[w1andsodidwe]

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.

Don't you just love statements like this with absolutely no proof to back them up. All of their proposed solution would just be taking water from others.

Heres my solution for SF. Drink wine instead of water, bring back outhouses, and bathe in either the bay or the ocean, whichever is closer to your house.

[SisBoombah]

I have heard that San Francisco does not want to lose the dam and Hetch Hetchy water, because they receive more than they need and make money by selling the surplus. Anyone know if this is so?

[Arthalion]

Don't you just love statements like this with absolutely no proof to back them up.

Actually there's plenty of proof and. if we had the money, removing the dam would actually be economically beneficial to the area. The dam removal proposal suggests raising the dam at Lake Don Pedro, which could result in a net increase of storage capacity. Raising the lake level would also allow the Don Pedro overflow dam to be converted into a second powerhouse, matching and possibly exceeding Hetch Hetchy's power output. Also, since the Hetch Hetchy water pipeline runs alongside Don Pedro anyway, connecting the drinking water supplies at that point would be trivial. All told, the dam removal proposal wouldn't eliminate ANY water or energy supplies, it would just relocate them from Yosemite National Park to the foothills downstream. Whether it's worth several billion dollars to achieve no major gain in either power generation or water storage is another discussion...we'd spend billions and essentially end up with what we already have.

Politically, it's another story. The Don Pedro Dam and reservoir are owned by Modesto and Turlock, while Hetch Hetchy is owned by San Francisco. San Francisco makes a nice profit from their power station, and they don't want to lose control of that revenue source in favor of a profit sharing agreement with the other two districts. It's that profit, not concerns about water availability, that motivates San Francisco to keep the dam.