We’re happy to see Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, Governors Gavin Newsom of California and Kate Brown of Oregon, and Congressman Jared Huffman celebrating the prospective removal of dams on the Klamath River with leaders of the Karok and Yurok Tribes. There is widespread agreement that the benefits of dam removal on the Klamath outweigh the hydropower benefits that the four dams provide.
From left, Oregon Governor Kate Brown, Congressman Jared Huffman, Yurok Tribal Chairman Joseph James, California Governor Gavin Newsom, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland and Karok Tribal Chairman Russell “Buster” Attebery
We’d like to ask Haaland, Newsom and Huffman to take a hard look at the opportunity to restore Yosemite’s Hetch Hetchy Valley. There is no better time than now.
As we’ve made clear, Restore Hetch Hetchy is not anti-dam. In some cases, however, including the Klamath and Hetch Hetchy, the benefits of restoration clearly outweigh the benefits provided by the dams. Principally, dam removal on the Klamath will require annual replacement of 696 gigawatt hours of electricity by other means. That’s about twice the amount of power lost when Hetch Hetchy will be restored. Of course Hetch Hetchy will require replacement for lost water storage as well (as we recently showed in Yosemite’s Opportunity, other California water agencies are replacing at least 15 times what will be needed to keep San Francisco whole).
We’ve talked about restoration with both Newsom and Huffman, but not with Haaland. It’s fair to say that Newsom and Huffman understand that restoration is doable but have yet to see political advantage in supporting restoration. Newsom is an ex-Mayor of San Francisco but has shown unexpected leadership in the past in certain areas – will he do so on Hetch Hetchy? And Huffman is an ex-environmental attorney (NRDC) who worked hard on Central Valley fishery issues – how much does he care about Yosemite?
And what might it take for Secretary Haaland to take an interest in restoration as previous Secretaries of the Interior have?
The words of both Mahatma Gandhi (“When the people lead, the leaders will follow.”) and David Brower (“Politicians are like weather vanes. Our job is to make the wind blow.”) ring in our ears.
We all need to lead and to make the winds of change blow harder. We need to make our officials, Newsom, Haaland, Huffman and others, realize the tremendous opportunity and legacy that lies before them.
Before entering politics, Mahatma Gandhi was a lawyer.