Hetch Hetchy Reservoir

Written on September 28, 2009 – 4:57 am | by admin | | Tags: hech heche, hetch hetchy controversy, hetch hetchy dam, Hetch Hetchy Reservoir, hetch hetchy valley, john muir

Hetch Hetchy Reservoir, one of America’s Best Idea

hetch hetchy reservoir pictures

This is about the view of Hetch Hetchy Reservoir and taken in 2006.

The first piece of land set aside, in a long segment on Yosemite, when they mentioned the 1890 legislation setting aside the larger Park, they mentioned that the Hetch Hetchy Valley was included, but didn’t go into the later battle over damming up the latter valley.

In 2006, the picture above at that time, the water depth was about 230 feet. There are two nearby reservoirs, Lake Eleanor, also inside the Yosemite Reservation, and Cherry Lake, just outside. I wonder if they also drowned beautiful valleys.

It is easy to see from an economic standpoint, why Hetch Hetchy was chosen for a dam. It has the narrowest neck of the local valleys. Of the three sister reservoirs, Hetch Hetchy has by far the greatest ratio of water to dam. It was dammed in 1913, Eleanor in 1918, and Cherry Lake in 1956. The last of these has a dam with about ten times the volume of the others.

hetch hetchy valley pictures Hetch Hetchy Reservoir View generated by Google Earth

There is an ongoing effort by the Sierra Club and others to restore Hetch Hetchy. I would like to see that, but I don’t expect it to happen. Growing populations need ever-larger amounts of water; increasing prosperity (yes, it is still increasing) requires more water per person. More people keep moving to California; not many people think as I do, that it is too crowded for comfort (I call L.A. County “the anthill”).

It is a lot easier now than it was before for getting around by boat, and visiting some pretty spectacular side valleys, by car on bad roads. Just visit Hetch Hetchy Reservoir in circuit of National Park visits, and see what beauties still remain for someone boating around.