Hetch Hetchy Dam

IDENTIFICATION: Part of a hydroelectric system built in Yosemite National Park to provide water and power to the city of San Francisco

DATE: Completed in 1923

The controversy over O’Shaughnessy Dam’s construction in Yosemite National Park during the early twentieth century was the first environmental issue argued on the national stage in the United States. Although environmentalists were unsuccessful in stopping the construction, they developed strategies and gathered support that became useful in later battles—including twenty-first century efforts to have the dam removed.

In 1890, eighteen years after the US Congress named Yellowstone the first national park in the United States, Yosemite was named the second. Occupying some 3,100 square kilometers (1,200 square miles) in the Sierra Nevada in eastern California, the new park featured giant redwoods and sequoias and two great scenic mountain valleys less than 32 kilometers (20 miles) apart: Yosemite Valley (which technically remained under state control for several more years) and Hetch Hetchy Valley. Both valleys offered breathtaking wilderness: flowering meadows surrounded by sheer cliffs of colorful granite punctuated by dramatic waterfalls. Writers such as John Muir, John Burroughs, and Mary Austin tramped through both valleys and the surrounding glacier-scoured mountains, bringing back descriptions of awe-inspiring beauty. Many thought that of the two, the oddly named Hetch Hetchy was the more beautiful. The 5.6 kilometers (3.5 miles) of the flat valley floor were traversed by a clear, clean river, and its granite walls were straight and steep. Because Yosemite’s state control was less stringent than Hetch Hetchy’s federal control, concessions, and tourist businesses sprang up around Yosemite Valley, making it the more popular attraction.

San Francisco, 240 kilometers (150 miles) to the west, was one of the fastest-growing cities in the United States. As its increased, so did its need for and electricity. At the time, there was no public water supply, and San Franciscans were at the mercy of private companies that were not always responsive or responsible. By the beginning of the twentieth century, San Francisco’s need for water was desperate. In 1901, under pressure from California legislators, the US Congress passed the Right of Way Act, giving local governments the right to use national park lands for water projects such as dams and reservoirs if the projects were in the public interest. San Francisco officials wasted no time in declaring their intention to build a on the Tuolumne River at the narrow end of Hetch Hetchy Valley, flood the valley, and create a to supply the city with water. The very things that contributed to the valley’s natural beauty—the flat valley floor, the steep cliffs, and the purity of the river—also made it an ideal spot for a reservoir.

When the city first applied for a right-of-way in 1903, the request was denied by US Secretary of the Interior Ethan A. Hitchcock, who felt a dam was not in the public interest. After San Francisco’s devastating earthquake and fire of 1906, the city’s efforts intensified. Gifford Pinchot, chief of the US Forest Service, was sympathetic to San Francisco’s plan, and he urged the city to reapply for a right-of-way. It appeared that the new secretary of the interior, James Rudolph Garfield, was inclined to grant permission for the dam.

John Muir and the Sierra Club immediately sprang into action to prevent the project. Muir wrote a personal letter to his old hiking companion, President Theodore Roosevelt, asking that other locations be developed instead. Roosevelt agreed that other rivers and dams should be exploited first but did not completely rule out the eventual flooding of Hetch Hetchy. Sierra Club members and others wrote letters to the editors of major newspapers on both coasts and garnered enough support for preserving Hetch Hetchy to stall the project in Congress.

Passage of the Raker Act

For the next six years the issue was debated by the Congress and by the public in newspapers, newsletters, and public addresses. San Francisco’s need for water was real, but many people argued that the need should be met in some way that would not destroy irreplaceable wilderness. Some argued that a reservoir in the valley would actually be more beautiful and attract more tourists to the area than the wild valley. For others, the issue was a matter of private versus public control of the city’s water supply. Still others expressed the debate in terms of Pinchot’s preservationism and the Sierra Club’s conservationism.

Several congressional hearings on the right-of-way were held between 1908 and 1913. A brochure written by Muir in 1911 titled Let Everyone Help to Save the Famous Hetch-Hetchy Valley and Stop the Commercial Destruction Which Threatens Our National Parks included tips on lobbying Congress—a strategy that remains common for environmentalists today. Although conservationists attracted an impressive amount of support across the nation, they were ultimately defeated. In 1913 Congress passed the Raker Act, giving permission for the construction of a dam at Hetch Hetchy Valley.

O’Shaughnessy Dam—at the time the nation’s largest concrete dam—was finished in 1923, and the associated water and power system was completed in 1934. Additional construction in 1938 raised the dam’s height. The flooded valley never did attract many tourists, even during the late 1990s, when Yosemite Valley was so crowded that access by car was restricted. Water from the reservoir did help meet the needs of San Francisco, but only after control over its distribution was turned over to a private utility.

In 1987 Secretary of the Interior Donald P. Hodel proposed to study the removal of O’Shaughnessy Dam and the restoration of Hetch Hetchy Valley. State and federal studies concluded that the valley was more valuable as a water source than as a restored environment. During the early twenty-first century public interest in dam removal and valley restoration increased after the of major reports by the Environmental Defense Fund (2004) and the organization Restore Hetch Hetchy (2005), along with two associated master’s theses (2003 and 2004), all of which generally supported the concept of returning Hetch Hetchy to its original state. A 2006 California Resources Agency restoration study found the concept feasible, and the report on the research called for additional study. Although hundreds of small dams have been removed in the United States, no removal has ever been conducted for a dam as large as O’Shaughnessy. Restore Hetch Hetchy stated its hope of winning congressional approval for dam removal by December 2014, the month marking the one hundredth anniversary of Muir’s death. However, approval was not granted, and as of 2024, eh O'Shaughnessy Dam was still in use. However, efforts were still being made restore Hetch Hetchy Valley.

Bibliography

Hartlaub, Peter. "Hetch Hetchy Reservoir Was a San Francisco Miracle. It Was also a Curse." San Francisco Chronicle, 22 May 2023, www.sfchronicle.com/oursf/article/hetch-hetchy-reservoir-san-francisco-miracle-18105507.php. Accessed 17 July 2024.

"Hetch Hetchy." National Park Service, Yosemite, 14 May 2024, www.nps.gov/yose/planyourvisit/hh.htm. Accessed 17 July 2024.

Jones, Holway R. John Muir and the Sierra Club: The Battle for Yosemite. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1965.

Righter, Robert W. The Battle Over Hetch Hetchy: America’s Most Controversial Dam and the Birth of Modern Environmentalism. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.

Simpson, John W. Dam! Water, Power, Politics, and Preservation in Hetch Hetchy and Yosemite National Park. New York: Pantheon Books, 2005.