by Spreck | Jun 25, 2022 | Uncategorized
Jonas doing a “nosestand” in his kayak on the American River.
Environmentalist Jonas Minton passed on June 22, as a result of complications following heart surgery.
Jonas was most recently a water policy advocate for the Planning and Conservation League, where he was known for his knowledge, wisdom, integrity and good humor. He was never afraid to share his strong views about how water should be better and more fairly managed, nor to offer creative solutions.
Jonas also well understood the essential needs of cities and farms. He served as the Executive Director of the American River Water Forum, where he oversaw the sharing of the river between environmental uses and regional water agencies. Jonas also served as a Deputy Director of California’s Department of Water Resources (DWR).
While he was at DWR, a Hetch Hetchy meeting was scheduled in the Director’s conference room. Jonas stunned the small crowd by bursting through the back door, operatically bellowing “Yo Ho, Blow the Dam Down”. We restoration advocates were mightily amused; others not so much.
Most impressively, Jonas balanced passion with realism – he understood success required hard work and patience, and he was determined to have fun along the way. And, as he explains in the short video interview below, Jonas never demonized his adversaries – after all, he hoped to come to agreement with them down the road. Jonas’ spirit and counsel inspire us at Restore Hetch Hetchy. May he rest in peace.
by Spreck | Jun 12, 2022 | Uncategorized
Early season storms provided substantial water to San Francisco under their junior water rights on the Tuolumne River. By the second week of June, however, the snowpack has largely melted and none of the river’s flow will likely be available to the City anyway – so the State Board’s curtailment order is likely to have no effect on its supply. Overall, San Francisco is doing pretty well water supply-wise this year, far better than most of California.
Due to our ongoing serious drought, on June 7 the State Water Board expanded its “Delta Watershed Curtailment Status List” to include San Francisco’s water rights on the Tuolumne River as well as some rights of the Turlock and Modesto Irrigation Districts. Erik Ekdahl, deputy director of the agency’s Division of Water Rights, described the restrictions — known as curtailment orders — as “significant” and “very deep.”
The story was covered with provocative headlines by both the Sacramento Bee (California tells San Francisco, Valley farmers to halt water diversions as drought worsens) and the San Francisco Chronicle (California orders thousands of farms and cities, including San Francisco, to stop pumping water during drought).
It does not appear, however, that the curtailment order will have any effect on San Francisco, and it may not even have any effect on the Turlock and Modesto Irrigation Districts (together, Turlock and Modesto use about 4 times as much Tuolumne River water as San Francisco and its Bay Area customers).
First, note that the order applies only to the limited snowmelt that still remains, not to water already stored in reservoirs or underground. Second, it’s highly unlikely that any river flows for the remainder of the water year would be available to San Francisco under their rights – the natural flow of the river would need to be over 2416 cubic feet per second (it’s possible but highly unlikely to be at all significant, see chart above). And thanks to the large storms earlier in the year, San Francisco is doing pretty well water supply-wise, far better than most of California.
It’s also not clear that the curtailment order will have any effect on the Turlock and Modesto Irrigation Districts. While some of the Districts’ water rights are curtailed, their longstanding “riparian” rights are not. See table below – extracted from the State Board’s massive spreadsheet, which identifies curtailment orders for 4571 out of the 16472 listed water rights in the Bay-Delta watershed.
No doubt many water rights in the Central Valley will indeed be affected, so the little flow available will go to those with the most senior water rights, and perhaps some will be left over to provide a sliver of relief for the Bay-Delta.
In many years, California’s cattywampus water rights system does not work very well for San Francisco. This year, with a significant ongoing drought, the City and its customers in other Bay Area cities are doing reasonable well.
| Principal Water Rights on the Tuolumne River |
| Application ID |
Primary Owner |
Curtailment Status
(Effective 6/8/2022) |
| S002635 |
SAN FRANCISCO |
Curtailed |
| S002636 |
SAN FRANCISCO |
Curtailed |
| A014126 |
TURLOCK I D & MODESTO I D |
Curtailed |
| A014127 |
TURLOCK I D & MODESTO I D |
Curtailed |
| S013848 |
TURLOCK IRRIGATION DISTRICT |
Not Curtailed |
| S013849 |
TURLOCK IRRIGATION DISTRICT |
Not Curtailed |
by Spreck | May 20, 2022 | Uncategorized
Restore Hetch Hetchy’s Spring 2022 Newsletter is available online. If you’d like a hard copy and have not received one, send your name and address to admin@hetchhetchy.org.
Included are:
- An update of our Keeping Promises campaign, discussions with the Park Service about extending access at Hetch Hetchy and building a short new trail to the top of Tueeulala and Wapama Falls;
- The premiere of Finding Hetch Hetchy, starring world-class climbers Timmy O’Neill and Lucho Rivera – available online soon;
- How restoring Hetch Hetchy differs from the Bay-Delta Plan when it comes to delivering water to California’s water cities and farms;
- Restore Hetch Hetchy’s role in removing signage in Yosemite Valley that was inaccurate and offensive to Native Americans;
- Tiffany Rosso, our awesome new Director of Development;
- Our upcoming Annual Dinner, September 17 at the San Mateo County History Museum; and
- Why you should visit Hetch Hetchy this year.
by Spreck | May 13, 2022 | Uncategorized
Hetch Hetchy Reservoir not only drowns a valley, it cuts off access to the surrounding canyon.
We’ve said it a million times. Restore Hetch Hetchy understands water storage is essential and that we do need dams (as well as improved groundwater storage). We simply don’t believe an iconic glacier carved valley in Yosemite National Park is the the right place for a dam and reservoir – especially when there are alternatives for storing the water elsewhere.
Dams do provide benefits. In California and the semi-arid west, dams store water from winter rains and spring snowmelt for delivery to cities and farms in summer and fall, as well as for carryover supplies in case the following year is dry. Dams also make it possible to generate hydropower. And many dams (although not O’Shaughnessy Dam at Hetch Hetchy) are required to maintain space for flood control.
In most cases, dams and reservoirs are managed to provide public benefits beyond water supply, hydropower and flood control. These benefits include:
- Reservoir-based recreation – swimming, fishing, camping etc.
- Healthy fish populations – by releasing sufficient instream flows for spawning and rearing downstream – sometimes to mitigate for the loss of spawning habitat caused by their construction, and
- River-based recreation – by releasing flows in conjunction with opportunities for rafting, canoeing and kayaking.
Even given Congress’ unprecedented permission to build a dam in national park, with regard to these other public benefits – San Francisco has struck out.
Strike 1: As we have explained at length in Keeping Promises: Providing Public Access to Hetch Hetchy Valley, Yosemite National Park, San Francisco committed to provide substantial access to the Hetch Hetchy area if it would be allowed to dam the valley, The City then reneged on those promises. Today, a paucity of trails and the City’s refusal to consider a non-polluting electric tour boat prevent visitors to Yosemite from accessing the backcountry in their national park. (East Bay MUD, for example, provides rental canoes and allows camping at its Pardee Reservoir.)
Backpackers frolic in the hard-to-reach Grand Canyon of the Tuolumne (Photo: Outdoor Adventure Club)
Strike 2: San Francisco continues to resist providing additional flows to help downstream fisheries. Along with other water interests on the Tuolumne River, San Francisco has declined to sign even the Newsom Administration’s (compromise) voluntary agreement to provide modest flows and funds to improve spawning habitat. The agreement was signed by a multitude of water agencies, including the largest in the Central Valley and the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California. A plethora of prominent environmental and fishing groups is applying pressure on San Francisco to provide additional water for downstream fisheries.
Chinook salmon (Photo: National Park Service)
Strike 3: In the wake of California’s overabundance of solar power during sunny afternoons, San Francisco has abandoned its long-standing practice of releasing hydropower from Cherry Reservoir on a schedule to benefit whitewater rafting and kayaking on the very popular “Lumsden” stretch of the Tuolumne River. A few miles north on the American River, the Sacramento Municipal Utilities District is abiding by its agreement to provide recreational flows below Chili Bar Dam.
The Tuolumne is a wonderful whitewater experience. Photo: Whitewater Voyages
Our mission is to return the Hetch Hetchy Valley in Yosemite National Park to its natural splendor ─ while continuing to meet the water and power needs of all communities that depend on the Tuolumne River. We can then return to the people Yosemite Valley’s lost twin, Hetch Hetchy – a majestic glacial-carved valley with towering cliffs and waterfalls, an untamed place where river and wildlife run free, a new kind of national park.
Even with the dam in place, however, San Francisco seems to be maximizing its own financial benefit at the expense of recreation and the environment – more so than other communities in California.
San Francisco needs to do better for the public on all fronts.
by Spreck | May 8, 2022 | Uncategorized
In the early afternoon of April 30, for the first time ever, California generated enough electricity from renewable sources to fully meet demand.
Hooray! But there is still a long way to go before meeting the State’s goals for 100% renewable power, or even getting close to that goal.
The achievement was realized on a windy and sunny afternoon in April. If it had been calm and overcast, or evening rather than afternoon, or August rather than April, renewable supply would have been far short of demand.
The growth in renewable power, especially solar and wind, continues. Improvements in energy storage are essential so power generated during daylight hours can be used at night.
And, while all technologies are imperfect, renewable power lessens impacts on the environment. Principally, the shift to wind and solar is intended to reduce reliance on fossil fuels.
There are river restoration projects, however, which will result in relatively small losses of hydropower, including the Trinity (2000), Klamath (very soon?) and the Tuolumne through Hetch Hetchy Valley in Yosemite National Park.
