John Muir and Theodore Roosevelt; TR and Gifford Pinchot

THE HETCH HETCHY DAM CONTROVERSY: AN INTRODUCTION

Because of the Louisiana Purchase and the War with Mexico, original ownership of vast stretches of the land of the United States rested with the national government. Under the terms of the Homestead Act and other measures, the government gave much of it away to railroad companies and to individuals. In the latter part of the nineteenth century John Muir and other early conservationists launched a campaign to protect and preserve significant portions of the national domain as national forests and parks. For Muir the goal was to keep the lands in their natural state. However, to attrack needed public support, Muir and his supporters accepted the notion of some development so as to make the parks more accessible. This meant roads, railway connections, parking areas. The vast majority of the park lands, however, were to remain untouched, pristine in the language of the conservationists.

In the early twentieth century a new vision of conservation emerged and found in President Theodore Roosevelt a hearty supporter. Its leading advocate was Gifford Pinchot who established the Forestry Division in the Department of the Interior and became Chief Forester. Pinchot saw the national forests, and by extension other portions of the federal domains, as potentially renewable resources. If the key word for Muir was pristine, for Pinchot it was use. Americans should manage their resources. They should, for example, correlate cutting in the nation's forests to the annual growth of new trees. They should protect the environment. This called for regulation and restriction. But it very emphatically also called for the use of resources.

Initially the two schools of conservationists cooperated. Both opposed the unregulated deforestration then taking place. Both raised concerns about preserving the purity of rivers and streams. They had, in these endeavors, a long list of common foes in ranching, timber, and mining interests. They were used to being on the same side. Hetch Hetchy changed that. We still argue along the faultlines of the Hetch Hetchy controversy, so it is an especially interesting episode to investigate.

The controversy over damming Hetch Hetchy Valley, a portion of Yosemite National Park, to provide water to San Francisco pitted leaders of the new conservation movement -- and competing definitions of conservation -- against each other. On the side of the dam was Gifford Pinchot, founder of the National Forest Service and close advisor to Theodore Roosevelt. Leading the opposition was John Muir, founder of the Sierra Club and the man in whose honor T.R. dedicated Muir Woods just north of San Francisco. What were the arguments for and against the dam?

Hetch Hetchy Chronology

John Muir discovered the Hetch Hetchy valley in 1871, and it was part of the land set aside as Yosemite National Park in 1890. Few people ever saw Hetch Hetchy. You had to hike deep into the park. There were no trails, much less roads. For part of the year, as the snows melted, parts of the valley floor flooded. It was this runoff that the city of San Francisco wanted as a water supply. Tapping the water meant building a dam and flooding the entire valley permanently. This became the question: Should the United States preserve Hetch Hetchy or should it license the use of the water?

One of the few to spend time in Hetch Hetchy was the artist Albert Bierstadt who painted the valley in 1890. In 1908 John Muir would write of Hetch Hetchy: "It is impossible to overestimate the value of wild mountains and mountain temples as places for people to grow in, recreation grounds for soul and body. They are the greatest of our natural resources, God's best gifts. . . ."

Muir and the Sierra Club he founded led the opposition to the dam proposal. In his 1908 article he gave expression to his deep conviction that Hetch Hetchy was a sacred place.

It is impossible to overestimate the value of wild mountains and mountain temples as places for people to grow in, recreation grounds for soul and body. They are the greatest of our natural resources, God's best gifts, but none, however high and holy, is beyond reach of the spoiler. In these ravaging money-mad days monopolizing San Francisco capitalists are now doing their best to destroy the Yosemite Park, the most wonderful of all our great mountain national parks. Beginning on the Tuolumne side, they are trying with a lot of sinful ingenuity to get the Government's permission to dam and destroy the Hetch-Hetchy Valley for a reservoir, simply that comparatively private gain may be made out of universal public loss, while of course the Sierra Club is doing all it can to save the valley.

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Standing boldly out from the south wall is a strikingly picturesque rock called "Kolana" by the Indians, the outermost of a group 2300 feet high, corresponding with the Cathedral Rocks of Yosemite both in relative position and form. On the opposite side of the Valley, facing Kolana, there is a counterpart of the El Capitan of Yosemite rising sheer and plain to a height of 1800 feet, and over its massive brow flows a stream which makes the most graceful fall I have ever seen. From the edge of the cliff it is perfectly free in the air for a thousand feet, then breaks up into a ragged sheet of cascades among the boulders of an earthquake talus. It is in all its glory in June, when the snow is melting fast, but fades and vanishes toward the end of summer. The only fall I know with which it may fairly be compared is the Yosemite Bridal Veil; but it excels even that favorite fall both in height and fineness of fairy-airy beauty and behavior. Lowlanders are apt to suppose that mountain streams in their wild career over cliffs lose control of themselves and tumble in a noisy chaos of mist and spray. On the contrary, on no part of their travels are they more harmonious and self-controlled. Imagine yourself in Hetch Hetchy on a sunny day in June, standing waist-deep in grass and flowers (as I have oftentimes stood), while the great pines sway dreamily with scarce perceptible motion. Looking northward across the Valley you see a plain, gray granite cliff rising abruptly out of the gardens and groves to a height of 1800 feet, and in front of it Tueeulala's silvery scarf burning with irised sun-fire in every fiber. In the first white outburst of the stream at the head of the fall there is abundance of visible energy, but it is speedily hushed and concealed in divine repose, and its tranquil progress to the base of the cliff is like that of downy feathers in a still room. Now observe the fineness and marvelous distinctness of the various sun-illumined fabrics into which the water is woven; they sift and float from form to form down the face of that grand gray rock in so leisurely and unconfused a manner that you can examine their texture, and patterns and tones of color as you would a piece of embroidery held in the hand. Near the head of the fall you see groups of booming, comet-like masses, their solid, white heads separate, their tails like combed silk interlacing among delicate shadows, ever forming and dissolving, worn out by friction in their rush through the air. Most of these vanish a few hundred feet below the summit, changing to the varied forms of cloud-like drapery. Near the bottom the width of the fall has increased from about twenty-five to a hundred feet. Here it is composed of yet finer tissues, and is still without a trace of disorder -- air, water and sunlight woven into stuff that spirits might wear.

So fine a fall might well seem sufficient to glorify any valley; but here, as in Yosemite, Nature seems in nowise moderate, for a short distance to the eastward of Tueeulala booms and thunders the great Hetch Hetchy Fall, Wapama, so near that you have both of them in full view from the same standpoint. It is the counterpart of the Yosemite Fall, but has a much greater volume of water, is about 1700 feet in height, and appears to be nearly vertical, though considerably inclined, and is dashed into huge outbounding bosses of foam on the projecting shelves and knobs of its jagged gorge. No two falls could be more unlike -- Tueeulala out in the open sunshine descending like thistledown; Wapama in a jagged, shadowy gorge roaring and plundering, pounding its way with the weight and energy of an avalanche. Besides this glorious pair there is a broad, massive fall on the main river a short distance above the head of the Valley. Its position is something like that of the Vernal in Yosemite, and its roar as it plunges into a surging trout-pool may be heard a long way, though it is only about twenty feet high. There is also a chain of magnificent cascades at the head of the valley on a stream that comes in from the northeast, mostly silvery plumes, like the one between the Vernal and Nevada falls of Yosemite, half-sliding,half-leaping on bare glacier polished granite, covered with crisp clashing spray into wish the sunbeams pour with glorious effect. And besides all these a few small streams come over the walls here and there, leaping from ledge to ledge with birdlike song and watering many a hidden cliff-garden and fernery, but they are too unshowy to be noticed in so grand a place.

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Strange to say, this is the mountain temple that is now in danger of being dammed and made into a reservoir to help supply San Francisco with water and light. This use of the valley, so destructive and foreign to its proper park use, has long been planned and prayed for, and is still being prayed for by the San Francisco board of supervisors, not because water as pure and abundant cannot be got from adjacent sources outside the park - for it can, - but seemingly only because of the comparative cheapness of the dam required.

Garden- and park-making goes on everywhere with civilization, for everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where Nature may heal and cheer and give strength to body and soul. This natural beauty-hunger is displayed in poor folks' window-gardens made up of a few geranium slips in broken cups, as well as in the costly lily gardens of the rich, the thousands of spacious city parks and botanical gardens, and in our magnificent National parks -- the Yellowstone, Yosemite, Sequoia, etc. -- Nature's own wonderlands, the admiration and joy of the world. Nevertheless, like everything else worth while, however sacred and precious and well-guarded, they have always been subject to attack, mostly by despoiling gainseekers, -- mischief-makers of every degree from Satan to supervisors, lumbermen, cattlemen, farmers, etc., eagerly trying to make everything dollarable, often thinly disguised in smiling philanthropy, calling pocket-filling plunder "Utilization of beneficent natural resources, that man and beast may be fed and the dear Nation grow great." Thus long ago a lot of enterprising merchants made part of the Jerusalem temple into a place of business instead of a place of prayer, changing money, buying and selling cattle and sheep and doves. And earlier still, the Lord's garden in Eden, and the first forest reservation, including only one tree, was spoiled. And so to some extent have all our reservations and parks. Ever since the establishment of the Yosemite National Park by act of Congress, October 8, 1890, constant strife has been going on around its borders and I suppose this will go on as part of the universal battle between right and wrong, however its boundaries may be shorn or its wild beauty destroyed. The first application to the Government by the San Francisco Supervisors for the use of Lake Eleanor and the Hetch Hetchy Valley was made in 1903, and denied December 22nd of that year by the Secretary of the Interior. In his report on this case he well says: "Presumably the Yosemite National Park was created such by law because of the natural objects, of varying degrees of scenic importance, located within its boundaries, inclusive alike of its beautiful small lakes, like Eleanor, and its majestic wonders, like Hetch-Hetchy and Yosemite Valley. It is the aggregation of such natural scenic features that makes the Yosemite Park a wonderland which the Congress of the United States sought by law to preserve for all coming time as nearly as practicable in the condition fashioned by the hand of the Creator -- a worthy object of national pride and a source of healthful pleasure and rest for the thousands of people who may annually sojourn there during the heated months."

Stop and Consider:

One of the most consistent and most influential supporters of the dam was Gifford Pinchot. He had backed it while Chief Forester in Theodore Roosevelt's administration. He left government after a celebrated feud with Taft's Secretary of the Interior, Richard Ballinger. Ballinger revoked the Roosevelt administration's approval of the dam. In 1913, with former San Francisco attorney and long-time dam supporter Franklin K. Lane as the new Secretary of the Interior in the Wilson Administration, Pinchot again testified in favor of the project. As you read these excerpts from the U.S. House hearings, ask yourself these questions:

STATEMENT OF HON. FRANKLIN K. LANE, SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR, BEFORE THE COMMITTEE ON THE PUBLIC LANDS.
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SIXTY-THIRD CONGRESS (1913).

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.

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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. 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.

Summary: In 1913 the Raker Bill authorizing the flooding of Hetch Hetchy passed. In 1923 the dam was completed. In the decades since the Hetch Hetchy controversy the United States has followed a policy which, with numerous inconsistencies, has combined the Muir and Pinchot perspectives. It has, that is, set aside some areas to be left undeveloped and regulated the use of other areas. In 2001, for example, in one of its first acts, the Bush administration proposed oil drilling, with "appropriate" environmental safeguards in the Artic Wildlife Refuge. Many immediately objected. The ensuing arguments often reprised those made by John Muir and Gifford Pinchot. The Sierra Club, moreover, has never given up on John Muir's vision of Hetch Hetchy and has continued to campaign for the restoration of the valley.

Reflect and Respond: