Water battle brews over Hetch Hetchy

Voters in San Francisco will face a ballot measure this November that could lead to the restoration of the Hetch Hetchy Valley in Yosemite National Park but local water officials contend the outcome of the valley should not be left up to city voters alone since most Hetch Hetchy water users, about 1.7 million, live outside the city.

The Water Conservation and Yosemite Restoration Initiative would require San Francisco to develop a plan for improving its water system in two phases if voters approve it this fall.

If passed, the measure will require San Francisco to create a water conservation task force; require the task force to present a plan to voters for greater water conservation and restoration of Yosemite National Park; and give voters approval power over any recommendations through a charter amendment that will appear on the November 2016 ballot.

The initiative is sponsored by Restore Hetch Hetchy, a nonprofit San Francisco agency, that ultimately wants to tear down the O’Shaughnessy Dam and unveil a valley that has been filled with water for more than 90 years. The reservoir provides water for 2.6 million Bay Area residents.

Environmentalists want to reclaim the valley with the help of city voters but the Bay Area Water Supply and Conservation Agency is opposed to draining the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir "unless and until the water customers outside San Francisco ... vote on whether the resulting water supply reliability and water quality are acceptable and whether they are willing to pay their share of initial on ongoing costs needed to implement such a plan.”

BAWSCA’s Chief Executive Officer Art Jensen said his group, which represents water users in San Mateo, Alameda and Santa Clara counties, will not take a formal position on the San Francisco ballot measure.

However, since San Francisco residents only use about a third of the Hetch Hetchy water, the majority of its water users in the remainder of the Bay Area should have a say on whether to restore the valley, Jensen told the Daily Journal.

"Draining the reservoir could be a serious threat to the users who depend on it and the California economy,” Jensen said.

BAWSCA has 26 member agencies and has a board comprised of local elected officials.

The San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, which is in the middle of a $4.5 billion Water System Improvement Project to improve water distribution from Hetch Hetchy, also will not take a formal position on the ballot measure since the SFPUC is a public agency, Radhika Fox, director of policy and legislative affairs with the agency, told the Daily Journal.

The agency did, however, offer an analysis of the ballot initiative to the city’s Department of Elections from its General Manager Ed Harrington.

The Hetch Hetchy Reservoir stores 85 percent of the water delivered to San Francisco. If it is drained, water rates will go up; the city will incur an extra $41 million in additional annual costs due to loss in hydropower sales; water reliability will be reduced and the area will become more vulnerable during droughts, according to Harrington’s analysis.

BAWSCA member agencies purchase its water from the SFPUC.

"The ballot measure includes a number of findings about the Hetch Hetchy Water and Power System that are misleading or factually inaccurate,” Harrington wrote in the analysis of the ballot measure.

Effect on water rates

The average customer, Harrington writes, would see their water bills increase from $709 to $2,777 more each year if Hetch Hetchy is drained.

But Restore Hetch Hetchy states that Tuolumne River water can be stored in eight other reservoirs outside of Yosemite National Park and that lost habitats in the valley can and should be restored.

Foster City Councilman Charlie Bronitsky, who sits on the BAWSCA board, does not necessarily have an opinion on whether Hetch Hetchy should be restored but told the Daily Journal that the rest of its water users outside of San Francisco should be able to vote on its outcome.

"We pay our share for the improvements and we should have a say on how the funds are spent,” Bronitsky said. "There’s a fundamental unfairness when two-thirds of its users don’t have a say.”

Restore Hetch Hetchy’s Spreck Rosekrans told the Daily Journal yesterday that BAWSCA would have a greater say in modernizing the system if its measure passes in November.

Rosekrans, the agency’s policy director, said full participation into Hetch Hetchy’s fate should be, in part, decided by water users outside the city.

"We support full participation of all water users. Our measure will give a seat at the table that they do not have now,” Rosekrans said.

If Hetch Hetchy is drained, the Bay Area will still be getting the same high-quality Tuolumne River water, he said.

"A modest amount of makeup supply would be needed,” Rosekrans said. "It’s doable.”

The Water Conservation and Yosemite Restoration Initiative is endorsed by the National Parks Conservation Association, Sierra Nevada Alliance, Foothill Conservancy, Forest Issues Group, Friends of the River, California Water Impact Network, EcoEquity, Endangered Species Coalition and the Planning and Conservation League.

It is not endorsed, however, by the Tuolumne River Trust, a nonprofit agency founded in 1981, with a mission that includes protecting salmon species and keeping the river available for recreational uses.

"It’s such a heated issue that we feel it would distract from all of the work we do throughout the watershed.” said Peter Drekmeier, Bay Area program director for the trust.

Opposition and support

San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee has come out against the November ballot measure.

"A group of right-wing Republicans, led by ultra-conservative Congressman Dan Lungren have joined with a small number of well-intentioned but misguided local residents to drain Hetch Hetchy, making reckless claims that the pristine drinking water and clean hydropower can be easily and cheaply replaced,” Lee wrote in a statement. "In fact, draining Hetch Hetchy would be an environmental and economic disaster for the Bay Area, sticking San Francisco taxpayers with a multibillion-dollar price tag.”

U.S. Rep. Lungren, R-Gold River, is seeking re-election this November against a Democratic opponent with a history of environmental activism who has gotten the endorsement of the Sierra Club.

Last year, Lungren asked the U.S. Department of the Interior in a letter to investigate the city for alleged violations of the Raker Act, the law that authorized constructing the dam in 1913.

Although the Raker Act requires the city to find and tap other water resources before exporting water from the Sierra, San Francisco does not practice water recycling or draw water from wells, Lungren wrote in the letter.

Restore Hetch Hetchy, however, wants to make it clear that this November’s ballot measure does not clear the way for draining the valley.

The measure would push the city to recycle more water and find additional water supplies, including in San Francisco, Rosekrans told the Daily Journal.

After that, he said, the goal would be to restore the Hetch Hetchy Valley to its original state.

San Francisco’s mayor, however, said the goal of this November’s initiative is to ultimately drain the reservoir.

"Don’t be fooled. Camouflaged in the petition’s language is the real goal of this measure: to drain the Bay Area’s largest and most important source of drinking water and clean energy — the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir,” Lee wrote in a statement.

In 1913, San Francisco won congressional approval to build the O’Shaughnessy Dam, which buried the valley under 300 feet of water. The project was opposed by famed environmentalist John Muir at the time, who founded the Sierra Club in 1892 in San Francisco.

Hetch Hetchy water travels 160 miles via gravity from Yosemite to the Bay Area. The remaining 15 percent of water comes from runoff in the Alameda and Peninsula watersheds. The reservoir holds about 117 billion gallons of water.

The Water Conservation and Yosemite Restoration Initiative is on the Nov. 6 ballot and will be decided by voters in San Francisco County.

Bill Silverfarb can be reached by email: silverfarb@smdailyjournal.com or by phone: (650) 344-5200 ext. 106.