Hetch Hetchy Reservoir. Courtesy of the University of California, Berkeley, Bancroft Library.
The dedication of the O’Shaughnessy Dam was just one step in the process of providing water and power to the Bay Area. By 1934, the dam’s walls were raised to allow for further water to gather in the reservoir. At the opening of the newly raised dam, Mayor Angelo Rossi stated, “We may now say to the world, and to the great industrialists: we have abundant water supply and means for adding to our available supply of power.”
Completed dam.
The federal government had contributed $3,500,000 to help increase the height. Harold Ickes, the Secretary of the Interior at the time, remarked, “Located behind that dam will be a potential supply of electricity capable of furnishing light and power to an area much greater in extent than that of San Francisco itself, at rates so low as to bring it within the reach for all manufacturing and domestic purposes.” Over the last 100 years, the controversy over damming a river in a national park has continued. When a river is dammed it changes the biodiversity of the river inhabitants. It prevents fish migration including limited access to spawning grounds and the ability to seek food resources and escape predators. The rivers function differently as the gravel and sediment is trapped behind the dam. In 1963, 50 years after the passage of the Raker Act, an article by Raymond A. Holt identified some of the obligations that remained unmet, including the promised campsites or other accommodations, boating and fishing facilities, and trails that were non-existent. He writes, “Today’s visitor to Hetch-Hetchy must content himself with the tempting but incomplete vistas viewed from the dam site.”
In 2015, Restore Hetch Hetchy filed a lawsuit against the City and County of San Francisco saying that Hetch Hetchy Reservoir violated California law. The state constitution states all water use must be reasonable and the reservoir is not reasonable because the value of the restored valley is greater than the cost of changing the water system. They claimed that recreation would bring in $8.8 billion versus $2 billion from water upgrades over 50 years.
O’Shaughnessy Dam, November 29, 1935. Courtesy of San Francisco Public Library.