by Spreck | Sep 3, 2021 | Uncategorized
2021 is the 4th driest year since 1906, and last year was dry as well. Two dry years make a drought these days, especially since our aquifers are more depleted than ever. Here’s hoping 2022 will be a gully washer and may it come soon.
In droughts, California’s historically based system of allocating water “rights” comes into play. While everyone may suffer, the pain is not equally shared. Examples below include the federal Central Valley Project’s San Joaquin Valley customers, water users on the Stanislaus River and water users on the Tuolumne River (which includes, of course, the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission and its Hetch Hetchy Reservoir).
Figure 1 below shows storage levels in Shasta Reservoir, the largest in California, and selected Central Valley Project deliveries to the San Joaquin Valley, including (1) Exchange Contractors, (2) Wildlife Refuges and (3) Westlands Water District for the ten-year period from 2011-2020. The Exchange Contractors are farmers who originally had senior rights on the San Joaquin River but “exchanged” them for water delivered from northern California and through the Delta. The Central Valley Project Improvement Act, passed in 1992, includes provisions to deliver water to managed wetlands in the San Joaquin Valley to mitigate, in part, for the wetlands that were dried up to make room and provide water for agriculture. Both the Exchange Contractors and Wildlife Refuges have priority that is senior to the “Water Service” contractors, whose water supply is available only when the needs of senior rights holders have been met.
Westlands Water District is the largest of the Water Service Contractors. Much of the land is very productive, but Westlands has junior water rights and has historically relied on litigation to get every drop of water possible. Farmers in Westlands often grow a mix of lower value annual “row” crops (e.g. tomatoes) and higher value orchard crops (almonds etc.). They will often fallow the annual crops in dry years and use what water they are allocated or can buy for their orchards. Many have been very successful with this strategy but some have also gone bankrupt.
As Figure 1 shows, deliveries to the Exchange Contractors and Wildlife Refuges are mostly consistent, but deliveries to Westlands plummet in dry years.
Figure 2 shows New Melones Reservoir and operations on the Stanislaus River. Completed circa 1980, New Melones Reservoir was the last major on-stream reservoir constructed in California. It is also part of the Central Valley Project, but it is operated for the benefit of farms near the Stanislaus River. Part of the agreement prior to the construction of New Melones Reservoir included assurances the rights of the Oakdale and South San Joaquin Irrigation Districts would be met before deliveries to others would be made. (Releases from New Melones are also used to meet dilute salt loads in the south Delta.) When there is extra water available, modest deliveries to the Stockton East Water District are made. Figure 2 also shows that New Melones was nearly empty in 2015.
Figure 3 provides a synopsis of water storage and the distribution of water rights on the Tuolumne River from 2011 until 2020. Don Pedro is the largest reservoir on the Tuolumne, but Hetch Hetchy, Cherry and Eleanor Reservoirs provide additional storage capacity. The Turlock and Modesto Irrigation Districts use about 4 times as much of the river’s water as does the San Francisco PUC, but roughly one-half of all the surface storage belongs to San Francisco. San Francisco relies on this storage to meet its needs in dry years when its water rights are minimal (see 2012-2015 and 2020 below).
As a result of its extraordinary investment in storage, the San Francisco PUC has a very reliable system (but like all water agencies, they rightfully worry about extended droughts). As a result of San Francisco’s practices, storage in Tuolumne River reservoirs is generally kept at relatively high levels.
Restore Hetch Hetchy is keenly ware of San Francisco’s rights, demands and other facilities as we pursue and advocate for groundwater banking, recycling and other alternatives will replace the water supply function of Hetch Hetchy Reservoir.
by Spreck | Aug 30, 2021 | Uncategorized
Saturday’s New York Times carried an excellent guest essay by Kyle Paoletta, making the point that our national parks are in great demand and often overcrowded, and that we need more of them. As Paoletta notes, “more than 327 million people visited the public lands managed by the National Park Service in 2019” and too often “Going to a national park in 2021 doesn’t mean losing yourself in nature. It means inching along behind a long line of minivans and R.V.s on the way to an already full parking lot.”
The New York Times may be situated in America’s largest and densest city, but it has long championed open space and national parks. In 1913, the Times ran 6 editorials in opposition to the proposal to dam Yosemite’s Hetch Hetchy Valley. The New York Times was not alone. National parks were fairly new at the time, but more than 100 newspapers across the country opposed the Raker Act: The Journal of Lincoln Nebraska said the following:
A representative of the city was asked if they could not get the abundant and pure water in some other part of the Sierra Range than the Hetch Hetchy Valley. “Yes,” he said, “by paying for it”. There we have the milk in the cocoanut. And Congress seems determined to give the wild part of Yosemite away just because a rich and influential city wants it.
It seemed like a good opportunity to send a letter to the editor. We hope they will print it.
Re “Give the People What They Clearly Need: More National Parks” by Kyle Paoletta (guest essay, Aug. 28):
There is no better start to improving America’s national parks than reversing the damage to Yosemite National Park, now more than a century old.
Overcrowded Yosemite Valley is one of the world’s most popular natural attractions, drawing 4 million people annually. But Hetch Hetchy, the other spectacular glacier-carved valley inside the same great national park, was dammed and flooded by San Francisco in 1923 after bitter infighting in Congress – the only time any national park anywhere in the U.S. has been so hijacked for outside exploitation. Moreover, access to the Hetch Hetchy area of Yosemite has been further restricted, to “protect” San Francisco’s reservoir, so only a few thousand visitors a year get to see it.
The National Park Service should increase common-sense visitor opportunities at Hetch Hetchy. Better yet, San Francisco should be prodded to invest in water storage downriver, outside the Park’s boundaries.
Spreck Rosekrans, Executive Director
Restore Hetch Hetchy
by Spreck | Aug 22, 2021 | Uncategorized
At Restore Hetch Hetchy, we care about reliable water supplies for all communities, but we pay particular attention to San Francisco. After all, restoration can only be accomplished if water supplies for the San Francisco’s and its wholesale customers are undiminished. Fortunately, this can be accomplished,. As we have said over and over, not a drop need be lost when Hetch Hetchy Reservoir is emptied and the valley is restored. For more information on the solutions we recommend, see our Summer Newsletter or Water and Power System Improvements Necessary to Accommodate Restoration of Hetch Hetchy Valley in Yosemite National Park (2018).
Fortunately, San Francisco’s water system is in good shape. The City’s supplies in its Tuolumne watershed reservoirs are substantial, and are designed to last through a lengthy drought. Water managers cannot be blamed, however, for worrying about extended droughts – that’s their job.
Figure 1 provides a snapshot of San Francisco’s water rights over the last three years, along with its average diversions to the Bay Area and its storage capacity in the Tuolumne Watershed. Water Year 2019 was good to San Francisco, providing more than enough flow to fill Hetch Hetch Hetchy Reservoir, Cherry and Eleanor Reservoirs, and the City’s water bank in Don Pedro Reservoir.
2020 was a dry year and San Francisco’s water rights yielded less than its need to divert water to the Bay Area, so it needed to withdraw about 60,000 acre-feet from its stored supplies (evaporation and losses play a small role in the need for storage withdrawal as well).
2021 has been critically dry and San Francisco’s junior water rights on the Tuolumne River have provided only 44,873 acre-feet of supply (The Turlock and Modesto Irrigation Districts have senior rights and are entitled to more than 10 times as much of the river’s flow in 2021.) So this year, San Francisco will need to draw down its storage by 180,000 acre-feet or so.
Still San Francisco’s system will be in good shape even if the drought persists another year. But for everybody’s sake, we hope water year 2022 (which begins October 2021) will be good and wet. And for the sake of the fires, let’s hope the rain comes early as well.
by Spreck | Aug 15, 2021 | Uncategorized
Glen Canyon and Hetch Hetchy Valley
Reservoir levels have dropped as a result of the drought gripping much of the American West. In California, the phenomenon is recent as reservoirs were generally full in 2019. Storage levels in the Colorado Basin, however, have been dropping steadily for some time.
No place is this more evident that in Glen Canyon, where Lake Powell is at the lowest level in decades. Glen Canyon Dam was completed in the mid-1960’s when few had seen the area. The dam is the bane of many desert lovers, including author Edward Abbey who fantasized about blowing it up in The Monkey Wrench Gang.
This week’s New Yorker includes a wonderful article on the history of Glen Canyon and the many folks who are exploring the area and are able to access places that have been underwater until recently.
Glen Canyon and Hetch Hetchy Valley share at least two things in common. First, both are wonders of nature that were destroyed by controversial water storage projects. Second, both projects provide only modest contributions to regional water supply.
Geographically, Glen Canyon and Hetch Hetchy Valley are very different. Glen is a sandstone canyon is in the southern Utah desert, just upstream of the Grand Canyon and downstream of Canyonlands National Park. Hetch Hetchy is in the granite-laden Sierra Nevada, amidst forests of pine and fir.
And Glen Canyon Dam can hold 26,000,000 acre-feet of water, 72 times the size of Hetch Hetchy Reservoir – although siltation over the last 55 years may have reduced its capacity a bit.
I have a personal connection to Glen Canyon – which led to my involvement in Restore Hetch Hetchy.
In the mid 1990’s I was asked to look at the Bureau of Reclamation’s CRSSEZ Model (Colorado River Storage Simulation), to understand the nature of Colorado River water being delivered to the Imperial Valley and urban southern California. I thought I would see what happened if Glen Canyon Dam were removed in CRSSEZ, and its water allowed to flow downstream into Lake Mead.
At first, I thought the simulation modeling did not work because the model results were barely different. But looking harder, it made sense. The river’s average flow was only 14,000,000 acre-feet per year. Lake Mead itself could hold twice that volume and there are other upstream dams as well. At some point, additional storage just leads to more evaporation and losses without any help for water supply reliability.
I told a few folks, including a Sierra Club rep in Arizona. Then, in 1997, I got a call, asking if David Brower and Adam Werbach (past and sitting Sierra Club Presidents) could use the results in an upcoming hearing at the U.S. Senate. I said yes, but nothing substantive happened after the hearing. Two years later, Brower suggested to Restore Hetch Hetchy founder Ron Good that he invite me to join his new organization.
At Restore Hetch Hetchy, we are committed to helping San Francisco replace the modest (but important) increment of supply that Hetch Hetchy Reservoir provides. As our recent newsletter explains, we think groundwater banking, expanding Calaveras Reservoir and recycling are the best options.
Hetch Hetchy Valley in Yosemite National park can be restored without anyone losing a drop of water supply.
by Spreck | Jul 21, 2021 | Uncategorized
Our 2021 Summer Newsletter is available online and in hard copy. We apologize for the delay, but we wanted to wait until we had photos from our rock climbing expedition to include. We think the images from the climb are spectacular and we look forward to completion of the film.
If you have received a hard copy and would like one, let us know and we will send it. Please note that the clear sleeve used to deliver the newsletter is plant-based and compostable. (A few members mistakenly assumed it is plastic.)
Thanks very much to Tom Coyle (above) and Robert Rollins for their artwork, to Ron Rick for his design, and to Julene Freitas, James Q Martin and Mary Racila for their contributions to the Newsletter’s content.
by Spreck | Jul 11, 2021 | Uncategorized
Due to the pandemic, admission to Yosemite through its Big Oak Flat, Arch Rock, South and Tioga Pass entrances is restricted. Unless they have a permit, park visitors can only enter Yosemite through its Hetch Hetchy gate.
Fresno is the closest large city to Yosemite, so its news outlets cover the park closely. Reporter Brandon Johansen of KFSN-TV, Fresno’s ABC affiliate, was intrigued to venture to Hetch Hetchy for the first time.
We were happy to join Brandon and to share Hetch Hetchy with him. Park visitors need to experience Hetch Hetchy and to learn its story before they will support restoration.
If you’ve been to Hetch Hetchy this spring, you may know that it’s markedly more crowded than usual. When the valley is restored, we will need to work thoughtfully with the Park Service to develop a plan that accommodates visitors while protecting Hetch Hetchy’s natural splendor.
For now, we’re happy to see more park visitors flock to Hetch Hetchy.
