Proposed Restoration of Hetch Hetchy Valley Too Costly, Report Says

Interior Secretary Donald P. Hodel’s proposal to restore Hetch Hetchy Valley should be scrapped because the cost of replacing water and power to San Francisco customers would cost more than $825 million, an Assembly Office of Research report said Monday.

The report described the Hetch Hetchy Valley in Yosemite National Park as “exquisite” and said that restoration of the area--covered by a reservoir for more than 60 years--might ease overcrowding in Yosemite, visited by more than 3 million tourists last year. But the report maintained that the $825 million would be far better spent on new parkland.

Plan ‘Not Feasible’

“We conclude that the existing Hetch Hetchy system is more valuable to society than a restored Hetch Hetchy system,” the report said.

“I would hope this would put an end to it,” Assembly Norman S. Waters (D-Plymouth), whose district includes the valley, said at a press conference here. He said the report “clearly points out that it is not feasible.”

The report suggested a number of alternative sources of power and water, including construction of a new dam just downstream from O’Shaughnessy Dam or purchase of water rights from Central Valley farmers. But after listing these alternatives and others, the report concluded that “it is clear that the various alternatives aren’t wonderful.”

Hodel stunned environmentalists and San Francisco officials last year when he suggested razing the dam and restoring Hetch Hetchy to its natural state. Environmentalists have called for studies of the idea, although last month, a congressional committee deleted $600,000 for an analysis.

“As far as we’re concerned, the idea is still very much alive,” said David Prosperi, a spokesman for Hodel. “It’s an idea that has taken root in the environmental community, no matter what happens in Congress.”

Prosperi maintained that the cost of replacing the water and restoring the valley remains unknown and that it appeared as if the Assembly research arm “pulled (dollar) figures out of the air.”

“I haven’t seen the thing, but it doesn’t persuade me,” Carl Pope, deputy conservation director of the Sierra Club in San Francisco, said of the report.

The Sierra Club believes the proposal should “be on the national agenda,” although it views other issues, including offshore oil exploration, as more pressing, Pope said.

“This is a thing we can clearly come to in a decade or two,” Pope said.

The report noted that the dam was built in 1913 at a time when San Francisco was the most politically powerful city in the state, and would not be constructed today because of the heightened concern for the environment.

“The reality is that in 1913 San Francisco had a wide range of places where it could have gotten its water and power,” the 40-page report said. “Today those alternatives just are not as readily available because others have developed those resources.”

Sells Power

The report pointed out that San Francisco sells power from the three hydroelectric facilities in the Hetch Hetchy system and that money fattens the city’s treasury by tens of millions of dollars a year.

Roughly half of the city’s ability to generate power would be lost if the dam were razed, though the remaining power would still be worth $35 million a year.

The city, which draws 214,000 acre-feet of water from Hetch Hetchy each year, also sells water to customers throughout the Bay Area. The lost water would be worth $22.8 million a year.