Photo: Roger Williams, Restore Hetch Hetchy Board Chair. Click herefor high resolution version.
We asked Probolsky Research to add a Hetch Hetchy question to a statewide poll conducted in early May – the very same question we asked in 2019. We like the results!
Restoration supporters outnumber opponents by almost 4 to 1!
Our challenge is to convert this broad public support into support among our elected officials. We will be sure to share these results.
The question was preceded by a brief explanation, and asked as shown below:
Question: California’s Yosemite National Park once included two glacier-carved valleys – Yosemite Valley along the Merced River and Hetch Hetchy Valley along the Tuolumne River. In 1913, Congress allowed San Francisco to dam Hetch Hetchy Valley and turn it into a reservoir for the City.
Should Yosemite National Park’s Hetch Hetchy Valley be restored, if it can be accomplished without impacting San Francisco’s water supply?
We asked the question with a bit of trepidation. How might people respond? Are they still positive about the visionary opportunity for restoration? Or are people in sour moods, perhaps after following a series of generally negative gubernatorial debates which have dwelt on serious challenges that California faces. Would respondents still favor the positive vision of returning Hetch Hetchy Valley to its natural splendor?
Our fears were assuaged. Every demographic measured by the Probolsky folks support restoration, with relatively little variation.
The results are very similar to what respondents said in 2019. More than 60% of California’s population continue to favor restoration. The most obvious overall difference is that fewer people are opposed to restoration, and instead say they are unsure. Another interesting difference is that the 2026 results did not indicate a dip in support in the Bay Area as had been the case in 2019
Probolsky’s reports are posted online for both 2026 and 2019.
For breakdowns by gender, age, education level, political party, ethnicity and area, see charts below.
We plan to encourage elected officials to take action over the next several months. As part of our effort to show broad support, we have posted a simple petition on our website. Please take a moment to sign – and ask your friends to do so as well (they can select whether or not they want to be added to our list for updates).
If you need any encouragement, check out (again perhaps) Libby McLaren’s phenomenal and stirring version of Bill Oliver’s “Hooray for Hetch Hetchy.” Libby is a proud graduate of Berkeley’s John Muir Elementary – class of ’67.
One last thing. Great news. The endangered California red-legged frog has made a strong comebackin Yosemite and may soon be introduced in the Hetch Hetchy area.
The California red-legged frog – photo Jamie Bettaso USFWS
Visitors flocked to Hetch Hetchy last weekend as they did to all of Yosemite National Park. Long waits at entrance stations and full parking lots frustrated visitors. Many have called for a return of a reservation system to manage crowds during periods of peak demand.
Parking at Hetch Hetchy was full by 12:30. Fortunately, our entourage met at 10:30 and had a brief discussion at the dam before heading out to Wapama Falls.
We saw more folks on the trail to Wapama than ever. It was warm enough that the icy spray from the falls was most welcome. Some of our group sought more adventure, and went down to Poopenaut Valley or up to the top of the canyon above Tueeulala and Wapama Falls. Photo Alice Chung
Wapama Falls from above. Access requires off trail hiking, making the journey challenging but ever so rewarding.Photo Lucho Rivera
At Restore Hetch Hetchy, we don’t anticipate restoration will substantially reduce crowding in Yosemite Valley. It will help some.
Returning Hetch Hetchy to its natural splendor will, however, provide a glorious alternative that will welcome visitors to a valley with less infrastructure and congestion. Reasonable people will debate passionately how best to manage visitor use in a restored valley. We can’t wait for that discussion, but first we have a reservoir to relocate.
It’s a stunning shot, and a view rarely seen. Restore Hetch Hetchy board member Mecia Serafino scrambled 1800 vertical feet to the top of Kolana Rock to get a clear view of the entirety of Wapama Falls. Mecia reports she didn’t mind getting a bit of poison oak while bushwhacking along what might generously be called a trail.
Mecia Serafino
Mecia’s photograph has been entered in Firefall Ranch’s Spring Renewal contest – please vote for it.
Wapama Falls from the top of Kolana Rock – photo by Mecia Serafino.
Few people who have visited Hetch Hetchy have seen the entirety of Wapama Falls. You can only see the lower portion from the O’Shaughnessy Dam. Even when you hike to the falls and cross the stream beneath Wapama (an exhilarating experience), you cannot see the top.
Were the valley undammed, of course, it would be simple to saunter across the meadow to see the full waterfall. Or even, as Congress expected, visitors would take a boat across the reservoir and see the whole thing.
Mecia’s view is special. It is all of Wapama Falls – not from below but from the top of Kolana Rock. Let’s be honest. Few of us are likely to hike to the top of Kolana – poison oak or not. Thanks to Mecia for doing this.
The entirety of Wapama Falls (during peak snowmelt) from the reservoir – a perspective not available to the public.
Kolana Rock, before Hetch Hetchy was dammed, rose 2100 feet above the valley floor.
In The Battle over Hetch Hetchy: America’s Most Controversial Dam and the Birth of Modern Environmentalism (2005), Historian Robert Righter recounts the philosophical difference between “Preservationist” John Muir and “Conservationist” Gifford Pinchot, first head of the United States Forest Service who supported damming Hetch Hetchy because it provided “The greatest good to the greatest number for the longest time.”
Righter is correct that Hetch Hetchy ignited the activism we see today, but the term “environmentalism” was not really used in its current context until 1970 or so.
Today, environmentalism means different things to different people and different organizations. At Restore Hetch Hetchy, we’re committed to the idea, passion and value of preserving and restoring Earth’s most spectacular landscapes and we are laser focused on Hetch Hetchy – the one landscape in our great national park system that has been damaged.
Today, many “environmental” organizations have broadened their mission well beyond natural landscapes and some do not address natural landscapes at all.
Authoring “Yosemite’s conservationists: an Earth Day message“, Ken Braun, Managing Editor and Director of Content for the Capitol Research Center, opines that “advocates for both conservation and energy abundance could and should once again become—quite literally— natural allies.” He recounts with disappointment how the Sierra Club has evolved from being the premier protector of public lands to an organization opposed to energy development. He is more positive about The Nature Conservancy and is a big fan of Restore Hetch Hetchy (Yosemite is his “#1 favorite place on the planet and #2 is not close”).
Long before Restore Hetch Hetchy, Executive Director Spreck Rosekrans and his wife Isabella took their kids out of school on a whim and headed off to Yosemite. Ken Braun would understand.
We are sympathetic to Braun’s view. Restore Hetch Hetchy, after all, was founded by Sierra Club members who were highly motivated to find a physical and political solution that would allow Yosemite’s second great valley to be returned to its natural splendor. We take pride in identifying and proposing practical water and power solutions that meet human needs.
We do understand, however, that the Sierra Club and so many others tackle complicated worldwide issues related to energy development and, in many areas, water supply development.
At Restore Hetch Hetchy, we mostly stay in our lane. But we are big supporters of solar power with battery backups that have been successfully and cost-effectively developed in California and other areas. And we are big fans of improved groundwater recharge in wet years, recycled water and improved markets (see last week’s blog).
Another Earth Day message comes from Edward Ring, director of water and energy policy for the California Policy Center, in his Ringside: The Abundance Alliance. Ring does not outwardly support or oppose restoring Hetch Hetchy (or Mono Lake or the Salton Sea), but he implicitly acknowledges them as noble objectives as long as environmentalists “embrace big projects”.
Ring has a point. We all (self-identifying “environmentalists” and those who eschew such a moniker) need to be practical about meeting human needs. But the devil is in the details. Water recycling may share the same core technology as desalination but it has far fewer impacts. Ring’s description of how to add 10 million acre-feet of water supply includes some ideas that should be pursued, some that shouldn’t. Further the proposal conflates storage with supply – building a reservoir does not mean if will fill.
Restore Hetch Hetchy takes pride in being serious about water and power solutions – mostly those related to our narrow (yet oh so grand!) objective, but also for the world at large. We don’t support the same approaches Braun and Ring propose. But we do support robust public debate about all technologies and proposals as well as decisive action to implement projects that serve the needs of our communities without undue financial or ecological cost.
