After paying over $400 million to repair fire-ravaged San Francisco
following the 1906 earthquake, the city redoubled its efforts to find a
reliable water supply. The Federal government granted San Francisco the
right to dam Hetch Hetchy Valley in 1908 after the city exhausted most
other possibilities. The city built the Hetch Hetchy Railroad to transport
some of the building materials to the dam site in western Yosemite National
Park, and finished building the original O'Shaughnessy Dam in 1923. Ronald
Reagan's Interior Secretary Donald Hodel proposed removing the dam in 1987.
I spent an enjoyable Saturday walking into Hetch Hetchy Valley as far as
booming Wapama Falls this weekend. The reservoir has made this the least
visited area of Yosemite. I found myself preferring the reservoir's quiet
to Yosemite Valley's maelstrom of tourists, though the reservoir looks
unnatural after you see J.N. LeConte's pre-dam pictures:
http://california.sierraclub.org/hetchhetchy/requiem_for_hetch_hetchy.html.
Enjoying the quiet first-hand only confused me further over how I feel
about what many of us have called 'that damn dam'.
Hetch Hetchy looks like this today: http://tinyurl.com/9g6ub
All comments welcome.
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