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State water officials released an overview of removing a nearly century-old dam from the Hetch Hetchy Valley in Yosemite National Park on Wednesday, and within minutes, two reactive statements were e-mailed to journalists.
A coalition of environmental groups that wants to demolish the dam and restore the now-underwater valley to its natural state quickly seized upon the Department of Water Resources' findings, saying they "confirm … it is feasible to restore Hetch Hetchy Valley in Yosemite National Park. …"
U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, however, just as quickly declared that the report "confirms that dismantling O'Shaughnessy Dam and draining the Hetch Hetchy reservoir are unwarranted and the cost is indefensible. …"
The mutually exclusive responses reflect not only the polarization of the issue but its many ironies.
Feinstein is a former mayor of San Francisco, and Hetch Hetchy is a major source of water for San Francisco and other San Francisco Bay Area communities. Her stiff opposition is almost universally shared among Bay Area civic and political leaders who relish having an exclusive water source protected from the uncertainties of being part of a larger system, as are most local supplies.
Two years ago, the Schwarzenegger administration, at the behest of some legislators, agreed to conduct a preliminary study.
The results unveiled Wednesday justified neither the environmental coalition's claim that it's feasible nor Feinstein's that it's unfeasible. It is, in fact, what state hydrologist Gary Bardini termed "a study of studies" that surveyed various contentions regarding demolition and came to some educated and widely spaced guesses as to the potential costs: $3 billion to $10 billion to take down the dam, restore Hetch Hetchy and provide alternate supplies of water and the electric power that the dam generates.
What man built, man can demolish. From a technical standpoint, it wouldn't be rocket science to do what the environmental groups want, if the federal, state and local governments and their constituents were willing to shoulder the costs. Neither are the amounts of water and power involved insurmountably immense. Hetch Hetchy provides about 360,000 acre-feet of water a year. That's not even 1% of the state's total human use of water. Its 400 megawatts of power generation are roughly the equivalent of one medium-sized generating plant.
Whether we should do it is another question. Is restoring a mountain valley for scenic and recreational purposes worth the price? That's a purely political issue. And the debate will likely still be raging when O'Shaughnessy Dam celebrates its 100th birthday a couple of decades hence.
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