Environmental nutters are the vanguard of the human haters

Taking New Tack in Hetch Hetchy Battle
By DANIEL WEINTRAUB
Generations of environmentalists have looked upon John Muir’s unsuccessful battle to save Hetch Hetchy Valley in Yosemite as the beginning of their modern movement. And just as many have wondered if the majestic, granite-walled valley might some day be restored to its natural state.
The great irony is that the valley’s demise was the work of the City of San Francisco, which now is home to many environmentalists who would lay their bodies down in protest if anyone tried to build such a thing today. But San Francisco is hooked: how do you tear down a dam and remove a reservoir that helps deliver 85 percent of a city’s water?
Mike Marshall thinks he knows how. As director of Restore Hetch Hetchy, a nonprofit group spun off from the Sierra Club a decade ago, Mr. Marshall is laying the groundwork for a ballot measure that would ask San Franciscans to endorse a long-term plan to wean the city off its high Sierra water supply — or at least the part stored in the Hetch Hetchy reservoir.
Unlike earlier efforts to restore the valley, this one might have more potential, if only because it is not a direct attack on the city’s water supply.
If San Francisco can conserve and recycle enough water, capture enough rainfall and recharge its once-generous groundwater basin, the argument goes, by 2020 or 2025 the Hetch Hetchy reservoir might no longer be needed.
O’Shaughnessy Dam on the Tuolumne River could then be torn down and the valley returned to the federal government for restoration to its old contours, which resembled those of Yosemite Valley.
“Our goal is to focus not just on restoring Hetch Hetchy, but on creating more sustainable water management practices for the city of San Francisco,” Mr. Marshall said in an interview last week. “We live in the 21st century, not the 19th century, when this system was designed.”
City officials are used to defending the reservoir from such broadsides.
“Every few years, a handful of people get together and threaten to put something on the ballot to tear down the reservoir,” said Tyrone Jue, a spokesman for the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, which operates the water system.
The commission has argued in the past that the city’s pipes would go dry without Hetch Hetchy water. And today, with Californians fighting over their water supply and preparing to vote on a $12 billion bond measure that could be used to build more dams, it seems like a strange time to be talking about tearing one down.
But mindful of the times and the city’s evolving politics, the commission is also using a new argument: the Hetch Hetchy reservoir is actually good for the environment.
Because the water system flows off gravity, Mr. Jue said, it requires little energy. The dam actually produces electricity, filling 20 percent of the city’s needs without burning carbon or producing greenhouse gases.
And since the water sits in that granite bowl that John Muir so admired, it requires no filtration, and no chemicals. Finally, the lake behind the dam is surrounded by well-maintained trails that make the area a haven for hikers.
“The current system,” Mr. Jue said, “is probably one of the greenest systems around.”
Mr. Marshall naturally disagrees. He notes that the power produced by the dam is not considered renewable or clean by the state because it comes from a system that “requires the ongoing destruction of a huge ecosystem.”
Besides, he said, the same amount of power could be generated on the river using flow-through dams that would be better for the environment.
And while it is true that the water requires no filtration, Mr. Marshall said that leaves it with micro-organisms that are potentially dangerous to people with compromised immune systems, including the city’s many residents infected with H.I.V.
The next step in the Restore Hetch Hetchy campaign is to try to persuade a majority of the Board of Supervisors to place a measure on the ballot in November or in time for next year’s mayoral election.
“We are pushing pretty fast,” Mr. Marshall said, “but our window is closing for this year. We don’t want to put something on the ballot that is not sound policy and is not understandable to voters.
“This is a simple idea with a complicated explanation.”
Daniel Weintraub has reported on California politics and policy for more than 20 years.