It’s not often I will travel hundreds of miles to see a place I’ve wanted to see for decades with sorrow in my heart. That’s what happened when I went to see Hetch Hetchy 20 miles north of the Yosemite Valley.
More than a century ago the Hetch Hetchy valley was a miniature version of the Yosemite valley to the south. The meandering Tuolumne River wandered through meadows on the valley floor with towering granite walls rising thousands of feet on either side. Naturalist John Muir worked hard to get this valley into Yosemite National Park but it was not included in the beginning.
This was an era when the San Francisco Bay Area was exploding with growth. San Francisco, at the end of a peninsula surrounded by salt waters, had to import water and store it in reservoirs to serve the needs of the public as they had no natural drinking water source.
Beginning in the 1880s San Francisco looked to the Sierra Nevada mountains for a year round water source. They looked at the Hetch Hetchy valley and water engineers envisioned a giant bath tub. With a narrow canyon that could be easily dammed and solid granite walls it could hold billions of gallons of water for San Francisco and the Bay Area.
While some folks favored preservation of natural beauty others saw nature as something to be subdued and exploited. Folks back then believed natural resources were renewable and never ending. The 1906 earthquake and fire in San Francisco added urgency and public support for finding an adequate water supply that could also produce hydroelectric power as water moved through descending aqueducts on its way to civilization.
The Raker Act of 1913 authorized the construction of a dam in the Hetch Hetchy Valley as well as a second dam at Lake Eleanor, sited north of Hetch Hetchy. Both locations are now on the very western edge and within the expanded Yosemite National Park. O’Shaughnessy Dam, named for the chief engineer of the project, was completed in 1923 and raised higher in 1938. It is now 430’ high, holds 117 billion gallons of water, is eight miles long, 1,800’ deep and covers 1200 acres of what was once valley floor. It collects water from a 459 square mile watershed and is the largest body of water in any national park in the USA.
Since Yosemite National Park has started a “reservation only” entry trying to limit tourists to 5000 a day I was worried we wouldn’t be let in because our decision to visit was spur of the moment. I discovered this reservation experiment had ended the day before we visited as “tourist season” was declared officially over, so we got in. Then I discovered the reservations system didn’t apply to Hetch Hetchy because no one wants to go there! A ranger there joked they get 1/1000th of the visitors that cover the Yosemite valley.
It’s not hard to see why: Hetch Hetchy has a paved road, parking spaces, restrooms, a campground for backpackers, and interpretative signs. That’s it. No visitor center, no food, no gas, no crowded campgrounds, just a big concrete dam and a big lake. Because it is the water source for a megalopolis you cannot walk to the shore, you can’t swim in it, and there is no boating. You can hike around one side of it.
So I walked out on the dam and found a spot to sit and pretended I was John Muir looking at the view 120 years ago. I visualized the concrete edge of the dam as a granite boulder and that I was John Muir looking at the upper half of the Hetch Hetchy valley with Tueeulala Falls and Kolana Rock in the distance. It was breathtaking. If Muir had stood up he would have seen a forested valley below him. I saw a sheet of water.
Reading signage on the dam I found out all the virgin trees on the valley floor were cut down before dam construction and used for firewood. That firewood was then used to run the steam powered engines on the equipment that tore up the valley and constructed the dam. If that wood had been used to make lumber for a great visitor center or lodge, or a spectacular wooden bridge trestle, I might not have been so sad. It would have been something you could appreciate decades later, but no, the forest from the valley floor went up in smoke.
If you are a lover of history and nature a trip to Hetch Hetchy is a worthy undertaking just to see it once. It made me sad.
Katy,
Before I got involved in railroads like the Sierra Railroad and Skunk Train, I also went to the O’Shaughnessy Dam and tried to envision the Hetch Hetchy Valley before the reservoir was put in. When I joined the Sierra Railroad 25 years ago, I went on an interesting journey discovering our company’s past involvement with it and some interesting current day twists.
One of the Sierra’s founders was William Crocker, of SF Big 4 fame. He had a huge involvement with the growth of SF and his rail operations played a big role in providing their needed water and power that you mention in your article. To transport workers and materials for the construction of the O’Shaunessy Dam, a 68-mile spur was built off the Sierra to the Hetch Hetchy Valley.
Today you can still follow the power line and aqueduct access bunkers along our railroad. I’ve always been fascinated by the engineering involved in making a160 mile purely gravity-fed underground aqueduct, which still provides 85% of SF’s water. Before they made a diversion and turned off the water, a great place to visit was the Pulgas Water Temple they built celebrating the aqueduct project.
While SF depends mightily on the power and water from this system, for decades they have considered the removal of the O’Shaunessy Dam and restoration of the Hetch Hetchy Valley. One of the leading proponents of this was environmental icon David Brower, who among his many achievements was being the first executive director of the Sierra Club.
My brother and I got to know Brower when he approached us about two of his last projects. He was spearheading an effort to remove the O’Shaunessy Dam. His group was considering the return of the 68-mile railroad spur to facilitate the removal of the dam. Interestingly, the spur could also address one of his other big issues: Yosemite National Park.
Yosemite was trying to make major strategic decisions to deal with overcrowding, transportation and pollution. Brower wrote, “The Central Valley is beginning to look to rail as a solution to its air problems and I strongly encourage the NPS to climb aboard this statewide effort which can be part of the solution for Yosemite as well.” He specifically brought up the old 68-mile spur that could be used to not only remove the dam but also transport people to Yosemite, rather than using individual vehicles. If I recall correctly, I think he quit the Sierra Club board was because they wouldn’t fully back him on this issue.
We had some fascinating discussions with him. One time we toured the aforementioned power & water line route with him in our “Half Dome” dining car. Very memorable day!
When Brower passed, both of the projects lost momentum. We continued to work with his group but without him leading the way, they just didn’t have the same gravitas. Meanwhile, the Skunk Train had fallen on hard times and we were chosen to reopen it so we had plenty on our plate.
A few years ago I went back to the O’Shaunessy dam. This time, besides thinking about what the valley must have looked like, I thought about how 2 decades we were almost a part of bringing it back.
– Chris Hart
The city of San Francisco claimed they needed the dam because they didn’t have much water and got Congress to pass the Baker act. It was a big lie . Artesian water runs out of the ground year round fed by the Sierra’s. The real reason was for the electric power and to sell water to other communities.
The project wondrously
ran out of money as the power lines reached Concord so San Francisco that was supposed to take over the San Francisco power grid miraculously was able to hook up to the new PG&E power lines freshly installed one pole away.
PG&E were given a 50 year lease that ran out during Feinstein’s mayorship. She was totally in favor of the city buying the grid and finally having low cost power for her constituents. Feinstein changed her tune after talking to PG&E and got to be our Senator.
So the people of San Francisco paid for O’Shaunessy dam and PG&E for their electricity. And will continue to do so for the next 50 years.