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The feasibility and costs of restoring the dammed Hetch Hetchy Valley - a primary source of energy and water for the city of San Francisco and the Modesto and Turlock Irrigation Districts - needs more study, according to federal and state lawmakers, agency representatives, and environmentalists. During an October 19 Assembly State Parks and Wildlife Committee hearing on the controversial proposal to deconstruct the O'Shaughnessy High Sierra reservoir, lawmakers tried to get answers to questions raised by a Department of Water Resources report released last July. "It is about our ability to view the future," said Representative George Miller (D-California) of the possible restoration. Californians' concerns about the dammed valley and the Tuolumne River are far different from what they were during the time Hetch Hetchy was flooded early in the last century, he added. The San Francisco Public Utilities Commission and the irrigation districts vehemently oppose the restoration proposal revived in 2004 by Environmental Defense and Restore Hetch Hetchy. The three agencies have no intention of giving up their inexpensive hydropower and quality water supplies from a project that has been fully paid for. Michael Carlin, San Francisco PUC assistant general manager, said that the state suffers both energy and water supply constraints. "The state needs another 3,000 MW of power," he said, noting that the Hetch Hetchy system is 400 MW, providing up to 1,800 GWh a year. The Modesto Irrigation District's assistant general manager Walt Ward said restoration efforts that would cause MID to lose water and power were a "nonstarter." Rerouting the system's flow would provide 70 percent of the existing power needs and 95 percent of the water supply, according to Jerry Meral, Restore Hetch Hetchy board member and former state Department of Water Resources deputy director. "It's counterintuitive." DWR consolidated several studies assessing the viability of demolishing the dam. It roughly estimated the total cost to be between $3 billion and $10 billion. Of that, about $560 million to $582 million would be needed to cover the lost hydropower, estimated at about 140 MW. The actual tab would depend largely upon where the energy and water replacement supplies are developed and the accompanying environmental constraints (Circuit, Aug. 18. 2006). "There are a wide range of unknowns," said Gary Bardini, the state hydrologist. He and other speakers at the committee hearing agreed that the project's scope and objective needed to be defined for it to move forward. That includes deciding who picks up the tab for replumbing the system to revive the valley - once considered as stunning as Yosemite Valley - as well as buying replacement power on the open market. Don Hodel, the former interior secretary and California resources secretary, stated that the valley "could be restored to the National Park system with no significant loss of water or power to San Francisco." In an October 6 letter to Assembly parks committee chair Lois Wolk (D-Davis), Hodel wrote that he was "convinced that no one municipality should monopolize part of a national park so long as viable alternatives exist for its municipal water and power needs." Environmental Defense pitched its Hetch Hetchy restoration project to capitalize on the $4 billion bond measure approved by San Franciscans to seismically upgrade the city's water supply infrastructure over the next decade, with 4 percent of the amount spent to date. It its 2004 report, ED concluded that revamping the Hetch Hetchy project would not affect San Francisco's peak power but would affect the hydro plant that supplies power around the clock to city facilities. A combination of increased energy efficiency, demand-response programs, and investments in renewable and highly efficient natural gas plants could fill the power gap, found the report, Paradise Regained. Committee chair Wolk and colleague Joe Canciamilla (D-Pittsburg), who together called for the DWR study, predict that if the project advances, it will be plagued by years of litigation, as were the fights over efforts to restore Mono Lake and the San Joaquin River. - Elizabeth McCarthy

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