Yosemite. Yellowstone. The Grand Canyon. The Great Smoky Mountains, and so many more.
It’s hard to imagine the United States of America without our national parks. But in the late 19th century, preserving public land in its natural state was a new and provocative idea. It was also too late for many European countries, whose lands had already been fully developed.
It all started when President Abraham Lincoln signed legislation to preserve Yosemite Valley in faraway California for “public use, resort and recreation … inalienable for all time.” Shortly afterward, Yellowstone National Park was created — our nation’s, and the world’s, first wilderness park. Yosemite, Sequoia, Mesa Verde, and Mount Rainier came soon after.
In the early 20th century, we took one huge step backward. San Francisco, in the wake of the 1906 earthquake and fire that devastated the city, campaigned to build a dam in Yosemite’s Hetch Hetchy Valley, one of two iconic glacier carved valleys in the park. More than 200 newspapers nationwide rose in opposition to the idea that a single municipality could take over land that had been “preserved in perpetuity” for all Americans. After extensive and contentious deliberation, however, Congress passed and President Woodrow Wilson signed the Raker Actallowing the dam to be built and Yosemite’s Hetch Hetchy Valley to buried beneath a reservoir.
In 1916, Congress, reflecting on the unprecedented groundswell of public opposition that had taken place during the debate over the Raker Act, passed the National Park Service Act — a law intended to prevent, in large part, any more such intrusions. Subsequent proposals to build dams in Yellowstone in the 1920s and the Grand Canyon in the 1950s were defeated. And while threats to and controversies within our national parks continue, no destruction approaching the scale of damming Hetch Hetchy has since been allowed.
Since that time, the conservation movement has evolved and grown enormously –- fighting ever wider battles to protect the natural world and create a sustainable economy. Today, conflicts over public land extend far beyond our national park system and are often fought over urban parks as well as wilderness areas.
In the 1960s, Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring alerted us to the fact that “better living through chemistry” was very often not so. Shortly thereafter, environmentalists joined forces to effect a nationwide ban on DDT.
In 1969, a horrified nation watched Ohio’s Cuyahoga River catch fire, and political pressure persuaded President Richard Nixon to sign the Clean Water Act. Nixon also signed the Clean Air Act and the Endangered Species Act.
Today, much of the conservation movement is consumed with local, national, and international efforts to stop Earth’s atmosphere from warming due to the combustion of fossil fuels.
Conservation is now integrated in virtually every aspect of our lives. We recycle, and conserve energy and water. We subsidize public transportation and dedicate highway lanes to carpools. We regulate forestry and commercial fishing so that the world our grandchildren will inherit will look like the one we know now — or perhaps even a bit better.
Even as the conservation movement has become so many different things, our national parks are still the envy of the world. Visit them and you will find not only a plethora of your own countrymen, but citizens from countries around the world, many of which did not have the foresight to preserve some of their own very special places.
Still, Hetch Hetchy remains the greatest blemish in our national parks. In 1913, our nation’s lawmakers made a grave mistake. But it can be reversed. Restore Hetch Hetchy is resolved to undo that mistake, and we invite all our fellow citizens to join us in making Yosemite National Park whole again.
— This blog is adapted from a column RHH board Chair Roger Williams wrote on the centennial of the Raker Act’s passage. Restore Hetch Hetchy is celebrating Earth Day with a meeting and public retreat at Hetch Hetchy.
We were thrilled and honored to do a story with the Adventure Sports Journal (it starts on page 28 in their spring issue). Many thanks to Leonie Sherman for her fine writing and research and to the Journal staff for their support.
Board members Mecia Serafino and Lucho Rivera enjoy a moment high above Hetch Hetchy.
Leonie distills the Hetch Hetchy story into its key components: that Hetch Hetchy includes soaring granite walls, cascading waterfalls, alpine meadows, a roaring river, and miles of trails to ramble; that its damming was a singular insult to our national parks; and that Hetch Hetchy is an alternative to being in a snarl of traffic in often overcrowded Yosemite Valley.
Leonie interviewed both Executive Director Spreck Rosekrans and board member (and rock climber) Mecia Serafino.
Rosekrans provides some thoughts about Hetch Hetchy’s link to other conservation issues – “Yosemite is sort of a gateway drug; people learn about and start to care about the environment there. If we can restore this lost landscape, we will not only inspire a whole new generation of conservationists to care about parks, but also to have the courage to tackle bigger environmental issues wherever they are in the world.”
Serafino shares her own experience, often with partner Lucho Rivera, as a climber in Yosemite’s seldom-visited sister valley, “Once you go down, there are some established routes on different formations. Some friends and I have been putting up new multi-pitch routes at the base of this one formation. There’s just so much potential for sport climbing, trad climbing bouldering….”
A correction: the policy for reservations in 2025 is unresolved. Our March 30 postreferenced a draft press release that has now been superseded with the following from the National Park Service:
Yosemite National Park anticipates sharing details about this year’s reservation system in the near future. We recognize the importance of providing clarity on that system as soon as possible to accommodate peak summer season travel planning. We are grateful for the robust public engagement in this process to shape an improved and sustainable visitor experience.
National Parks Week – Sign the Petition
In conjunction with National Park Week (April 19 to 27), the Yosemite Climbing Association is collecting signatures to ask California Senators to protect Yosemite, ensuring that the park has sufficient staff and funding for safety and essential services. We appreciate the YCA’s leadership and ask our supporters to sign its petition.
San Francisco’s greenwashing of “Hetch Hetchy Power” conveniently omits the spectacular landscape the City destroyed.
Baloney, i.e. nonsense: When someone says something completely ridiculous, call it a bunch of baloney.
Baloney is the most polite word that comes to mind after receiving the “Happy Earth Month from Hetch Hetchy Power!” notice from the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission earlier this week.
“Earth Month is a time to take climate action and reflect on the progress we’ve made to create a more sustainable San Francisco. Here at Hetch Hetchy Power, every day is Earth Day. From generating clean, greenhouse gas-free hydropower to constructing solar installations throughout the City, we’re leading San Francisco to a greener tomorrow.”
It’s hard to take this hyperbole seriously. Earth Month / Earth Day is no time to celebrate the historic destruction of Yosemite’s Hetch Hetchy Valley, and San Francisco’s greenwashing of its water and power project is objectionable.
Hydropower generation may be greenhouse gas-free, but it destroys rivers, and the fish and wildlife that depend on them as well as recreation opportunities. The California legislature, when adopting its “Renewable Portfolio Standard”, determined that large hydropower plants do not count as “renewable” power.
Electricity production in Californiahas changed remarkably over the last several years. As solar and wind projects have become prevalent, there has been a marked decline in gas-fired electricity accompanied by some relatively minor decreases in hydropower production (e.g. Klamath and Trinity Rivers). Continued improvements in battery technology will help further the transition to renewable power.
The California Independent System Operator provides daily detail showing how electricity is generated. The green is “renewable” – mostly solar and wind. The purple shows batteries – charged by solar power during the day and providing electricity to homes and businesses in the evening.
When San Francisco advocated to dam Hetch Hetchy in preference to other alternatives, it did so largely because the project would provide hydropower as well as water supply. Restoration requires a plan to keep the City whole with respect to both. Our greatest challenge lies in the politics and expense of making improvements to assure there is no loss of water supply.
With restoration, Holm and Moccasin will be little affected. Generation at Kirkwood will only be possible with “run-of-river” flows.
Restoration, however, will also require replacing about 20% of the total production of San Francisco’s three principal hydropower plants. Only generation at the Kirkwood Plant will be significantly reduced – by about 350 gWh per year (roughly 1/2 of the reduction experienced when the Klamath Dams were removed).
We recognize that no form of electricity is entirely without impact. Solar power, coupled with improvements in the cost and safety of batteries, appears to be the future in California and elsewhere. Hydropower will be an increasingly less important part of the mix.
Campaigning to restore Hetch Hetchy Valley in Yosemite National Park means caring about San Francisco’s water system and ensuring no loss of reliability when the valley is returned to its natural splendor. The City’s opportunity to invest in groundwater banking would provide widespread benefits and save money for their customers.
Restore Hetch Hetchy’s letter to San Francisco officials urges the City to follow the lead of other California water agencies by investing in cost-effective groundwater recharge.
Too many people associate one storage tank, Hetch Hetchy Reservoir, with San Francisco’s water. The City stores water in nine reservoirs. Restoring Hetch Hetchy would eliminate only one of these reservoirs, include some changes in conveyance and how the others are used, and require some investment to replace what would be lost. Restore Hetch Hetchy has recommended groundwater banking, recycling or enlarging Calaveras Reservoir – see Yosemite’s Opportunity for more information.
Hetch Hetchy Reservoir accounts for less than 25% of San Francisco’s storage.
San Francisco officials have shown little or no interest in restoring Hetch Hetchy, even though other water agencies throughout California have done far more to reduce the damage they’ve caused in other areas. The San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, like all water agencies, is always looking for additional supply – whether it be used as a hedge against drought, to accommodate growth or for environmental enhancement.
Restore Hetch Hetchy continues to ask San Francisco to invest in groundwater banking – by far the greatest cost-effective opportunity for water supply development in California over the last 30 years. We have written extensively, made presentations and met with staff and board members at the SFPUC, the Bay Area Water Supply and Conservation Agency (San Francisco’s “suburban’ customers), the Eastside Water District (where depleted aquifers have been depleted and recharge is sorely needed) and the Turlock and Modesto Irrigation Districts (who hold senior water rights on the Tuolumne River and operate Don Pedro Reservoir).
On Friday, April 4, after having watched a meeting of the East Turlock Groundwater Sustainability Agency in which they worried openly about State takeover of their groundwater if they did not make improvements, we wrote to the SFPUC again. San Francisco’s investment in groundwater recharge would provide substantial benefits for all parties and for the environment, but no one is taking this opportunity seriously (maybe there are ongoing private closed door discussions, but it seems unlikely).
Diverting the Tuolumne River flood flows in wet years for groundwater recharge would provide widespread benefits.
We understand that institutional cooperation is complicated and would need to involve San Francisco, Eastside, Turlock and Modesto. Everyone would need to see benefits. But institutional barriers have been overcome, again and again, elsewhere in California. There is every reason that a robust, cooperative groundwater recharge program should be developed and implemented in the Tuolumne River watershed.
The National Park Service has announced its reservations policy for 2025. Most entrances will require advance reservations on weekends beginning May 24 and during the peak summer season, while Hetch Hetchy will be managed on a case-by-case basis.
It’s good news all around. These decisions appear to have been made as a result of public input, so it’s great to see that both the National Park Service and the Department of Interior are listening.
Reservations will not be required to visit Hetch Hetchy in 2025, but visitors will be denied entrance if there is no parking.Photo: Joe Braun
Yosemite officials had paused their decision pending approval by the Trump Administration. The decision to move forward with the plan came only after Senator Alex Padilla, among others, wrote to Secretary of Interior Doug Burgum asking that it be approved.
Senator Padilla (right) met privately with Secretary Burgum prior to his confirmation hearing and voted in favor of his appointment.
There is widespread support for requiring reservations to enter Yosemite. While it is unfortunate that we cannot enter all of our national parks whenever we like, places like Yosemite do need to manage and limit crowding. (Note reservations are required only in late spring and summer and affect private automobiles only – visitors can always enter using public transportation.)
We are especially pleased that, as we and others asked, Hetch Hetchy will be handled differently. The National Park Service’s draft plan had indicated that the same regulations would be applied to the Hetch Hetchy entrance but changed course – perhaps after realizing that use patterns at Hetch Hetchy are different and that public transportation is not currently an option at Hetch Hetchy. (See Restore Hetch Hetchy’s comments sent last September along with a letter signed by hundreds of supporters).
2025 should be a great year to visit Yosemite. This week’s snowstorms should bring the snowpack up to average, so the waterfalls will be spectacular when the weather warms.
It’s always wise to plan your travel carefully. Make a reservation if necessary. And enter the park early or late in the day to avoid lines at the entrance stations.
Note that it is very likely visitors to Hetch Hetchy will be turned away during weekends this spring when the parking spots are all filled. If you go to Hetch Hetchy, and we hope you will, avoid the weekend or get there early!
“The mountains are calling and I must go.” – John Muir.
Wapama Falls from across the reservoir is a fine sight, but it’s not the same being there – and getting a bit wet.
Yosemite’s waterfalls are world famous, and rightly so. The eponymous Yosemite Falls, as well as Vernal, Nevada, Bridalveil, Ribbon and so many others all possess their own combination of grace, power and beauty. They are at their finest during spring snowmelt.
Installed in December 2024, the new bridge will make viewing Wapama Falls safer for park visitors. Photo: San Francisco PUC
Wapama Falls at Hetch Hetchy is no less special. Standing beneath Wapama, gazing upward evokes images of thickly braided hair continuously unfurling in a windstorm. It’s a sight to be experienced up close.
Visitors to Hetch Hetchy can see Wapama as they arrive. It beckons. To see the falls up close, hikers first cross over the top of O’Shaughnessy Dam then walk 2 plus miles. Wapama is suddenly right around the corner, but cannot really be seen without stepping out onto the westernmost of a series of footbridges. It’s a thrilling moment.
At left, a sign warns against crossing the bridge and viewing Wapama Falls. At right, The National Park Service transports Boy Scouts around the falls as they return from a backpacking trip.
There have been times, however, when visitors have arrived at the falls only to be confronted by a sign warning that crossing the bridge is not safe. Too much of Falls Creek is flowing over the bridge. Indeed hikers have been swept off the bridge to their deaths.
Fortunately, that bridge has been replaced. In December, the National Park Service installed a new, safer bridge, which should be passable at peak snowmelt in almost any year. San Francisco officials proudly note that the City paid for its cost.
We’re pleased as punch, and look forward to seeing Wapama and its new bridge in April.
But it is disappointing that it’s taken so long. After all, the project was approved by the Superintendent more than 5 years ago.
And is the funding for the bridge a result of San Francisco’s benevolence? Or is it an obligation under the Raker Act, which reads in part “this grant is upon the further condition that the grantee shall construct on the north side of the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir site a scenic road or trail“? Once constructed, who bears the burden of maintenance and safety?
There are other areas where San Francisco has not fully complied with and/or the National Park Service has not full enforced Raker Act. Until the statute is amended Restore Hetch Hetchy will be pursuing improvements so visitors will be able to better enjoy and appreciate Hetch Hetchy.
But this new bridge is exciting indeed. Go to Hetch Hetchy and see it for yourself!
