Posted on 07/20/2006 8:21:10 AM PDT by calcowgirl
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 Wolk, D-Davis, who plans a series of legislative hearings on the proposal this summer.
However, the report warns that the project could cost between $3 billion and $10 billion to replace the lost water and power benefits provided by Hetch Hetchy and its 83-year-old, 312-foot high dam holding back the once-wild Tuolumne River.
“It does appear technically feasible to restore Hetch Hetchy Valley,” according to the state study released Wednesday. “However, it is premature to evaluate its financial feasibility.”
Critics pounced, saying abandoning Hetch Hetchy would strain an already overloaded power grid and deplete water supplies at a time when the state needs to build more reservoirs and produce more electricity.
“This assessment should lay to rest the idea that draining the Bay Area's main source of water warrants further study, particularly in a state that needs more water storage and more clean power, not less,” said Susan Leal, general manager of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission.
Hetchy Hetchy reservoir is the 20th largest in the state, holding enough water for 700,000 households a year and providing enough clean electricity to power San Francisco City Hall, its airport and world-famous cable cars.
For that, the city's utility pays the U.S. government just $30,000 a year to rent the 1,970 acres of submerged land. However, San Francisco contributes about $3 million annually for rangers and watershed maintenance within the Hetch Hetchy system, a figure that will rise to $5 million under a new lease.
More broadly, Hetch Hetchy is part of a water and supply network that serves 2.4 million people in the overall San Francisco region and generates enough power for 300,000 households a year.
In San Francisco, Schwarzenegger sidestepped taking a position.
“There are many more questions that have to be answered. This will go on for a while because there are a lot of things we don't know,” he said, adding a string of questions of his own: “Is it something that will be a good idea, is it a bad idea, what will it cost, how important is it for the environment, what do the people think?”
Supporters believe the governor will enter the fray, if he is re-elected.
“It's July in an election year,” said Tom Graff, an attorney with Environmental Defense. “We're realists.”
The state's strategy is to step aside and let the public and federal government take the lead for now, officials said.
“To take this to a much more meaningful level you're going to have to have broader participation,” said Gary Bardini, who helped prepare the study.
A more detailed analysis could cost $65 million, according to the state.
In something of a political role reversal, U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., opposes closing the Hetch Hetchy reservoir. But former Reagan Interior Secretary Don Hodel is a champion of the restoration campaign.
“Draining the reservoir would be far too expensive and leave the state vulnerable to both drought and blackout,” Feinstein said.
Feinstein wields considerable influence because Hetch Hetchy is within Yosemite, a national park. Congress would likely have to sign off on any plan to tear down the dam and restore the valley.
Hodel knows it will be a battle. During the Reagan era he tried to launch studies, but was thwarted by pressure from Feinstein, then the mayor of San Francisco.
“It's unfortunate that if this was in any other place San Francisco would be beating the drums to remove the dam ... What is it worth to add another Yosemite Valley?” Hodel said Wednesday.
The state report, based on a compilation of several different older studies, details options to find replacement water and power, mostly by building more storage capacity elsewhere and tapping other energy sources.
“I would say neutral,” said Jim Spence, a water and power specialist, when asked how to describe the state's position toward restoration. “We haven't uncovered anything technically that's a show-stopper.”
Hetch Hetchy Valley, now submerged under 300 feet of water, was once described by noted conservationist John Muir as a “mountain temple.” About 55,000 people visit Hetch Hetchy a year, compared to the 3.2 million who gasp at towering Half Dome from the Yosemite Valley floor.
less water
less electricity
excellent idea
Once drained it will be a beautiful mud bowl.
Yeah, that is all that California needs is less water. With the hoards of illegals and others flooding into the state, the population growth is astounding. Mainly illegals and other immigrants.
The socialist morons running our state continue to flirt with disasterous ideas.
Stupid ain't fixable.
Yep, a mud bowl, and will take over a 100 years to have a descent forrest canopy...at a 10 billion dollar cost in a state already strapped with deficits. Sounds like a enviro whackos dream scenario.LOL!
California has way too much influence on the country. Cutting off their air supply isn't an option, but cutting off the water and power is a good alternate.
Reopen the Toluomne!
The last enviowacko report I heard from CA was that a power shortage had closed all the socal airports. So, lets cut back on hydro, say the inmates in the assylum.
HETCH-HETCHY.
Los Angeles Times. Oct 15, 1913. p. II4
It is twelve years since engineers and thoughtful citizens in San Francisco realized that its water supply was inadequate. Comprehensive surveys were made from Eel River in the north to the Tuolumne River in the south. As a result the Tuolumne River, its source in the Hetch-Hetchy Valley, draining 1501 square miles of mountains, with an annual rainfall of from twenty to fifty inches and a mean annual run-off of twenty-four inches or nearly 2,000,000 acre feet, was selected.Hetch-Hetchy Valley is a gorge in the Yosemite National Park, thirty miles from Yosemite Valley proper. The watershed is composed wholly of granite mountains on which there is a heavy snowfall every winter. It is proposed to convert the valley into a magnificent lake, and store the water from the melting snows which now run off in torrential floods each year, doing good to no one and at times causing damage.
It wasn't a power shortage. A car took out a power line and then they had 2 generators fail.
However, if I were Schwartz., I'd tell the the lefties you'd trade them one resevoir for one nuke plant, because the bay area needs power one way or the other.
Then stand back and watch their heads explode.
You got that right!
As a California taxpayer..........(I don't live there, I was just unfortunate enough to be dumb enough to sell a product there) I find it amazing the lengths the state dumbocrats will go thru to collect every last dime from any business in the United States who they feel they can extort money from, and then the amazing ways they can find to p*ss it away.
The day this sucker slides into the Pacific, I will declare a holiday at our business. Free drinks for all!
Not to mention an opportunity to 'invest' $3 - $10 billion (this estimate would probably double or triple by the time it was done, as most gov't est do).
You people really have a one track mind.
Can't even go 5 replies before someone tries to bring illegal immigration into the thread.
------
It is ALL about state money. Tax and spend, the monies WASTED AND THROW AWAY on illegals is the largest single unjustified expenditure in the state. THAT is why it is brought up, because the perverse nature of it, along with the socialist nature of the liberals that everything is solved WITH MORE TAXATION, not responsible spending OR responsible government.
Aw geez. What are you, Immigration Thread Police? lol
Illegals do consume resources and significant amounts in this state, they also trample a lot of sensitive desert habitat along the border.. sorry to go off topic. ;-)
Oh, they won't? Too bad. Hetch Hetchy was, by all reports, as spectacular as Yosemite. That'd be a nice legacy to leave for our children if the enviros would only join the 21st century.
He must have a boatload of splinters in his crotch, considering how much time he spends straddling fences.
ROFL!!! :-)
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