On Friday Rep. Dan Lungren wrote to the Secretary of the Interior claiming that San Francisco and the rest of the Bay Area cities that use Hetch Hetchy water were in violation of the Raker Act and should be prohibited from further use of Hetch Hetchy as a storage facility.
His long term goal is the removal of O'Shaugnessy Dam and the restoration of Hetch Hetchy valley....with the expansion of San Pedro lake to make up the difference.
Does the larger fishing community have a dog in this fight? Clearly some dams hurt fisheries and others create them (such as our own). What say you all?
(full disclosure, I think the idea is insane for a whole slew of reasons much more important than fishing!)
In my opinion before one answers this question you should read John Muirs thought on hetch hetchy. I believe in returning things back to there most natural state, Especially in the sierra's.
In my opinion before one answers this question you should read John Muirs thought on hetch hetchy. I believe in returning things back to there most natural state, Especially in the sierra's.
Thats a laudable goal, but the only way to accomplish it is to ask about 35 of California's 38 million people to leave and go live somewhere else. I kinda like it here and would like to stay. I think we can accomodate our population and anage our water resources within our financial means and without destroying wild and scenic places, but everyone has to give a little. Urban users, farmers, and environmentalists alike.
I think the scales as far as who needs to "give a little " are pretty tipped in favor of the urban and farming communities don't you think? The problem is that a majority of the water comes from Northern California but the majority of the population live in the southern desert.
Every river in CA with the exception of 1 or 2 have a dam across them and we have a collapsed fishery as far as steelhead and salmon are concerned. I don't think the two issues are seprate but very much related to each other.
Bob Loblaw wrote:
shon42073 wrote:
In my opinion before one answers this question you should read John Muirs thought on hetch hetchy. I believe in returning things back to there most natural state, Especially in the sierra's.
Thats a laudable goal, but the only way to accomplish it is to ask about 35 of California's 38 million people to leave and go live somewhere else. I kinda like it here and would like to stay. I think we can accomodate our population and anage our water resources within our financial means and without destroying wild and scenic places, but everyone has to give a little. Urban users, farmers, and environmentalists alike.
I try to do my part in this small way . When going to the bathroom to take a piss I don't flush . Only when It starts to smell .Sounds gross but flushing uses a lot of water
Hetch Hetchy? I hear ya but I dunno. In my opinion we need to first agree that water is a strategic resource that has many values, including agriculture, residential, recreational, and ecological, assess the available water resources of the state as a whole, and determine their potential for either restoration or ongoing management. Many are now talking about water resources as a matter of national security and I count myself in that crowd. If we take out Hetch Hetchy we'd get what some consider another Yosemite, but there would still be downstream dams that cut off the system from the bay. This needs a long term strategy where we plan for recovery of watersheds as dams silt in or otherwise become obsolete as they age, and give time to either reduce the demand or replace the resource in some other way such that we can substantially recover a system.
I'd like to see a handful of rivers running up into the Sierra opened up, imagine what would happen if you had a system like the Yuba that was substantially recovered such that salmon and steelhead could run at least most of the way up 1 or 2 of the forks. It will be interesting to see what happens on the Klamath in the coming years. I think as much effort needs to be placed on small systems as well. There are a lot of dams like Searsville on San Francisquito creek that do nothing but gather silt, and though the runs are tiny they represent a bank of genetic diversity that ultimately strengthen the overall system.
There are a couple of other problems that need to be addressed along the way, like reducing residential irrigated landscaping, more household water conservation, and the elephant in the room which is agricultural consumption of water.
I want to see some dams come down, I'm willing to pass on Hetch Hetchy though if instead I could transform a few significant systems and a bunch of small ones that would have a larger benefit to the bay and its ecosystem.
With regards to not flushing, I read an article recently on I think it was Mono Lake and how the lake level has largely recovered, and it was in no small part attributed residential water conservation efforts in LA, getting people to use low flow toilets and fixtures.
80% of California's water is used by big agriculture, about 10% used by industrial and commercial users and about 10% by residential. Its pretty clear where you can have the most bang for your buck in a water conservation conversation....try saying that 3 times very fast. We could stop growing rice and cotton which would put a huge hole in ag's water use, BUT you'd catch hell from the duck and goose hunters, not to mention the farmers....but its a conversation that neesd to happen.
What makes Hetch Hetchy different is that almost all the water stored there is for residential use. Only in flood conditions is excess diverted to Don Pedro for Turlock and Modesto Irrigation District use. The users of Hetch Hetchy Water average about 80 gallons per day per capita. The state average is over 200 gallons per day, and some places dont even have meters yet and we have no idea what they use. Point being is that the users of Hetch Hetch are already the most frugal and conservation minded in the State.
Windknots is absolutely correct. From a fishing perspective, this is the last dam you'd want to remove. It is not silted up and never will. It is at the very top of the watershed and doesn't block any runs and it would cost over $10 billion to remove. Would you want to blow 100 years of dam removal budgets on one dam that would do nothign to restore fish runs? Also, the proponents of this measure want to raise Don Pedro and have The Bay Area store their water there. That would spell the end for the Tuolumne salmon runs forever.
