Hetch Hetchy is the incredible story of Americas most controversial dam and the birth of the environmental movement. This proposal was supported by a pillar of environmental stewardship - Gifford Pinchot, director of the U.S Forest Service and the 'father' of 'sustainability'. [5] Chief Tenaya of the Yosemite Valley's Ahwaneechee tribe claimed that Hetch Hetchy was Miwok for "Valley of the Two Trees", referring to a pair of yellow pines that once stood at the head of Hetch Hetchy. [84] Karin Klein has described Yosemite Valley as "so crammed that it looks more like a ripstop ghetto than the site of a nature experience. [54][55], After passing through the powerhouses, Hetch Hetchy water flows into the 167mi (269km) Hetch Hetchy Aqueduct which travels across the Central Valley. [24] Screech reported that the valley was bitterly disputed between the "Pah Utah Indians" (Paiute) and "Big Creek Indians" (Miwok), and witnessed several fights in which the Paiute appeared to be the dominant tribe. From spring through fall, the Hetch Hetchy Road may be subject to closures or chain requirements due to ice and snow. O'Shaughnessy Dam is a 430-foot (131 m) high concrete arch-gravity dam in Tuolumne County, California, United States.It impounds the Tuolumne River, forming the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir at the lower end of Hetch Hetchy Valley in Yosemite National Park, about 160 miles (260 km) east of San Francisco. . This grossly destructive commercial scheme has long been planned and urged (though water as pure and abundant can be got from sources outside of the peoples park, in a dozen different places), because of the comparative cheapness of the dam and of the territory which it is sought to divert from the great uses to which it was dedicated in the Act of 1890 establishing the Yosemite National Park. [45], The controversy over Hetch Hetchy was in the context of other political scandals and controversies, especially prevalent in the Taft administration. Hoffman observed a meadow "well timbered and affording good grazing", and noted the valley had a milder climate than Yosemite Valley, hence the abundance of ponderosa pine and gray pine. It also was an early battle of conservatives vs progressives. bill. the proposition have not only been discussed over and over again, but a great [70] Hodel called for a study of the effect of tearing down the dam. In contrast to the utilitarian view, the preservationist approach denied the assumption that the natural world existed solely to serve mans purposes. The Hetch Hetchy Valley was within Yosemite National Park and protected by the federal government, leaving it up to Congress to decide the valley's fate. [2], Wapama Falls, at 1,080ft (330m), and Tueeulala Falls, at 840ft (260m) both among the tallest waterfalls in North America are both located in Hetch Hetchy Valley. the forest reserves. } Hetch Hetchy Dome, at 6,197ft (1,889m), lies directly north of it. [17] The valley's abundant plants provided nourishment for mule deer, black bears and bighorn sheep. Those who presumed to speak for wealth, much of which flowed to San Francisco, believed they were transforming a pioneer land into a settled, civilized one. The first is utilitarian conservation. . They would light upon a man's blue shirt and turn it brown, and were voracious as mosquitoes would be. [48], The Early Intake (Lower Cherry) Powerhouse began commercial operation five years before the O'Shaughnessy Dam was completed. For thousands of years before the arrival of settlers from the United States in the 1850s, the valley was inhabited by Native Americans who practiced subsistence hunting-gathering. Muir observed:[3]. [5] Local legend attributes the modern name Hetch Hetchy to Screech's initial arrival in the valley, during which he observed the Native Americans "cooking a variety of grass covered with edible seeds", which they called "hatch hatchy" or "hatchhatchie". [51][52] The aqueduct delivers an average of 265,000acreft (327,000,000m3) of water each year, or 31,900,000cuft (900,000m3) per day, to residents of San Francisco and San Mateo, Santa Clara and Alameda Counties. California needed secure, reliable access to drinking water for their burgeoning populations. Gifford Pinchot was that "Forester" and it is generally assumed that he wrote the letter. . : Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, 1968). I presume that you very seldom have Progressive political leaders, of whom Mayor Phelan was one, believed it was time to take this power away from the private interests and turn it over to the people. [citation needed], The Hetch Hetchy Valley began as a V-shaped river canyon cut out by the ancestral Tuolumne River. What finally tipped the scale in favor of Pinchot's view was the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake and the desperate need for the city to rebuild and have a reliable water supply. We're not going to remove this dam, and the funding is unnecessary. As we learned from Rachel Carsons Silent Spring, humankind can damage the environment while attempting to control it. [39], Interest in using the valley as a water source or reservoir dates back as far as the 1850s, when the Tuolumne Valley Water Company proposed developing water storage there for irrigation. There are four fundamental ways in which dams damage rivers. The battle over Hetch Hetchy was a fight to determine whether a beautiful valley would remain in its natural state or service the growing city of San Franciscos water needs. He said, So we come now face to face with the perfectly clean question of what is the best use to which this water that flows out of the Sierras can be put. Most people called it Hetch Hetchy, a mispronunciation of a Central Mohawk word for a plant that indigenous people were harvesting there when the first white man came along.. As John Clayton writes, At the height of Progressivism, Phelan and other good-government types believed that the city should administer its own utilities. By 1908, a different Interior Secretary, James R. Garfield, sided with the utilitarian conservationists and issued a permit for the Hetch Hetchy project. Pinchot saw land preservation as naturally linked to . [47] On October 28, 1934 twenty years after the beginning of construction on the Hetch Hetchy project a crowd of 20,000 San Franciscans gathered to celebrate the arrival of the first Hetch Hetchy water in the city. Public disapproval nationwide with the Raker Act helped to bring about the creation of the National Park Service. Gifford Pinchot was the leader of the utilitarian wing of the early conservation movement, who served under President Theodore Roosevelt and later as governor of Pennsylvania. leave a piece of natural scenery in its natural condition have rather the better After 1905, the now famous Hetch Hetchy controversy staged the opposition between the two men in spectacular fashion. Gifford Pinchot, (born Aug. 11, 1865, Simsbury, Conn., U.S.died Oct. 4, 1946, New York, N.Y.), pioneer of U.S. forestry and conservation and public official. Fourth, dams alter water quality. Many examples of red-barked manzanita can be seen along the Hetch Hetchy Road. In the sum of American economic expansion the intrusion might have seemed a minor, obscure matter, but to [John] Muir immense issues were involved: why had the nation preserved that pure wildness in the first place? ." The deepening schism between . That anyone would try to destroy [Hetch Hetchy Valley] seems; incredible; but sad experience shows that there are people good enough and bad enough for anything. reserves. . The law authorizing the dam passed Congress on December 7, 1913. committee at this time if there is no objection. The dam was then 227 feet (69m) high; its present height of 312 feet (95m) was achieved only later, in 1938. "[34], When Yosemite Valley became part of a state park in 1864, Hetch Hetchy received no such designation. [42] They claimed the valley was not unique and would be even more beautiful with a lake. Gifford Pinchot (August 11, 1865 - October 4, 1946) was an American forester and politician. can be no question at all but that in this case we have an instance in which all The national forest telephone system and the roads and trails to which if (document.cookie.match(/(^|;)\s*is_mobile=1/)) { As the grazing of livestock damaged native plants in the Hetch Hetchy Valley, mountaineer and naturalist John Muir pressed for the protection of both valleys under a single national park. Hetch Hetchy is located 38 miles (61 km), or about 1 hour and 15 minutes from Yosemite Valley. [26], In the early 1850s, a mountain man by the name of Nathan Screech[27] became the first non-Native American to enter the valley. "[19], People have lived in Hetch Hetchy Valley for over 6,000 years. The Hetch Hetchy Road begins just outside of the park on Highway . ", "San Francisco-Hetch Hetchy Valley Connection", "Hetch Hetchy controversy: Could Yosemite's 'second valley' be restored? Muir predicted that this lake would create an unsightly "bathtub ring" around its perimeter, caused by the water's destruction of lichen growth on the canyon walls,[44] which would inevitably be visible at low lake levels. Getting There. They also remove water needed for healthy in-stream ecosystems. Bierstadt described the valley as "smaller than the more famous valley but it presents many of the same features in his scenery and is quite as beautiful. He wrote, I have always called it the Tuolumne Yosemite, for it is a wonderfully exact counterpart of the great Yosemite, not only in its crystal river and sublime rocks and waterfalls, but in the gardens, groves, and meadows of its flowery park-like floor. The watershed is also strictly protected, so swimming and boating are prohibited at the reservoir (although fishing is permitted at the reservoir and in the rivers which feed it),[60] a measure which is considered unusual for US lakes outside the region. Subsequent proposals for development in our national parks have been defeated by citizen activists inspired by calls to remember Hetch Hetchy. Not to be outdone by Los Angeles, San Francisco had a greater feat in mind: dam the Hetch Hetchy Valley in Yosemite National Park and pipe the water into San Francisco. 1 Opposing Pinchot's worldview and the damming of the . A "New Deal" For The . Its a a wonderful place to see spring waterfalls and wildflower displays. More than 70 years after his death, Gifford Pinchot remains an extremely powerful voice in America's conservation movement -- influencing presidents, departments and even shaping the definition of conservation. Indeed, the battle over Hetch Hetchy may have been a little-known contributor to the permanent alignment of American politics it was the tension between Ballinger and Pinchot that set in motion the events that lead to the split mentioned above. Albert Bierstadt was known for his sweeping landscapes of the American West. [59] The water quality is high because of the unique geology of the upper Tuolumne River drainage basin, which consists mostly of bare granite; as a result, the rivers feeding Hetch Hetchy Reservoir have extremely low loads of sediments and nutrients. (United State Forest Service) Gifford Pinchot was the first Chief of the U.S. Forest Service. About one million years ago, the extensive Sherwin glaciation widened, deepened and straightened river valleys along the western slope of the Sierra Nevada, including Hetch Hetchy, Yosemite Valley, and Kings Canyon farther to the south. The Hetch Hetchy Road drops into the valley at the dam, but all points east of there are roadless, and accessible only to hikers and equestrians. Gifford Pinchot: A 2021 Lesson From Americas First Forester, Meet The Real Life Batman & Robin Of The National Parks, Natural Rivals: John Muir, Gifford Pinchot, and the Creation of Americas Public Lands, Gifford Pinchot and the Making of Modern Environmentalism, Son of the Wilderness: The Life of John Muir, 20 Epic Things to Do in Yosemite National Park, Hetch Hetchy The Epic Enviro Battle That Changed America, 15 Amazing Things to Do in Sequoia National Park, 15 EPIC Things to Do in Redwood National Park, Death Valley National Park Ultimate Guide, 18 EPIC Things to Do in Death Valley National Park, 15 Epic Hikes in Joshua Tree National Park, 10 Epic Things to Do in Pinnacles National Park, 15 BEST Places to See Redwoods Near San Francisco, 10 GIANT Sequoia Tree & National Park Facts, 10 Amazing Channel Islands National Park Facts, 20 BEST West Coast National Parks Ranked by Experts, ULTIMATE Death Valley Itinerary: Visiting 1 to 3 Days (Helpful Tips), Visiting YOSEMITE: Ultimate (1 to 5 Day) Yosemite Itinerary, 20 AMAZING Things to Do in Yosemite National Park (Helpful Guide). "[83], Opponents of dam removal have pointed out that the flooding of the Hetch Hetchy Valley has also deterred the crowds that overrun other areas of Yosemite National Park. The Chairman. [69], In 1987, the idea of razing the O'Shaughnessy Dam gained an adherent in Don Hodel, Secretary of the Department of the Interior under President Ronald Reagan. National opinion divided between giving San Francisco the right to dam the valley and preserving the valley from development. 31 To the likes of Gifford Pinchot, Muir's position did not make any practical sense. On this trip were Gifford Pinchot, a young forester who would eventually become the first chief of the U.S. Forest Service, and John Muir, the most famous naturalist in American history. Animals were principally driven along Joseph Screech's trail from Big Oak Flat to Hetch Hetchy. Gravel, logs, and other important food and habitat features can become trapped. Call 209/372-0200 (1,1) for current road conditions. San Francisco Mayor James Phelan led the fight to build a dam at Hetch Hetchy. It is part of our More than Just Parks Environmental Heroes series. One great AmericanGifford Pinchotcame to be credited in American history as the early champion of "conservation." This is his story. Pinchot was recognized as a leader of the conservation movement. Inasmuch as Pinchot was the main architect of Roosevelt's This can be very disorienting to fish and disrupt their migrations as they depend on steady streams and flows to guide them. This limits their ability to access spawning habitat, seek out food resources, and escape predation. Source: John Muir, The Yosemite (New York: Century, 1912), 255257, 260262. wishes, as he desires to leave the city, he will be permitted to address the Hetch Hetchy ushered in a new era for the national parks. But the reservoir has spared it some of the indignities of Yosemite Valley", "San Francisco Department of Elections, November 2012 Results", "San Francisco vote to study draining Hetch Hetchy Reservoir is defeated", "Hetch Hetchy Water and the Bay Area Economy", "Thesis: Water Supply Implications of Removing O'Shaughnessy Dam", "New Irvington Tunnel latest in Hetch Hetchy water system improvements", Current Conditions, Hetch Hetchy Reservoir, California Department of Water Resources, San Francisco Public Utilities Commission: Hetch Hetchy Water and Power, California Resources Agency Hetch Hetchy Restoration Study, Bay Area Water Supply and Conservation Agency on Hetch Hetchy dam, Bay Crossing Reach of the Bay Division Pipelines Nos. Mr. Pinchot. 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 before the arrival of settlers from the United States in the 1850s, the valley was inhabited by Native Americans who practiced subsistence hunting-gathering. [63] The city justified this as a temporary measure, but no attempt to follow through with completing the municipal grid was ever made. [30] After the valley's native inhabitants were driven out by the newcomers, it was used by ranchers, many of whom were former miners, to graze livestock. Would there be any room in an acquisitive society for wildness, or for non material spiritual values?. Congress, confronted with rising public opposition, refused to act on the measure. [74] 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 Yosemite Valley (which receives around 100 times as many visitors annually as 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. The walls of both are of gray granite, rise abruptly out of the flowery grass and groves are sculptured in the same style, and in both every rock is a glacial monument., (Source: Journal of Sierra Nevada History & Biography, Hetch-Hetchy, Natural History Before The Dam, Joe Medeiros), In defense of Hetch Hetchy, Muir crafted some of his most famous prose. I presume that you very seldom have And today there is even an organization, Restore Hetch Hetchy, which is committed to doing just that. Lands which has been so thoroughly thrashed out as this one. [2] The dam and reservoir are the centerpiece of the Hetch Hetchy Project, which in 1934 began to deliver water 167 miles (269km) west to San Francisco and its client municipalities in the greater San Francisco Bay Area. The Great Alaskan Land Fraud and the Pinchot-Ballinger Controversy caused both Richard A. Ballinger and Gifford Pinchot to resign and be fired respectively. The deciding factor was whether or not the land in question had access to water. Over the next decade, he produced fifteen large oils that transformed the valley into a dreamland unlike anything that ever met mortal eye.. [79] Some observers, such as Carl Pope (director of the Sierra Club), stated that Hodel had political motives[80] in proposing the study. The landscape painter Bierstadt, who brought his German Romantic training to the valley in 1862, gave the world an even larger portrait, and one in extravagant color, that photographers could not match on any scale. This is because the Tuolumne catchment basin above Hetch Hetchy is almost three times as large as the catchment area of the Merced River above Yosemite, allowing a greater volume of ice to form. Muir promoted preservation and Pinchot advocated for conservation. No spam. However, the same NPS study also finds that with intensive management, an outcome in which "the entire valley would appear much as it did before construction of the reservoir" is feasible. Through the manipulation of water, the company also had the power to determine which real estate became valuable and which languished. At the time, neither side understood the long-range consequences of human actions to manage the environment. committee, my testimony will be very short. RELATED: Meet The Real Life Batman & Robin Of The National Parks. The battle for the Hetch Hetchy reservoir between Gifford Pinchot and John Muir is one of the most interesting political developments in American History in my opinion. [40] By the 1880s, San Francisco was looking to Hetch Hetchy water as a fix for its outdated and unreliable water system. "[85] However, she does support breaching the dam once it has reached the end of its lifespan, and not replacing it. . '; if (windowHref.indexOf('?') The proposed study would also have been required to identify potential replacements for the water storage capacity and hydroelectric power production. He believed in "the greatest good for the greatest number of people" and used that argument to push for the damming of Hetch Hetchy Valley. What part should mountains, rivers, natural meadows or wild creatures play in American life? Pinchot's letter to himself is what we now call a "mission statement." He outlines the purpose and goals of the Forest Service, but his formulation of "the greatest good" goes farther. policy is that of use, to take every part of the land and its resources and put Native American cultures were prominent before the 1850s when the first settlers from the United States arrived in the Sierra Nevada. Second, dams slow rivers. [73] Furthermore, the removal of O'Shaughnessy Dam would not require costly sediment control measures, as would be typical on most dam removal projects, because of the high quality of the Tuolumne River water in the first 90 years since its construction, only around 2in (5.1cm) of sediment had been deposited in Hetch Hetchy Reservoir, much less than most other dams. windowHref += '&'; -Gifford Pinchot and the Making of Modern Environmentalism, by Char Miller . The dam and reservoir, combined with a series of aqueducts, tunnels, and hydroelectric plants as well as eight other storage dams, comprise a system known as the Hetch Hetchy Project, which provides 80% of the water supply for 2.6 million people. First, they block rivers which prevents fish from migrating. Hetch Hetchy is a valley, a reservoir, and a water system in California in the United States. [41], In 1906, after a major earthquake and subsequent fire that devastated San Francisco, the inadequacy of the city's water system was made tragically clear. There are, of course, a William Howard Taft became president in 1909. [31] Its meadows provided abundant feed for "thousands of head of sheep and cattle that entered lean and lank in the spring, but left rolling fat and hardly able to negotiate the precipitous and difficult defiles out of the mountains in the fall. Within the ranks of the Sierra Club, there was a split between those San Francisco members who favored the dams municipal use versus those who believed this pristine area should not be tampered with under any circumstances. Upon his return home in 1892, he began the first systematic forestry work in the United States . [35] Muir, who himself had briefly worked as a shepherd in Hetch Hetchy, was known for calling sheep "hoofed locusts" because of their environmental impact. In the autumn of 1871, John Muir visited Hetch Hetchy for the first time. . 1-86-NARA-NARA or 1-866-272-6272, Advisory Committee on the Records of Congress, Hetch Hetchy: Congress and the Environment, For suggestions on how to usethese documents in a classroom, visit, To learn more about the Hetch Hetchy Valley, visit, To learnabout the devastating earthquake to San Francisco in 1906, visit, If you have problems viewing these images please contact. Thus long ago a few enterprising merchants utilized the Jerusalem temple as a place of business instead of a place of prayer, changing money, buying and selling cattle and sheep and doves; and earlier still; the first forest reservation, including only one tree, was likewise despoiled. [56] All four pipelines cross the Hayward fault. Next to John Muir, the most vocal defender of the Hetch Hetchy Valley was Harriet Monroe. Water could be diverted into the Kirkwood and Moccasin Powerhouses using lower-impact diversion dams, providing power generation on a seasonal basis, and the enlarged height at Don Pedro would also increase power generation there. I think that the men who assert that it is better to As we all know, [13], Hetch Hetchy is home to a diverse array of plants and animals. The larger issues at stake would frame environmental debates for years to come. Muir and other defenders of Hetch Hetchy believe the fight revolved around two central issues. San Francisco was able to accomplish this in 1925 by claiming it had run out of funds to extend the Hetch Hetchy transmission line all the way to the city. can not visit them now. He was outspoken in his manner and known to appoint women and African Americans to office during a time when most governmental leaders did not. [8], Before damming, the valley floor contained abundant stands of black oaks, live oak, Ponderosa pine, Douglas fir, and silver fir bordering the meadows, with alder, willow, poplar and dogwood in the riparian zone along the Tuolumne River. Now, there are two or three small . According to a local legend, Nate spotted a valley to the east that was too far to visit. Those in favor of dam removal have pointed out that many actions by San Francisco since 1913 have been in violation of the Raker Act, which explicitly stated that power and water from Hetch Hetchy could not be sold to private interests. In order to meet the water needs of San Francisco residents, it was proposed that the Hetch Hetchy Valley be dammed. Secretary of the Interior, Ethan Allen Hitchcock, refused to give San Francisco a permit to build the dam. After numerous letters were written . provided the bill was a reasonable bill. Monroe was a Chicago poet who joined Muir and others on their 1908 and 1909 outings to the valley. He was born in 1865 to a wealthy family from Pennsylvania. He had journeyed to Washington to lobby the federal government on behalf of the project. The pressure that Muir and his compatriots generated in 1908 and 1909 did not dissuade the administration from its support of the Hetch Hetchy dam, but this pressure was quite effective in the realm of electoral politics.
Carlsbad Caverns To Phoenix,
Kenda K772 Parker Desert Terrain Rear Tire,
Illinois State Housing And Dining Portal,
Small Party Venues Auburn, Al,
Articles G
gifford pinchot hetch hetchy
