By MICHAEL DOYLE
Thursday, February 08, 2007
The Bush administration's quiet request for $7 million to study restoring the Hetch Hetchy Valley keeps a controversy flowing, but probably not for long.
This week, the administration slid the Hetch Hetchy study funds into its overall Interior Department budget proposal. If approved by Congress, the money would fund research into the environmental and economic consequences of removing Hetch Hetchy's O'Shaughnessy Dam.
"We are extremely pleased that the federal government has seen fit to become a full partner with California in the Hetch Hetchy restoration study process," declared Ron Good, executive director of the Sonora-based group called Restore Hetch Hetchy.
But almost certainly, the pleasure will be short-lived.
"It's dead on arrival," Rep. George Radanovich, R-Mariposa, said Wednesday. "It's a complete surprise, and I don't support one bit of it."
Once, Hetch Hetchy Valley broke John Muir's heart. The Sierra Club founder, who dubbed it "Yosemite's twin," bitterly fought San Francisco's plans to flood the valley for a reservoir, finally losing when Congress passed a 1913 law. Ever since, environmentalists _ and others _ have periodically suggested removing the dam.
Fifteen miles north of Yosemite Valley, the original Hetch Hetchy Valley was known for magnificent waterfalls and high-rising cliffs. Now, the Tuolumne River that once flowed freely through it is backed up for one of California's 19 reservoirs.
Although Radanovich represents Yosemite, he says Bush administration officials did not consult with him. He is not happy about that. Now, he says, he wants to find out exactly who the administration did consult with.
Another prominent skeptic of the Hetch Hetchy proposal chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee panel that funds the Interior Department. A former mayor of San Francisco, Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein dismissed the prospects of draining the reservoir that's served the city since the dam's completion in 1923.
"I will do all I can to make sure it isn't included in the final bill," Feinstein promised in a prepared statement. "We're not going to remove this dam, and the funding is unnecessary."
Although Yosemite National Park officials had heard earlier rumors of the study, they were also not directly consulted about the proposal. They learned for sure when the budget was released Monday.
Asked for a further assessment of the proposal Wednesday, the National Park Service offered only Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne's comment that the $7 million would allow "discussions with the state of California."
Nor is the Hetch Hetchy proposal the only White House proposal floated this week that could sink quickly. The administration's budget further anticipates selling off between 150,000 and 200,000 acres of Forest Service land in order to help fund rural schools. Congress, so far, has dismissed the idea.
"You don't sell of your bedroom to pay this month's house payment," said John Buckley, executive director of the Sonora-based Central Sierra Environmental Resource Center. "Likewise, you don't want to sell off public heritage lands that belong to all Americans for short-term payments that will benefit only a (few)."
The administration says it wants to build on preliminary Hetch Hetchy research already conducted in California. That doesn't persuade skeptics.
"The state has done the analysis," Feinstein said. "It would cost between $3 billion and $10 billion to remove a dam that provides clean drinking water for 3 million people."
Supporters of removing the dam say San Francisco could still get its water; for instance, by increasing storage at Don Pedro Reservoir.
Completed last year, the California Resources Agency's 68-page study of Hetch Hetchy concluded that "much work remains to be done" in answering crucial questions. These include: exactly how the 312-foot-high dam would be removed, how the water and power would be replaced and how to count the economic benefits of a restored Hetch Hetchy Valley.
"It is clear that further investigations into Hetch Hetchy Valley restoration cannot be led by the state of California alone," the stage agency cautioned.
The state report estimated it would take $7 million _ the amount now sought by the Bush administration _ for a "conceptual" study and an additional $13 million for a further "reconnaissance" level study.
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