benefits of hetch hetchy dam

Animals were principally driven along Joseph Screech's trail from Big Oak Flat to 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. In the distance, long white plumes of water cascade hundreds of feet down from rocky heights. . Pinchot argued that applying the principle of the greatest good for the greatest number, meant the benefits accrued to the people of San Francisco from having the dam far outweighed leaving the valley in its current state. The water shunted through them about 218 million gallons a day arrives in most city taps by gravity alone. The Hetch Hetchy Valley was within Yosemite National Park and protected by the federal government, leaving it up to Congress to decide the valley's fate. Worth a Dam? - Earth Island Journal DWR also found that the planning studies necessary to refine the costs and benefits of restoration would cost $65 million alone. It has two trailhead options. Hiking in Yosemite National Park | AAA Ohio The openings in the Taft administration led to the eventual success of the Raker Act. "[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. John Muir knew that without public support, the Hetch Hetchy Valley would be lost. [26], In the early 1850s, a mountain man by the name of Nathan Screech[27] became the first non-Native American to enter the valley. He wrote, I have always called it the Tuolumne Yosemite, for it is a wonderfully exact counterpart of the great Yosemite, not only in its crystal river and sublime rocks and waterfalls, but in the gardens, groves, and meadows of its flowery park-like floor. Photo: Theresa Ho, Of course, the proposal was immediately opposed by environmentalists including the Sierra Club and John Muir. Journal entry - Hetch Hetchy.pdf - , Environmental Science Located 30 miles southeast of Las Vegas, the dam captures water from the . Then it travels through a series of mountain tunnels. It is 13 miles from the Yosemite National Park border and twice as close to the park than the town of Groveland. Would that be an improvement? Could you imagine building a dam inside a national park today? 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. Hetch Hetchy is on the main stem of the Tuolumne River and is part of the Tuolumne watershed. Horace Albright, the second director of the National Park Service, wrote that Franklin Lanes appointment to the cabinet was made specifically for the purpose of pushing this [Hetch Hetchy project], the so-called Raker-Pittman Bill. (Source: The Battle Over Hetch Hetchy, Robert W. Righter). Some hydro-power dams withhold and then release water to generate power for peak demand periods, which is particularly disruptive to migrating fish. Another popular trail crosses the OShaughnessy Dam and then takes a left turn to climb steeply out of the Hetch Hetchy valley. What one Secretary of the Interior giveth, another taketh away. Formerly called Buck Meadows Restaurant and Bar, the new caf crosses rustic-mountain flair with roadside cafe friendliness. San Francisco Mayor James Phelan led the fight to build a dam at Hetch Hetchy. [24] It is likely that the edible grass was blue dicks. Above all, one's behavior Argument Against The Hetchy Dam 587 Words | 3 Pages Hetch Hetchy and many others were built by . From our petition "The cost of replacing water storage in Hetch Hetchy Valley to maintain the current levels of water service and electrical power production by CCSF would be approximately 2 billion dollars, including 199 million dollars for additional interties, 372 million dollars for water supply, 387 million dollars for water treatment, 669 The dam also provides flood control, irrigation, and water storage along the Colorado River. 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. History - Hetch Hetchy - Sierra Club 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 . Apply Today! [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. John Muir, the first president of the Sierra Club, condemned plans to build the dam, saying, "Dam Hetch Hetchy! [2] The dam and reservoir are the centerpiece of the Hetch Hetchy Project, which in 1934 began to deliver water 167 miles (269km) west to San Francisco and its client municipalities in the greater San Francisco Bay Area. ", "Three Square Miles of Open Space: Is It Enough? He produced at least four oil paintings of the valley one of which is prominently displayed in Mount Holyoke Colleges art museum. The O'Shaughnessy Dam is near Yosemite's western boundary, but the long, narrow, fingerlike reservoir stretches eastward for about 8 miles (13 km). Denouncing dam proponents as greedy, he wrote, These temple destroyers, devotees of ravaging commercialism, seem to have a perfect contempt for Nature, and instead of lifting their eyes to the God of the Mountains, life them to the Almighty Dollar. Glaciers followed these low-points, leaving their own marks in particular carving out the characteristic U-shaped valley with steep sides and wide floor. This 1910 view shows Kolana Rock and Tueeulala Falls in the background. The history of Californias growth is inextricably linked to the search for water. It is part of our More than Just Parks Environmental Heroes series. 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. Environmentalists lost what was the opening battle in a fight to preserve Americas natural wonders. Hoover Dam. Hetch Hetchy was the first major battle of the environmental movement. Hiking Hetch Hetchy: the unknown Yosemite National Park - 2TravelDads San Francisco assumed from the outset that there would not be significant opposition to using the Hetch Hetchy Valley, even if it was in a national park, for the high and noble purpose of providing water to one of the nations great and growing metropolises, so their efforts in Washington, DC, were conducted discreetly. ", "Hetch Hetchy reclaimed: The dam downstream", "Alternatives for restoration of Hetch Hetchy Valley following removal of the dam and reservoir page 15", "Chapter 9: Impact of restoration on hydropower production and revenues", "Putting Bay Area's Water Sources to a Vote", "Hodel Would Tear Down Dam in Hetch Hetchy", "On Hetch Hetchy, John Muir was wrong: California's revered naturalist wrote a poetic diatribe against the drowning of the great valley. San Francisco applied once again for rights to Hetch Hetchy in 1908. 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. Watershed Worker (Summer, 2023) - Hetch Hetchy Water & Power (Moccasin [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 proposed study would also have been required to identify potential replacements for the water storage capacity and hydroelectric power production.[87][88]. As a consequence, visitors came to experience it for themselves. Hodel Would Tear Down Dam in Hetch Hetchy - Los Angeles Times Pinchot was Americas Forester. He served as the first head of the United States Forest Service. Only a tiny proportion of Yosemites visitors explore this out-of-the-way corner of the national park. Most people turn around here anyway. It is definitely worth to visit Hetch Hetchy area especially in 2021 when main Yosemite area requires booking permits in advance. They suggest that draining the reservoir and turning Hetch Hetchy Valley into a tourist center similar to Yosemite Valley could be worth up to $178 million per year. Buck Meadows is also a great place to spend the night. The watershed is also strictly protected, so swimming and boating are prohibited at the reservoir (although fishing is permitted at the reservoir and in the rivers which feed it),[60] a measure which is considered unusual for US lakes outside the region. In an effort to build this support, he published his bookThe Yosemitein 1912. An advantage which Phelan, Pinchot and other supporters of the dam project enjoyed was a divided opposition. 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. This time, in favor of those who wanted to build the dam. There have been lawsuits over whether San Francisco violated the agreements of the Raker Act. This time it was in favor those who wanted to preserve the valley for generations yet to come. Environment Quiz 1 Chapters 1-3 Flashcards | Quizlet 2 Existing Regional Water System - San Francisco [35] Muir, who himself had briefly worked as a shepherd in Hetch Hetchy, was known for calling sheep "hoofed locusts" because of their environmental impact. In the foreground, the deep still water of Hetch Hetchy Reservoir reflects sunshine, clouds and the proud shadows of the surrounding mountains. The trail to Wapama Falls is one of the most popular trails in the Hetch Hetchy area for a good reason. San Francisco applied to the United States Department of the Interior to gain water rights to Hetch Hetchy, and in 1908 President Theodore Roosevelt's Secretary of the Interior, James R. Garfield, granted San Francisco the rights to development of the Tuolumne River. In its natural state, the valley floor was marshy and often flooded in the spring when snow melt in the high Sierra cascaded down the Tuolumne River and backed up behind the narrow gorge which is now spanned by O'Shaughnessy Dam. National opinion divided between giving San Francisco the right to dam the valley and preserving the valley from development. Hetch Hetchy's restoration, after all, will benefit national . Most importantly, San Francisco would lose its source of high-quality mountain water, and would have to depend on lower-quality water from other reservoirs which would require costly filtration and re-engineering of the aqueduct system to meet its needs. It's dumb, dumb, dumb. [67], Preservation groups including the Sierra Club and Restore Hetch Hetchy state that draining Hetch Hetchy would open the valley back up to recreation, a right that should be provided to the American people because the reservoir is within the legal boundaries of a national park. Let the dam at Hetch Hetchy stand - sfchronicle.com Required fields are marked *. Smith Peak (7,751 feet) is the highest point in the area and offers outstanding views. The glacially-carved U-shaped valley floor maximizes the amount of water stored in the reservoir. Once again, the political pendulum would swing. First, they block rivers which prevents fish from migrating. [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. Should nature be left alone so that flora and fauna flourish while people enjoy its primal wonders? But Sites would be what's called an off-channel reservoir, built away from the river. SF's Hetch Hetchy water system is almost full. Is that a good thing? The Hetch Hetchy Reservoir also serves to provide energy in the form of hydroelectricity, with a capacity of over 200 megawatts a year. It is spectacular: a miles-long placid blue lake nested within towering granite cliffs, from which waterfalls cascade. Wapama and Rancheria Falls Looking up at Wapama Falls from the footbridge on the hiking trail. Hetch Hetchy Valley was once home to a richly diverse ecosystem, surrounded by towering cliffs and waterfalls similar to those in neighboring Yosemite Valley. 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. The Hetch Hetchy Reservoir, which lies within the Yosemite National Park, supplies 85% of the water needs of San Francisco and surrounding counties. Albert Bierstadt was known for his sweeping landscapes of the American West. 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. Hetch Hetchy Water and Power also wants to remove the giant bulkhead that seals up the tunnel with 40 nuts and bolts, Ritchie said. [74] A 2019 study commissioned by Restore Hetch Hetchy argued that draining the reservoir and equipping the valley with a tourism infrastructure comparable to that of Yosemite Valley (which receives around 100 times as many visitors annually as Hetch Hetchy's 44,000) could result in a "recreational value" of up to $178 million per year, or possibly an overall economic value of up to $100 billion. These benefits include: Reservoir-based recreation - swimming, fishing, camping etc. But during peak spring flow, the thundering waterfall can wash over the bridge making it dangerous to cross. A Dam Removal in Progress. 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. But what about when the lake dries? There, he met the same Indian chief and his wives. Yet it also highlighted the division within the conservation movement over two fundamental principles: utilitarian conservation versus preservation. [12] During the last glacial period, the Tioga Glacier[13] formed from extensive icefields in the upper Tuolumne River watershed; between 110,000 and 10,000 years ago Hetch Hetchy Valley was sculpted into its present shape by repeated advance and retreat of the ice, which also removed extensive talus deposits that may have accumulated in the valley since the Sherwin period. benefits of hetch hetchy dam. The locations of these two formations roughly correspond with those of Cathedral Rocks and El Capitan seen from Tunnel View in Yosemite Valley. Pipelines 1 and 2 cross the San Francisco Bay to the south of the Dumbarton Bridge, while pipelines 3 and 4 run to the south of the bay. It's a big job to open the tunnel and close it again. As well dam for water-tanks the people's cathedrals and churches, for no holier temple has ever been . For your last day, enjoy a short hike on the shores of the beautiful Hetch Hetchy Reservoir. This is a place considered by John Muir to be equal in beauty to Yose. Standing upon it will give you the chance to appreciate the sublimity of both nature and human achievement. Dam shame / It's time that San Francisco let go of Hetch Hetchy - SFGATE As surely as forests provided timber, so did they provide beauty, inspiration, and the renewal of over-citified spirits. Hetch Hetchy Valley is a treasure worth visiting. They would light upon a man's blue shirt and turn it brown, and were voracious as mosquitoes would be. A full breakfast is served in the dining room. Consider one project in progress that involves re-routing an entire river . 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.. Consequences - Hetch Hetchy: The Valley of Broken Promises When youre standing at the shore overlooking what appears to be a lake, picture yourself looking down into a verdant valley filled with the tall native grasses that give the valley its name. Those who did visit it were enchanted by its scenery, but encountered difficulties with the primitive conditions and, in summertime, swarms of mosquitoes. As of October 2022, Hetch Hetchy was at 77.5% of its capacity. Hetch Hetchy water travels 160 miles via gravity from . Once the glaciers retreated, tributaries leading into the main river were left hanging hundreds or thousands of feet above the valley floor, creating the beautiful waterfalls we know today. PDF ISSUE GUIDE Hetch Hetchy - theautry.org These clean and comfortable rooms also enjoy access to the pool, spa and other facilities at Yosemite Westgate Lodge. Looking up at Wapama Falls from the footbridge on the hiking trail. The new. [79] Some observers, such as Carl Pope (director of the Sierra Club), stated that Hodel had political motives[80] in proposing the study. John Muir once described Hetch Hetchy Valley as, a grand landscape garden, one of Natures rarest and most precious mountain temples.. 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. If you love that insider feeling of discovering an often-overlooked gem, plan a stop at Buck Meadows on your way to or from Hetch Hetchy. Visitors might still need chains to get down Evergreen Road this time of year, but a trip to Hetch Hetchy reveals an example of the potent storms, and a reservoir of controversy for 100 years. 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. Hetch Hetchy Valley Analysis - 1299 Words | Internet Public Library [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. 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. The second concept is preservation. Hetch Hetchy, a glacially carved valley situated in the northern end of the park, was flooded and dammed in the early 1900s in order to serve as the primary drinking water source for parts of San Francisco and the Bay Area. 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. Would there be any room in an acquisitive society for wildness, or for non material spiritual values?. [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. While John Muir led the fight against building the dam, the opposition was supported by Gifford Pinchot. Show More. Like Muir, he was totally transfixed by the Hetch Hetchy Valley. Hetch Hetchy - Yosemite National Park (U.S. National Park Service) In spite of Muirs eloquent and heated objections, the Raker Act was signed into law in December of 1913. "[81] Hodel, now retired, is still[when?] O'Shaughnessy Dam (California) - Wikipedia Start by hiking across the OShaughnessy Dam then turn east along the shore of the reservoir. Hetch Hetchy is dammed by the 430-foot-tall OShaughnessy Dam and has a storage capacity of 360,360 acre-feet. There is a third concept, too, though it was little understood at the time. The deciding factor was whether or not the land in question had access to water.

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