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Spurned at the ballot box three years ago and facing an even more uphill battle now because of California's historic drought, an environmental group has filed a lawsuit attempting to drain Hetch Hetchy Reservoir, a linchpin of the water supply for 2.6 million Bay Area residents from San Francisco to San Jose to southern Alameda County.

San Francisco is unreasonably monopolizing spectacular Hetch Hetchy Valley by using it as a 117-billion-gallon reservoir, says a new lawsuit in a decades-old fight to restore the Yosemite National Park landmark. The lawsuit asks a court to require a plan for improving the city’s water system so no water is lost in restoring the valley. It also asks for modification or removal of O’Shaughnessy Dam in Yosemite to let the Tuolumne River flow again. The complaint was filed Tuesday in Tuolumne County Superior Court on the 177th birthday of conservationist John Muir, who lost the bitter fight a century ago...

The Endangered Species Act has wreaked havoc for decades on rural communities, but a newly filed lawsuit could force San Francisco urbanites like House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi to share their pain. A federal complaint filed this week contends that the Hetch Hetchy Project, which supplies water to San Francisco and the Bay Area, has unfairly enjoyed an exemption from the “severe cutbacks” required in rural California in order to save endangered fish species. Craig Manson, who heads the Center for Environmental Science, Accuracy and Reliability (CESAR) in Fresno, said the lawsuit is aimed at addressing the “double standard” that...

YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK, Calif. (AP) — This fall San Franciscans will vote on a local measure with national implications: It could return to the American people a flooded gorge described as the twin of breathtaking Yosemite Valley. Voters will decide whether they want a plan for draining the 117-billion-gallon Hetch Hetchy reservoir in Yosemite National Park, exposing for the first time in 80 years a glacially carved, granite-ringed valley of towering waterfalls 17 miles north of its more famous geologic sibling. The November ballot measure asks: Should city officials devise a modern water plan that incorporates recycling and study expansion...

Washington -- Dan Lungren, a Republican member of Congress from Sacramento County, wants to give the world "a second Yosemite Valley." The valley already exists, in Yosemite National Park - buried under 300 feet of water in the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir, which provides San Franciscans and 1.7 million other Bay Area residents with pristine water straight from the Sierra. All that would be needed would be to blow up the dam, which Yosemite godfather John Muir fought to his dying breath in 1914. The Schwarzenegger administration in 2006 estimated the cost at $3 billion to $10 billion. Lungren said Yosemite...

Hoping to protect one of the Bay Area's main water supplies after the next major earthquake, construction crews will soon embark on a job that sounds like something out of a Jules Verne novel: building a massive, 5-mile-long tunnel underneath San Francisco Bay.The project is believed to be the first major tunnel ever built across the bay.Using a giant boring machine, workers will carve a 14-foot high corridor through clay, sand and bedrock from Menlo Park to Newark as deep as 103 feet below the bay floor. They'll then run a 9-foot-high steel water pipe through the middle."All the experts...

Environmentalists long to drain the reservoir that gives San Francisco its water, and thus restore a scenic valley. Rep. Dan Lungren says the idea's worth studying - but it has some powerful foes. HETCH HETCHY THEN: The Tuolumne River meanders through the green, pristine valley a half-century ago.Rep. Dan Lungren, R-Gold River, said Thursday that it is time to look seriously at restoring Hetch Hetchy Valley in Yosemite National Park by draining the reservoir that has been a source of clean water for San Francisco for more than 80 years. The conservative Republican and former California attorney general said he...

Can Indiana Jones rescue Hetch Hetchy Valley from its watery Temple of Doom? No sooner did the California Department of Water Resources issue a report concluding it would cost between $3 billion and $10 billion to drain the Hetch Hetchy reservoir and replace San Francisco's water and power supply than never-say-never environmentalists enlisted action hero actor Harrison Ford to their daunting cause. The 64-year-old Ford flew his own plane into Tuolumne County this past week, then drove to Hetch Hetchy in Yosemite National Park to shoot a bit of added footage and commentary for the 19-minute Environmental Defense documentary, "Discover...

YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK With its soaring granite walls and spouting waterfalls, Yosemite's Hetch Hetchy Valley was described by conservationist John Muir as "a grand landscape garden, one of Nature's rarest and most precious mountain temples." Much of the glacially carved valley now lies under 300 feet of water. It was dammed and flooded more than 80 years ago to supply drinking water and hydropower to the San Francisco Bay area. For years, environmentalists have advocated draining the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir and returning the valley to its original splendor, while opponents say that would cost a bundle at a time when...

SACRAMENTO – Normally aggressive on environmental issues, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has not committed to restoring a lost treasure near Yosemite Valley even as a new state report concludes that a movement to drain the Hetch Hetchy reservoir and turn off its power production contains “no fatal flaws.” Supporters who have dreamed of a reclaimed Hetch Hetchy Valley, just 15 miles from its twin Yosemite Valley, said the broad-brush analysis energizes their cause and they shrugged off the governor's swerve to the sidelines as an election-year necessity. “The message is clear: it is feasible. It can be done,” said Assemblywoman Lois...

SAN FRANCISCO – It would cost between $3 billion and $10 billion to tear down a dam and restore Hetch Hetchy Valley in Yosemite National Park more than 80 years after it was flooded, a report said Wednesday. The valley, once described by conservationist John Muir as “one of nature's rarest and most precious mountain temples,” was plugged in 1923 to provide drinking water, irrigation and hydropower to the Bay Area and Central Valley. The long-awaited study by the Department of Water Resources made no recommendations on what to do, but said further investigation should include participation by the federal...

A workshop in Sacramento Thursday on prospects for restoring the Hetch Hetchy Valley in Yosemite National Park ignited passions on both sides of the debate. The valley was dammed in 1923 as a water supply for San Francisco. A series of Pulitzer Prize-winning editorials in The Sacramento Bee helped spur the governor's action to study the matter. The workshop at the Joe Serna Jr. Cal/EPA Building is part of a study launched last fall by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to assess the feasibility of restoring Hetch Hetchy. The goal is not to take a position, but to gather information. The idea...

The debate over the proposal to breach the Sierra's O'Shaughnessy Dam, drain the reservoir behind it and restore Hetch Hetchy Valley to its former natural splendor is apt to intensify this summer with the release of a California Department of Water Resources study on the issue. But preliminary comments from the agency indicate two things: First, the restoration is technically possible without disrupting water supplies to San Francisco, Modesto and Turlock, the cities that are the beneficiaries of Hetch Hetchy water. Second, it will cost a lot of money: From $4 billion to $8 billion, depending on whom you talk...

OAKLAND - The Schwarzenegger administration has decided to assess studies of restoring the submerged Hetch Hetchy Valley in Yosemite National Park, an idea that has been fiercely criticized by San Francisco business and government interests. The governor's intentions came to light Thursday in a letter sent on his behalf by Resources Agency Secretary Mike Chrisman to two Assembly Democrats who have pushed for a state examination of re-establishing the valley. Chrisman wrote that the Department of Parks and Recreation would "review the growing body" of studies on Hetch Hetchy, including analyses by Environmental Defense, a conservation group, and the University...

Lawmakers call for Hetch Hetchy study By Stuart Leavenworth -- Bee Staff Writer Published 2:15 am PDT Tuesday, September 14, 2004 Two California legislators are calling for a state study to examine if a submerged valley in Yosemite National Park could be restored without hurting water and power supplies. In a Sept. 9 letter, Assemblyman Joe Canciamilla, D-Pittsburg, and Lois Wolk, D-Davis, urged Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to endorse a restoration study for the Hetch Hetchy Valley, which was inundated and turned into a reservoir for San Francisco in 1923. "We feel this idea is worthy of review by the State...

Other view: SF: Proceed with 'extreme caution' at Hetch Hetchy By Susan Leal -- Special To The Bee Published 2:15 am PDT Sunday, September 12, 2004 More than 2.4 million residents of the San Francisco Bay Area drink some of the highest quality water in the nation, delivered 160 miles by an engineering marvel of pipes and aqueducts from the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir in Yosemite National Park. Each spring, the melting Sierra snowpack and pristine headwaters of the Tuolumne River run strong, filling the valley to provide year-round drinking water for the people of the Bay Area, clean hydroelectric power...

<p>Real estate and other business interests opposed to sharing the cost of a $3.6 billion upgrade of San Francisco's Hetch Hetchy waterworks vowed Monday to pull out all the stops to defeat a November city ballot measure to pay for the project.</p>

<p>The story of Hetch Hetchy Water and Power reflects the stunning betrayal of a civic vision.</p> <p>Eighty-nine years ago, Congress allowed San Francisco to dam the Tuolumne River and flood part of Yosemite National Park - on the condition that it provide inexpensive hydroelectric power to San Franciscans.</p>