Draining Hetch Hetchy not a pipe dream

Art Jensen, general manager of the Bay Area Water Supply and Conservation Agency, is open to the idea and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger ordered a study into the matter due this summer.

Ron Good, executive director of Restore Hetch Hetchy, said he is confident the O'Shaughnessy Dam could be emptied and water could flow to the Bay Area from other sources.

"This dam was done by humans, it can be undone by humans," Good said this week.

Hetch Hetchy stores less than 1 percent of the state's water, and the Don Pedro and Calaveras dams could be enlarged to make up for it, according to the group. If San Francisco conserved 7 percent of its water - and diverted water from Cherry Creek into Mountain Tunnel and water from the Tuolumne River into Canyon Tunnel - the city could make up for what Hetch Hetchy stores.

Jensen is cautious about the plan, and said in a January letter that Peninsula cities "must be assured that there will be an alternate reliable supply of equally high-quality water at a similar price."

In the slippery legal world of water rights, Jensen also asked for "ironclad institutional arrangements" to make sure cities reliably get water.

Leaders from Restore Hetch Hetchy and Environmental Defense have good relations with Jensen, though he is waiting for the governor's office to conduct its study of valley restoration. The governor's office is reserving comment until the study is complete.

A long and storied movement

Restore Hetch Hetchy's ideas of restoration are grounded in some history.

John Muir compared Hetch Hetchy Valley to Yosemite Valley in its beauty, with its sheer granite walls and giant waterfalls, and he fought Congress in 1913 to reconsider damming it to supply water to San Francisco. The city lobbied aggressively to find a reliable water source after its massive earthquake and fire in 1906, and Congress agreed to build it.

Hetch Hetchy was submerged by 300 feet of water in 1923 by the O'Shaughnessy Dam, and water and power captured by it have run to the San Francisco Peninsula for decades.

In 1987, President Reagan's Interior Secretary Donald Hodel proposed restoring Hetch Hetchy Valley, but environmentalists feared it.

In perhaps an unlikely pairing, Good met Hodel and they still share an opinion on the valley's restoration.

Sacramento Bee Editor Tom Philip recently resurrected the idea of restoring the valley in a series of editorials, and in April he won a Pulitzer Prize.

An expensive proposition

The San Francisco Public Utilities Commission is less impressed with the plan, and has said it would cost $6 billion and leave San Francisco and Peninsula open to serious problems. Earlier estimates of $500 million to $1.6 billion came far short, it said.

The PUC also contends that water rights prohibit it from storing water in Don Pedro Reservoir, a key part of environmentalists' plans.

Susan Leal, the general manager of the SFPUC, replied to Philip's call to restore the valley in a September letter to the Sacramento Bee. The "financial constraints, legal mandates and political realities" require the PUC to proceed with "extreme caution," Leal wrote.

"They can never be allowed to put the public health, safety and economic vitality of the San Francisco Bay Area and our partners in the Central Valley at risk."

'Wait and see'

Leal asked San Mateo County city leaders to pass resolutions opposing the restoration of Hetch Hetchy Valley, but Restore Hetch Hetchy quickly contacted those cities to block them.

Jensen opposed Leal's call by visiting Menlo Park and Mountain View's city councils and asking them not to take a position on the matter until the state finished its review of previous studies.

The cities obliged, and Jensen said his group would wait and see.

Good said San Mateo County is as entrenched as San Francisco in the water delivery rehabilitation.

"The suburbs get two-thirds of that water and San Mateo County has a big stake in what's going on," Good said. "People love the national parks and Yosemite, and the fact that the governor is involved ... is indicative this is a big deal."

Stephen Baxter can be reached by e-mail at stephen@smdailyjournal.com or by phone: (650) 344-5200 ext. 109. What do you think of this story? Send a letter to the editor: letters@smdailyjournal.com.