HETCH HETCHY DAM SITE HEARING BEFORE THE COMMITTEE ON THE PUBLIC LANDS, U.S. Cong. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SIXTY-THIRD CONGRESS, FIRST SESSION, ON H.R 6281, A BILL GRANTING TO THE CITY AND COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO CERTAIN RIGHTS OF WAY IN, OVER, AND THROUGH CERTAIN PUBLIC LANDS, THE YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK, AND STANISLAUS NATIONAL FOREST, AND CERTAIN LANDS IN THE YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK, THE STANISLAUS NATIONAL FOREST, AND THE PUBLIC LANDS IN THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA, AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES (WASHINGTON: GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE, 1913)

COMMITTEE ON THE PUBLIC LANDS.
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SIXTY-THIRD CONGRESS.
SCOTT FERRIS, Oklahoma, Chairman.

• JAMES M. GRAHAM, Illinois.
• EDWARD T. TAYLOR, Colorado.
• JOHN E. RAKER, California.
• HORATIO C. CLAYPOOL, Ohio.
• HARVEY B. FERGUSSON, New Mexico.
• CARL HAYDEN, Arizona.
• SAMUEL M. TAYLOR, Arkansas.
• LATHROP BROWN, New York.
• TOM STOUT, Montana.
• PERL D. DECKER, Missouri.
• ANDREW R. BRODBECK, Pennsylvania.
• DENVER S. CHURCH, California.
• IRVINE L. LENROOT, Wisconsin.
• BURTON L. FRENCH, Idaho.
• WILLIAM L. LA FOLLETTE, Washington.
• WILLIAM KENT, California.
• NICHOLAS J. SINNOTT, Oregon.
• JACOB JOHNSON, Utah.
• CHARLES M. THOMSON, Illinois.
• JAMES WICKERSHAM, Alaska.

• D. CAMERON CAMPBELL, Clerk
  
  Jul 28 1913

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  Committee on the Public Lands,
  House of Representatives,
  Washington, D. C., Wednesday, June 25, 1913.
  The committe this day met, Hon. Scott Ferris (chairman) preciding, and the following members present: Messrs, Ferris Graham, Edward Taylor, Raker, Claypool, Fergusson, Hayden, Samuel Taylor, Brown, Stout, Decker, Brodbeck, Church, French, La Follette, Kent, Sinnott, Johnson, and Thompson.
  The Chairman. The bill under consideration this morning is H. R. 6281, introduced on June 23, 1913, by Representative John E. Raker, of California. I think to avoid confusion it would be well to state that this bill is in lieu of H. R. 112 and an amended bill in lieu of H. R. 4319. which was formerly introduced by Representative Raker at this session of Congress. The bill (H. R. 6281) represents the culmination of ideas of the departments, the representatives of the city of San Francisco, and the irrigation people of the San Joaquin Valley fully who have certain prescribed rights in the water. The chairman is informed that the record will show that this is the agreed bill between them.
  The bill involves the construction of a dam at the Hetch Hetchy dam site in California to catch the flood waters of the Tuolumne River. This is not a new matter. This bill in one form or another has been before Congress and the departments for the past 12 years. It has been investigated by numerous engineers, and within the past two years has been carefully and painstakingly investigated by a board of Army engineers headed by Col. Biddle, with two associate engineers, Col. Taylor and Col. Cosby.
  It has been represented to this committee that this bill presents an emergency matter in that there is a great shortage of water in San Francisco, and while this bill can not afford immediate relief, it is stated that its enactment into law will relieve the city of its blight to progress incident to its insufficiency of water.
  The chairman called the committee together on June 5, 1913, nortly after the committee was appointed, at which time this matter was discussed informally, and at that time it was decided by the committee to take this matter up as an emergency matter and to act upon the bill at this special session of Congress. Both the irrigation people and the San Francisco people were present and all parties had due notice thereof.
  At the next meeting of the committee on June 23, 1913, it was the sentiment of the committee that six hours be devoted to the departmental heads in presenting their views on the bill, or so much thereof is might be necessary; six hours to the proponents of the bill, or so much thereof as might be necessary; and six hours to the opponents of the bill, or so much thereof as might be necessary, after which time the committee would take the bill up, read it section by section, and take formal action thereon.
  The Chairman. I would like to inquire, Mr. Secretary, if you have any arrangement to suggest about the time or the order of presentation of the matter, or if you prefer the committee to take the lead?
  Secretary Lane. I supposed that you would ask me such questions as you might see fit; I am at your service.
  The Chairman. I think it is due to the Cabinet officers and bureau heads that have honored us with their presence to say why we invited you. We have asked everyone connected with the Government whom we thought would have any superior information to come here and give us a short, clear, terse statement of this matter. We intend to spend to-day in getting at the elemental phases of this question, and, if necessary, to devote about six hours of time either at this session or the night session, to get the real facts from the department heads. Then it is the plan of the committee to give six hours to those people from San Francisco, the proponents of the measure, who are here, and to Representatives in Congress, and to others who want to present their case, and then we want to give six hours and possibly more to those who are opposed to this measure. Unless the two Cabinet officers who are here have some plan, I think it would be well for us to begin with Secretary Lane and let him make such statement as he desires, and immediately following that I think there should go into the record his written report, and after his statement and written report should come the statement from Secretary Houston, of the Department of Agriculture, and his written report, and following that the statements of the other bureau heads. I have also requested Mr. Pinchot to be here. I wired him and urged him to come, as I wanted the committee to have the benefit of his views and I want his statement in the record. I am informed you are anxious to get away?
  Mr. Pinchot. I am.
  The Chairman. Then, Mr. Secretary Lane, you may proceed.
  ........

STATEMENT OF HON. FRANKLIN K. LANE, SECRETARY OF
THE INTERIOR.

Secretary Lane. Well, I have nothing to say that is probably not familiar to the most of you, and certainly nothing that is in set form, except the brief report that I have made. I think, perhaps, at the very beginning I had better say that I am not entirely without partisanship in this matter not only because I am a citizen of San Francisco, but because some 10 or 11 years ago, when I was the city attorney of San Francisco, after some application had been made to Secretary Hitchcock and had been denied by him, I was requested by the board of supervisors to come here and make an argument before him in the city's behalf in this very matter, and since that time I have more or less interested myself in this matter as a citizen; and while I was on the Interstate Commerce Commission the committees that have been frequently before you, coming from San Francisco, have sometimes consulted with me, and I have always advised in sympathy with the purpose of this bill.

San Francisco needs a new and adequate water supply. The water supply that she has now has been developed from time to time during the last 50 years, and the city has outgrown it. The situation in San Francisco now is that there are many homes where sufficient water can not be had for a bath; where it is necessary in the new and growing portions of the city to leave a spigot turned on at night in order to get sufficient water for the morning breakfast. More than that, you know the situation that developed immediately after the earthquake. San Francisco attempted to supplement her fresh-water supply with a salt-water supply drawn from the ocean-on emergency supply in case of fire.

There is every kind of reason why San Francisco should have a larger supply of water than she has. At the present time they are advertising in the papers that people must stop washing down their steps, washing off the sidewalks, and watering their lawns, because the water is not to be had. So the question has come up and has been a matter of agitation for a good many years in San Francisco as to what supply of water would best meet San Francisco's needs. After researches made by engineers under the direction of Mayor Phelan the determination was had that the best supply would come from the Tuolumne River. The water came down in the high Sierras, and there was an available dam site within the Yosemite Park. When I speak of the Yosemite Park, I do not speak of the Yosemite Valley; that is distant from the park, or the valley is distant from Hetch Hetchy Valley, and it in no way touches that beautiful scenic valley. The Hetch Hetchy Valley I have never seen; but it is a valley in a canyon which is partly submerged during a part of the year, which, as I learned 10 years or more ago, was for the greater part even of the summer season an impossibility for camping purposes because of the mosquitoes there, there being so much swamp, and great cliffs arise around it. The place, as I have seen it pictured, is one of unusual splendor and beauty. The question, and the only question which has ever been raised against the use of this valley for this purpose-I mean or the conservation of the flood waters of the Tuolumne-the question that has been raised has been the question of turning the bed of the valley into a lake. I think that I have as much appreciation of natural beauty as anyone and as much of a desire to conserve the natural beauties of my own home State as anyone, and my conclusion, after thinking of this thing a long while, has been that to turn that valley into a lake would add to the beauty of the whole thing rather than to detract from it in any way, but, of course, in matters of taste we all differ.

The engineers who have made a report-I am not very familiar with their report and I have not gone into the engineering features at all myself-but the engineers who have reported on this matter, both the private engineers and the war engineers [i.e., from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers], have reached the conclusion that this dam site must eventually be used. California needs water for other than municipal purposes, for irrigation purposes, and she needs this water that comes down from these high mountains for power, because she has no coal, so that it is probably a matter of but a very few years, even if this application were denied and if this bill should fail to pass, it would be only a very few years before you would find yourselves pressed by the State of California or by private parties with large public influence behind them to set aside this identical site as a dam site for the holding back of the flood waters which run to waste, so that those waters might be used for irrigation purposes and for power purposes, if not for municipal purposes, and it has seemed to me, in looking over the whole situation, that San Francisco's demand or request made to the Secretary of the Interior in times past was a perfectly reasonable one. My concern, as Secretary of the Interior, has been to see that the interests of the Government were protected. I have looked over this bill in the very brief time I have had and it seems to meet a great many of the objections that have been heretofore raised to such bills.

In the first place, the Turlock-Modesto irrigation people have met in conference with the San Francisco people and they have agreed upon those provisions of this measure which protect the irrigation districts and insure to them a continued flow of water. As I understand it, there is no objection now on the part of the irrigationists, and that was an absolutely overwhelming argument against the position taken by the city in times past, so far as Secretary Hitchcock was concerned. That question of the irrigation of the lands below the dam seems to be out of the way. The question of the injury to the valley, I think, is a question of judgment. My judgment is unequivocally in favor of this use of the floor of the valley. If San Francisco does not get it, some one else must; it is too precious a reservoir site to remain unused.

I have been a bit solicitous on one proposition, and that was the development of water power and insuring to the valley itself, I mean to the park itself and to the other parks that are near by, some return for the use of this site. Provisions have been put into this bill by which power must be developed, and as power is developed the money goes into the United States Treasury and is to be used for the improvement of the park. Let me say also that under the bill the city of San Francisco must build certain roads; must make this country accessible.

Some years ago, perhaps 12 or 15 years ago, I tried to get into the Hetch Hetchy Valley, and was advised that it was an impossibility because of the badness of the roads. That has probably been corrected to some extent since, but the people of San Francisco, in building this dam and in making these improvements, will necessarily build roads in there, and if they undertake to carry on what are very large improvements within the park area it will make the high Sierras accessible to the people of the State. Besides that, if this water power is developed we ought to get a large revenue, and that revenue can be used to build roads and carry on other improvements in the park that will make Hetch Hetchy available, and will make that whole portion of the park accessible to hundreds of thousands of people who never will have any chance to go in there if it remains as at present. Therefore it seems to me that as a park proposition alone this thing is worth while.

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I do not know of anything else that I can say to you gentlemen. I am sincerely, as a citizen of San Francisco, in favor of this bill. I think, as one having charge of the park, that it will be beneficial, and that anyone who really knows the country and appreciates the advantages that will come by the opening of it up and making it accessible and putting it to use must indorse this proposition as against some rather doubtful aesthetic consideration.

The Chairman. Mr. Secretary, if you do not object, may I just ask you one or two questions?

Secretary Lane. Certainly.

The Chairman. Is there any doubt at all in your mind that San Francisco sorely needs an additional water supply?

Secretary Lane. There is absolutely none. San Francisco has absolutely needed an additional water supply for years.

The Chairman. Have you considered the relative rights between the irrigation people and the city of San Francisco to determine whether this bill does equity to both sides?

Secretary Lane. I was very familiar with that matter 10 years ago; to-day, of course, I am not; but I am advised by the irrigation people themselves that they are satisfied that this protects their rights, and I think it becomes quite evident when you consider that the city puts up a great dam which will hold back certain flood waters that run idly by their lands, that it must work out to their benefit if they have any right whatever to the use of the waters.

The Chairman. Under this bill, which I know you are familiar with, it does give to the irrigation people below all the water they have appropriated under State law?

Secretary Lane. I understand it does, and something more for possible extensions.

The Chairman. Now, one word as to the parties who are wiring and sending telegrams here, who believe it is unjust to appropriate this valley for a water-supply purpose, and who think it should be retained for its natural beauty; what is your version of that contention? You stated it partly.

Secretary Lane. I defer very much to any man's judgment upon a question of that kind, as it becomes a matter of personal opinion. I have never been able to get their standpoint. I have never been able to see that by converting this bed of the valley into a lake that we are outraging nature.

The Chairman. Is it not true that this bill provides as a condition precedent that they must make certain roads and improvements which will develop the park?

Secretary Lane. Yes, sir.

The Chairman. What is your judgment with reference to these combined requirements of San Francisco offsetting anything that might detract from the park in its natural state?

Secretary Lane. There is this to be thought of in that connection. They will have to put in some sort of a building railroad, a railroad that will connect with the railroad down in the valley. Now, it may not be an impossibility to take that railroad when this dam is built and use it as a railroad from the San Joaquin Valley, where it connects with the Southern Pacific, right up to the crest of the Sierras, and to make that high country, which is utterly inaccessible now except to the very rich or to those who have unlimited time at their command, and make it accessible to the great mass of the people, and even if the railroad itself were not used, there would still be the right of way which would make a splendid easy grade along which automobiles might run.

The Chairman. Do you anticipate any difficulty in preserving every right of the Federal Government in the control of the power that will naturally come as an incident to this grant?

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STATEMENT OF HON. GIFFORD PINCHOT.

The Chairman. In deference to Mr. Pinchot's wishes, as he desires to leave the city, he will be permitted to address the committee at this time if there is no objection.

Mr. Pinchot. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, my testimony will be very short. I presume that you very seldom have the opportunity of passing upon any measure before the Committee on the Public Lands which has been so thoroughly thrashed out as this one. This question has been up now, I should say, more than 10 years, and the reasons for and against the proposition have not only been discussed over and over again, but a great deal of the objections which could be composed have been composed. . . . So we come now face to face with the perfectly clean question of what is the best use to which this water that flows out of the Sierras can be put. As we all know, there is no use of water that is higher than the domestic use. Then, if there is, as the engineers tell us, no other source of supply that is anything like so reasonably available as this one; if this is the best, and, within reasonable limits of cost, the only means of supplying San Francisco with water, we come straight to the question of whether the advantage of leaving this valley in a state of nature is greater than the advantage of using it for the benefit of the city of San Francisco.

Now, the fundamental principle of the whole conservation policy is that of use, to take every part of the land and its resources and put it to that use in which it will best serve the most people, and I think there can be no question at all but that in this case we have an instance in which all weighty considerations demand the passage of the bill. There are, of course, a very large number of incidental changes that will arise after the passage of the bill. The construction of roads, trails, and telephone systems which will follow the passage of this bill will be a very important help in the park and forest reserves. The national forest telephone system and the roads and trails to which this bill will lead will form an important additional help in fighting fire in the forest reserves. As has already been set forth by the two Secretaries, the presence of these additional means of communication will mean that the national forest and the national park will be visited by very large numbers of people who can not visit them now. I think that the men who assert that it is better to leave a piece of natural scenery in its natural condition have rather the better of the argument, and I believe if we had nothing else to consider than the delight of the few men and women who would yearly go into the Hetch Hetchy Valley, then it should be left in its natural condition. But the considerations on the other side of the question to my mind are simply overwhelming, and so much so that I have never been able to see that there was any reasonable argument against the use of this water supply by the city of San Francisco, provided the bill was a reasonable bill. Now, there are two or three small changes in the bill which I would like to suggest.

The Chairman. Inasmuch as you will not be here when we go through this bill section by section, I would be glad, Mr. Pinchot, if you would indicate the pages, sections, and lines in which you suggest changes.

Mr. Pinchot. On page 7, line 4, after the words "Secretary of Agriculture," I would suggest inserting:

Provided, That no timber shall be cut in the Yosemite National Park, except from lands to be overflowed, or such timber as may be constituted an actual obstruction upon a right of way.

In other words, I do not believe that a national park should be used as a source of timber supply, and I understand the representatives from San Francisco are entirely willing that that should be added.

Mr. Raker. There is already an act which permits them to dispose of it. If there is down or dead timber you would not want them to go 5 or 6 miles? There is an act permitting that in the Yosemite National Park.

Mr. Pinchot. Then I am wrong about that.

Mr. Raker. There was a special bill passed two years ago permitting the Secretary of the Interior to dispose of ripe, down, or dead timber in the Yosemite National Park. You would not object to using that sort of timber?

Mr. Pinchot. Not in a national park.

Mr. Raker. Dead and dying?

Mr. Pinchot. A place like a national park should be protected against that. I think we can have a little timber fall down and die for the sake of having the place look like no human foot had ever been in it. I do not think that the national parks should be used as a source of lumber supply.

Mr. Raker. Suppose the timber is ripe and ready to be disposed of, that there is a tree which could be used, you would not want to leave that there and go to the expense of going to some other place, if it does not affect the scenic beauty of the park?

Mr. Pinchot. That does not apply to the national parks, but here is a different situation, here is one of the great wonders of the world, and I would leave it just as it is so far as possible in the Yosemite National Park.

Mr. Raker. For instance, a tree falls down, one of the largest in the park, that should not be left there to destroy the balance?

Mr. Pinchot. It will not destroy the balance.

Mr. Raker. I am just taking the statement of the others.

Mr. Pinchot. I will mention that among the greatest of the beauties are some of the fallen trees. I would not touch one of them.

Mr. Raker. They would not want one of those great trees for building purposes?

Mr. Pinchot. No, sir. That does not apply to the national parks. The parks are set aside for seeding purposes in this particular manner. I would leave the trees alone. Outside of the parks I think the point of view of use is the dominant matter which should control.

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Mr. Raker. There was a bill passed three years ago, recommended by some department, in relation to the Yosemite National Park, that it would be a good thing for the park and would not affect the scenic beauty if the trees that were ripe and the dead and down timber should be disposed of. In constructing this work, if there are trees that are ripe-and, of course, that would have to be acted upon by the Secretary of the Interior or his agent-there would be no destruction of the scenic beauty by taking a few of such trees when it would not destroy the beauty of the park?

Mr. Pinchot. I think it would largely reduce the beauty of the park. In the neighborhood of this right of way, the proposed reservoir, which would be in the neighborhood where most people would go, all the trees that are now standing should be left. It is not actually necessary to go all the way. I believe a provision of that kind would very largely detract from the beauty of the park, and, furthermore, would tend to make the arguments of the nature lover very much more powerful.

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Mr. Raker. Taking the scenic beauty of the park as it now stands, and the fact that the valley is sometimes swamped along in June and July, is it not a fact that if a beautiful dam is put there, as is contemplated, and as the picture is given by the engineers, with the roads contemplated around the reservoir and with other trails, it will be more beautiful that it is now, and give more opportunity for the use of the park?

Mr. Pinchot. Whether it will be more beautiful, I doubt, but the use of the park will be enormously increased. I think there is no doubt about that.

Mr. Raker. In other words, to put it a different way, there will be more beauty accessible than there is now?

Mr. Pinchot. Much more beauty will be accessible than now.

Mr. Raker. And by putting in roads and trails the Government, as well as the citizens of the Government, will get more pleasure out of it than at the present time?

Mr. Pinchot. You might say from the standpoint of enjoyment of beauty and the greatest good to the greatest number, they will be conserved by the passage of this bill, and there will be a great deal more use of the beauty of the park than there is now.

Mr. Raker. Have you seen Mr. John Muir's criticism of the bill? You know him?

Mr. Pinchot. Yes, sir; I know him very well. He is an old and a very good friend of mine. I have never been able to agree with him in his attitude toward the Sierras for the reason that my point of view has never appealed to him at all. When I became Forester and denied the right to exclude sheep and cows from the Sierras, Mr. Muir thought I had made a great mistake, because I allowed the use by an acquired right of a large number of people to interfere with what would have been the utmost beauty of the forest. In this case I think he has unduly given away to beauty as against use.

Mr. Raker. Would that be practically the same as to the position of the Sierras Club?

Mr. Pinchot. I am told that there is a very considerable difference of opinion in the club on this subject.

Mr. Raker. Among themselves?

Mr. Pinchot. Yes, sir.

Mr. Raker. You think then, as a matter of fact, that the provisions of this bill carried out would relieve the situation; in other words, that there is no valid objection which they could make?

Mr. Pinchot. That is my judgment.

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Mr. Raker. In other words, your view of the bill is that it is a good and fair bill to all of California and to the Government, and particularly to that part of California that is within the watershed of Tuolumne River?

Mr. Pinchot. So far as I understand it; yes, sir.

Mr. Raker. And likewise it fully protects the forest reserve and the park?

Mr. Pinchot. With the provision that I have suggested; not without it.

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Mr. Graham. Have you been in the Hetch Hetchy Valley yourself?

Mr. Pinchot. I never have; I have been in the Yosemite.

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Mr. Taylor of Colorado. Do you feel, in view of the necessities and of the higher use of the city of San Francisco, that this committee would be justified at this time in doing what the nature lovers of the United States are liable to look upon as undue rushing of this measure in putting it through at this time? In other words, there are in any State, and, I suppose, in every other State, a large number of very good people-ladies and clubs and other people-who have memorialized and written us time and time again-I think I have 200 such communications-protesting against this measure on the ground of the destruction of the scenic beauty of what they contend belongs to all the people of the United States, who, if they had an opportunity possibly to study this bill and to realize more fully the necessities, would become placated or satisfied. I think we could appeal to them in that way. Do you feel that the necessities of the situation warrant us now in pushing this bill through Congress without giving them an opportunity; would they look upon it incredulously?

Mr. Pinchot. They have had ample opportunity; this bill has been up for discussion 10 years.

Mr. Taylor of Colorado. They have always succeeded in defeating it before?

Mr. Pinchot. The arguments against it have been made over and over again; there will be nothing new.

Mr. Taylor of Colorado. Will they or will they not think that there is nothing new presented on behalf of San Francisco that would warrant the passage of the measure?

Mr. Pinchot. That is a matter of opinion. I am well satisfied nothing new will be presented at this time except the agreement of the former opponents of the bill.

Mr. Taylor of Colorado. Are you thoroughly and heartily in favor of the measure?

Mr. Pinchot. I am thoroughly and heartily in favor of it. I am in favor of reporting the bill now before the committee and passing it at this session.

Mr. Taylor of Colorado. You feel that the wishes of these people should be disregarded?

Mr. Pinchot. I think their protests have already been presented and that their case is not a good one.

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