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As a factual basis, the stories drew from what they referred to as a study by "UC Davis researchers" analyzing the possibility of draining Hetch Hetchy without severely restricting San Francisco's water supply. These proposed measures include rebuilding the Calaveras Reservoir in Santa Clara and Alameda counties; negotiating a new deal with irrigation districts in Turlock and Modesto, which control the Don Pedro Reservoir that now provides San Francisco with water; and paying off S.F. residents for loss of hydroelectric power, among other things.
Environmental Defense recommended I also look at "the UC Davis study," which, as it turns out, is actually a master's thesis written by a geography student named Sarah Null.
In addition, Environmental Defense turned my attention to a letter written by Assemblyman Joe Canciamilla (D-Pittsburg) to Gov. Schwarzenegger, suggesting a state-funded study on restoring Hetch Hetchy Valley. The Bee has written a story on Canciamilla's letter.
Neither Environmental Defense nor the Bee noted that Canciamilla has made a hobby of urging the state to meddle in San Francisco affairs. In April, Canciamilla introduced an Assembly resolution urging the state attorney general to take over S.F. District Attorney Kamala Harris' prosecution of a man accused of killing a San Francisco police officer, because Harris, exercising the prosecutorial discretion all district attorneys have, decided not to seek the death penalty. "The report that came out of UC Davis really raised a number of issues in terms of the ability of the various agencies to restore the valley," Canciamilla said in an interview, again referencing the master's thesis.
If Environmental Defense got this much mileage out of Canciamilla's antics and someone's master's project, I can only imagine how far the group will be able to get driving an actual half-million-dollar study.
The plan sounds simple. First, round up a herd of studies. A group called Restore Hetch Hetchy will release yet another one this winter; there are Werbach's proposed environmental review, Canciamilla's state study, and the Environmental Defense study. Take a mid-1980s study conducted by Ronald Reagan's interior secretary, Donald Hodel; that makes five. Next, pressure San Francisco, the federal government, state legislators, and the American people to tear down O'Shaughnessy Dam. Increase downstream storage, and pay San Francisco off for lost electricity revenue. All at a cost of around $1.5 billion, Environmental Defense reckons. Werbach suggests it would actually require another $500 million, to cover contingencies, for a total of $2 billion.
Then, the Paiute Indians' Hetch Hetchy grass sprouts again.
"I think the main thing is the right-brain issues -- the aesthetic issues. Getting people excited about the possibilities, then responding to the real engineering issues that need to be addressed," explains Ron Good, an earnest, unblinking man who has nurtured the drain-the-valley flame through his organization, Restore Hetch Hetchy, a spinoff from the old Sierra Club Hetch Hetchy task force. "This gives a rational basis for moving ahead, having a more independent look at this funded by local, state, federal, and private foundation sources, to get even more unbiased information from consulting engineers who will say, 'Yeah, there are issues out there, and you can address them in a rational way.'"
Four years ago, Good was leading a hiking tour to Wapama Falls, a Yosemite Falls-like cascade visible across the reservoir from the top of O'Shaughnessy Dam, when he ran into Larry Klein, the now-retired manager of the Hetch Hetchy water system.
"We got into this discussion about restoring Hetch Hetchy," Klein recalls. "I said, 'What are you going to do for power, water quality, water supply?' He gave me his answers, which aren't a whole lot different than they are now. I said, 'What about this, and this, and this?' He said, 'This isn't a problem.'"
From a firsthand engineering point of view, Klein says, dismantling O'Shaughnessy Dam without perturbing San Francisco is an extraordinarily complicated proposition. As both engineers and politicians know, you can solve almost any problem as long as you throw enough money at it. Engineering and political problems associated with restoring Hetch Hetchy could cost billions of dollars.
The idea of moving the water downstream to Don Pedro Dam sounds simple; that reservoir is far larger than Hetch Hetchy's and sits a third empty. But, Klein notes, San Francisco has "no ownership rights to that water." To store Hetch Hetchy water at Don Pedro, some kind of bargain -- a very expensive bargain, most likely -- would have to be worked out with the Turlock and Modesto water districts, which Don Pedro Dam serves.
Some have proposed raising the water level of the Don Pedro Reservoir, but this would increase flood danger. But, Klein says, "You can't raise the dam -- they put the optimum-size dam where they put it. Otherwise, you'd have to put side dams all along the river," says Klein, noting that as rising water from a newly raised dam backed up along upstream canyons, there would need to be something in place to keep it from escaping and flooding excessive amounts of land. "To increase storage without eating into the flood reservation, you would have to put curtain dams in all the side canyons along the Tuolumne," Klein notes.
Assuming these issues were overcome, Klein says, "any water they took out of there would have to go through a brand-new filter plant to remove microbes and things of this sort. When this came up earlier, [the plant] was put at half a billion dollars, plus half a billion dollars to run it," Klein recalls.
Another technical problem with draining Hetch Hetchy involves gravity. A significant portion of the pressure that pushes Hetch Hetchy water westward is generated by its location in the Sierra Nevada. "They talk about a pump that would take water out of Don Pedro. It would have to be a huge pump, because the water that comes to the city, that comes out of Moccasin Reservoir [near Hetch Hetchy], that's 150 feet higher, and that's really a huge pump," Klein says.
