described in his book, My First Summer in the Sierra. Like Muir, he was totally transfixed by the Hetch Hetchy Valley. 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. As well dam for water tanks the peoples cathedrals and churches, for no holier temple has ever been consecrated by the heart of man.'. [2] From Hetch Hetchy Reservoir, the water flows through the Canyon and Mountain Tunnels to Kirkwood and Moccasin Powerhouses, which have capacities of 124 and 110 megawatts, respectively. strongly against restoration. [49], The narrow defile at the lower end of Hetch Hetchy Valley where San Francisco planned to dam the Tuolumne River, seen in 1914 before construction began, The same area seen today, with O'Shaughnessy Dam and Hetch Hetchy Reservoir, Hetch Hetchy Valley serves as the primary water source for the City and County of San Francisco and several surrounding municipalities in the greater San Francisco Bay Area. [8], Before damming, the valley floor contained abundant stands of black oaks, live oak, Ponderosa pine, Douglas fir, and silver fir bordering the meadows, with alder, willow, poplar and dogwood in the riparian zone along the Tuolumne River. (Read SPURs analysis of this plan.) The dam is a small portion of the overall Tuolumne River/San Francisco storage system that benefits the Bay Area. If, on the other hand, San Francisco gained control, it would signal in important victory for public power resulting in lower rates for the people. Consider one project in progress that involves re-routing an entire river . To get to Hetch Hetchy, turn north off Highway 120 onto Evergreen Road about 1 mile (2.2 km) outside the Big Oak Flat Entrance gate, and 12.5 miles (20 km) east of the small community of Buck Meadows. Slow-moving reservoirs heat up, resulting in abnormal temperature fluctuations which can affect sensitive species. Could you imagine building a dam inside a national park today? The SFPUC tests its quality more than 100,000 times a year to ensure that it exceeds all safe drinking water standards. It forced elected representatives to consider what a national park designation truly meant and whether or not the land within these parks deserved protection. National opinion divided between giving San Francisco the right to dam the valley and preserving the valley from development. The glacially-carved U-shaped valley floor maximizes the amount of water stored in the reservoir. Owned by the city of San Francisco, Hetch Hetchy Reservoir provides water to 2.7 million residents and businesses in the San Francisco Bay Area. the Hetch Hetchy Dam (1910-13) Abstract The damming of Hetch Hetchy in Yosemite National Park is a watershed event in environmental history, a presumed travesty that brought anguish to John Muir and his many sup porters throughout the United States. Stand on OShaughnessy Dam and feel the cool updraft. The Hetch Hetchy Dam in the Yosemite Valley, receives the bulk of it's water from the sierra snow pack miles above the reservoir. By Posted student houses falmouth 2021 In jw marriott panama concierge lounge Camping included, if needed; limited sites are shared among all the . In the Bay Area, Hetch Hetchy water is stored in local facilities including Calaveras Reservoir, Crystal Springs Reservoir, and San Antonio Reservoir. They were both initially carved by rivers flowing down the Sierras relatively gentle western slope. [citation needed], The Hetch Hetchy Valley began as a V-shaped river canyon cut out by the ancestral Tuolumne River. Even if we could obtain the several billion dollars necessary to carry out this endeavor (neither private nor public sources have yet been identified) some of the tasks involved may not even be possible. From 1901 - 1913, John Muir led the Sierra Club in a campaign to protect the Hetch Hetchy Valley, a part of Yosemite National Park, from being filled by a reservoir. 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. [3] Kolana Rock, at 5,772ft (1,759m), is a massive rock spire on the south side of the Hetch Hetchy Valley. [73] Furthermore, the removal of O'Shaughnessy Dam would not require costly sediment control measures, as would be typical on most dam removal projects, because of the high quality of the Tuolumne River water in the first 90 years since its construction, only around 2in (5.1cm) of sediment had been deposited in Hetch Hetchy Reservoir, much less than most other dams. In the autumn of 1871, John Muir visited Hetch Hetchy for the first time. Yes, the plan to drain Hetch Hetchy involves causing new ecological damage. Secretary of the Interior, Ethan Allen Hitchcock, refused to give San Francisco a permit to build the dam. 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. The Dam flooded about nine miles of the river, including the Hetch Hetchy valley. Within three years, Congress had passed the Organic Act, formally defining the parks and creating a new federal agency, the National Park Service, with a mission: to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wild life therein and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations.. One route begins six miles beyond the entrance station. DWR also found that the planning studies necessary to refine the costs and benefits of restoration would cost $65 million alone. Once again, the political pendulum had swung. Hetch Hetchy, located at 3,900 feet in Yosemite National Park, is one of the park's most popular hiking . Pinchot was recognized as a leader of the conservation movement. [42] They claimed the valley was not unique and would be even more beautiful with a lake. Even a short stroll from the car gives a magnificent view of the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir from the OShaughnessy Dam. Hours: Year-round, but only accessible by car when the Hetch Hetchy Road is open. 2023 Yosemite Mariposa County Tourism Bureau, Yosemite Itineraries: What to Do in Yosemite. [39], Interest in using the valley as a water source or reservoir dates back as far as the 1850s, when the Tuolumne Valley Water Company proposed developing water storage there for irrigation. [17] The valley's abundant plants provided nourishment for mule deer, black bears and bighorn sheep. Progressive political leaders, of whom Mayor Phelan was one, believed it was time to take this power away from the private interests and turn it over to the people. This was likely because of Hetch Hetchy's narrow outlet, which in years of heavy snowmelt created a bottleneck in the Tuolumne River and the subsequent flooding of the valley floor. Assign each group to analyze one or more . Glaciers followed these low-points, leaving their own marks in particular carving out the characteristic U-shaped valley with steep sides and wide floor. The water winds between granite features like Kolana Rock and Hetch Hetchy Dome. Right next to the Lucky Buck Cafe, youll find the Yosemite Westgate Lodge and Buck Meadows Lodge. The water from Hetch Hetchy Reservoir is used to supply system customers as well as to generate hydroelectric power; the reservoir is also operated to provide instream flows to benefit fisheries and other wildlife. history. "[34], When Yosemite Valley became part of a state park in 1864, Hetch Hetchy received no such designation. [58], Water from Hetch Hetchy is some of the cleanest municipal water in the United States; San Francisco is one of six U.S. cities not required by law to filter its tap water, although the water is disinfected by ozonation and, since 2011, exposure to UV.
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