Last week, National Park Diaries published “How San Francisco Stole Hetch Hetchy” on YouTube. The story may be known to most of us, but author/historian Cameron Sabin provides several interesting perspectives, including how the progressive and conservation movements coincided at the beginning of the 20th century just at the 1906 earthquake and fire devastated San Francisco.
“How San Francisco Stole Hetch Hetchy” is the latest product from National Park Diaries – all available on YouTube.
Whether it is fair to say that San Francisco “stole” Hetch Hetchy is open to debate. The City did convince Congress to pass and President Wilson to sign the Raker Act, permitting Hetch Hetchy to be dammed and flooded. So, in a sense, saying San Francisco “stole” Hetch Hetchy is unwarranted hyperbole.
On the other hand, ignoring proverbial warnings about not watching how law or sausage is made, there is a lot not to like about the way the Raker Act was passed.
Let’s first note that a deal was made for Woodrow Wilson to appoint Franklin Lane, San Francisco’s former City Attorney, as his Secretary of Interior. Also, while Interior had directed the Army Board of Engineers to review the need for the dam, the Board did not have resources of their own to investigate and relied wholly on San Francisco’s Freeman Report. And it is worth pointing out that San Francisco Examiner Publisher William Randolph Hearst was successfully sued for libel by engineer Taggart Aston, after Aston had claimed other water projects would be superior (the ruling in the libel case came three years after the Raker Act was passed). Finally, as our Keeping Promises report explains, San Francisco’s commitments for visitor access and recreation in the Hetch Hetchy have never been realized.
While history can be intriguing, Restore Hetch Hetchy is more interested in the future. San Francisco and its Bay Area customers surely need and deserve a reliable water supply. And we all deserve Hetch Hetchy to be restored and Yosemite made whole. Our campaign is dedicated to accomplishing both these things.