Restore Hetch Hetchy is a US non-profit organization seeking to restore the

Hetch Hetchy Valley Hetch Hetchy is a valley, a reservoir, and a water system in California in the United States. The glacial Hetch Hetchy Valley lies in the northwestern part of Yosemite National Park and is drained by the Tuolumne River. For thousands of years bef ...

in Yosemite National Park to its original condition.

History

The

was sculpted by glaciers as recently as 10,000 years ago (like nearby

Yosemite Valley Yosemite Valley ( ; ''Yosemite'', Miwok for "killer") is a U-shaped valley, glacial valley in Yosemite National Park in the western Sierra Nevada (U.S.), Sierra Nevada mountains of Central California. The valley is about long and deep, surroun ...

). It has an elevation of 3,800 feet above sea level and is 3 miles long in an east to west orientation. The Hetch Hetchy Valley is in the northwest corner of

Yosemite National Park Yosemite National Park ( ) is an American national park in California, surrounded on the southeast by Sierra National Forest and on the northwest by Stanislaus National Forest. The park is managed by the National Park Service and covers an ar ...

, which was established in 1890. Even before the establishment of Yosemite National Park, the city of

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

began considering the

Tuolumne River The Tuolumne River ( Yokutsan: ''Tawalimnu'') flows for through Central California, from the high Sierra Nevada to join the San Joaquin River in the Central Valley. Originating at over above sea level in Yosemite National Park, the Tuolumne ...

and Hetch Hetchy Valley as a possible location for a reliable water source. This sparked a social and political debate which lasted until the issue was brought before Congress.

John Muir John Muir ( ; April 21, 1838December 24, 1914), also known as "John of the Mountains" and "Father of the National Parks", was an influential Scottish-American naturalist, author, environmental philosopher, botanist, zoologist, glaciologist, a ...

, a naturalist and president of the

Sierra Club The Sierra Club is an environmental organization with chapters in all 50 United States, Washington D.C., and Puerto Rico. The club was founded on May 28, 1892, in San Francisco, California, by Scottish-American preservationist John Muir, who be ...

, fought vigorously against the proposition of flooding the valley, stating, "Dam Hetch Hetchy! As well dam for water-tanks the people's cathedrals and churches, for no holier temple has ever been consecrated by the heart of man." The construction of the O'Shaughnessy Dam (built 1915 - 1923) flooded the valley, creating the

Hetch Hetchy Reservoir Hetch Hetchy is a valley, a reservoir, and a water system in California in the United States. The glacial Hetch Hetchy Valley lies in the northwestern part of Yosemite National Park and is drained by the Tuolumne River. For thousands of years bef ...

. In the late 1980s, in response to an initiative by the Reagan Administration, the national Sierra Club created a group dedicated to restoring Hetch Hetchy Valley in Yosemite National Park called the Hetch Hetchy Restoration Task Force. In 1999, the Club created a separate non-profit organization called Restore Hetch Hetchy (RHH). Because the reservoir in Hetch Hetchy is part of a water-diversion and electric-generating system on the Tuolumne River that includes the much larger downstream reservoir, Don Pedro (51% funded by the

San Francisco Public Utilities Commission The San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC) is a public agency of the City and County of San Francisco that provides water, wastewater, and electric power services to the city and an additional 1.9 million customers within three San Franc ...

), as well as SFPUC's own Cherry and Eleanor Reservoirs near Hetch Hetchy, RHH filed comments in 2011 before the

Federal Energy Regulatory Commission The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) is the United States federal agency that regulates the transmission and wholesale sale of electricity and natural gas in interstate commerce and regulates the transportation of oil by pipeline in ...

(FERC) on the 2015 relicensing of Don Pedro Reservoir. In 2015, Restore Hetch Hetchy sued San Francisco, arguing that the continuing existence of the dam and reservoir is a violation of the California Constitution's prohibition against any "unreasonable method of diversion". The Tuolumne County Courts dismissed the case, saying California Courts have no jurisdiction, as the dam was allowed by federal law. Restore Hetch Hetchy appealed, and the California Attorney General opined that the matter should be tried on the technical, not legal, merits. In July 2018, the appeals court threw out the lawsuit, declaring that Congress had overruled the state. The case was taken to the California Supreme Court which, in mid-October 2018, rejected the lawsuit in a 3-0 ruling. Beginning in 2018, the

Department of the Interior The United States Department of the Interior (DOI) is one of the executive departments of the U.S. federal government headquartered at the Main Interior Building, located at 1849 C Street NW in Washington, D.C. It is responsible for the mana ...

of the Trump administration began to consider a proposal initiated by RHH and

California Trout California Trout is a San Francisco-based 501(c)(3) conservation group with a mission to ensure resilient wild fish in California waters. California Trout have three conservation initiatives focused on: * Strongholds * Source Water Areas * Wild ...

to allow limited boating on the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir for the first time, with representatives of the two organizations arguing that "San Francisco received

etch Hetchy's Etch may refer to: * to carry out an etching process * Etch (protocol), a network protocol * Etch (''Toy Story''), a character from the film ''Toy Story'' * Etch, the codename of version 4.0 of the Debian Linux operating system * East Tennessee ...

benefits long ago, but the American people have not." A 2019 study commissioned by Restore Hetch Hetchy argued that draining the reservoir and equipping the valley with a tourism infrastructure comparable to that of

(which receives around 100 times as many visitors annually than Hetch Hetchy's 44,000) could result in a "recreational value" of up to $178 million per year, or possibly an overall economic value of up to $100 billion.

References

External links

* {{Use mdy dates, date=November 2012 Hetch Hetchy Project Environmental organizations based in the San Francisco Bay Area Non-profit organizations based in San Francisco Environmental organizations established in 1999 1999 establishments in California Yosemite National Park