Yosemite’s Opportunity: Options for Replacing Hetch Hetchy Reservoir
Our latest report, Yosemite’s Opportunity: Options for Replacing Hetch Hetchy Reservoir, has been distributed by mail and is available online. If you haven’t received a hard copy and would like one, let us know.
Accomplishing restoration is dependent on keeping San Francisco whole with respect to water supply. It’s where the rubber hits the road. Fortunately, it’s doable – very doable.
Yosemite’s Opportunity is shorter in length than previous reports by Restore Hetch Hetchy, Environmental Defense Fund, UC Davis and the Bureau of Reclamation. It has a slightly different focus in that it shows what other water agencies have been doing for decades and that the same options are available to San Francisco.
Two of the options highlighted by Yosemite’s Opportunity – recycling and groundwater banking, are more attractive than ever. Recycling not only increases water supply, it also reduces the pollution from water treatment plants that harms our rivers, bays and beaches. Banking groundwater in Turlock, Modesto and Eastside would not only benefit San Francisco but would help those areas cope with their own groundwater overdraft problems.
We have already distributed Yosemite’s Opportunity to officials in San Francisco, water agency leaders throughout California, interested journalists and many others. We will be sending the report to elected officials in Washington D.C. and Sacramento in January as new legislative sessions begin, and we plan to follow up with committee leaders and other selected members. We are pleased that members have taken interest in our Keeping Promises Report – and introduced legislation. We hope they will do the same with Yosemite’s Opportunity.
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We are pleased that Vimeo has highlighted Finding Hetchy Hetchy as a “Staff Pick” and that it is racking up views by the thousands. Watch it there or on our website.
