Re: Open letter to Congress re: Hetch Hetchy

Here's a hint for San Francisco:

This issue is not going to go away.

I'm about half way through this:

http://yosemitenews.info/am/0140178244

I highly recommend it.

This article has a good picture of Hetch Hetchy before the dam plugged things up:

<http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/sfgate/detail?blogid=14&entry_id=14476?

Shame on Dianne Feinstein:

http://feinstein.senate.gov/05releases/r-hetchhetch2.htm

letterknit my blood is starting to boil. Feinstein's statement contains lies and misdirection. I might actually get involved in this instead of just yakking about it on blogs like this one.

It's too easy to see that Feistein is doing nothing more than defending her home town. Too bad she's just so wrong this time and killing the study money just makes me think of the old Dominy days and his dirty politics.

eeek I don't want to turn this web board into a politics flame war, but it is indeed an issue. Feinstein's dismissive attitude (hey we built it 80 years ago what's the big deal, et. al) further enflames attitudes everywhere. The answers are simple.

Hetch Hetchy is a tiny lake inside a National Park, the existence of which was born directly from coons capitalizing on the Great Earthquake of 1906.

When you approach Hetch Hetchy from the ridge and see that little slivver of concrete from a few miles away, you think, well, no harm done, until you get there and realize how large the dam is and the scope of the damage.

A dam that could hold 360,000 acre-feet could be built outside the national park downstream.

Don Pedro Dam could be raised a tiny amount to hold the excesss.

Feinstein's lies include 2.4 million San Franciscans would suddenly die of lack of electricity and dehydration.

Perhaps Feinstein should redirect her efforts to the true problems of California, prohibitions against new power plants, water conservation and the wastefulness of the Bay Area residents who expect their toilets to flush...drinking water isn't the issue, overpopulation is.

Well, more on that later!

It really isn't about water storage. The reason they want to keep the dam is the cheap hydro power that they are making money on. The Bureau of Reclaimation has been using that trick to justify their dams for a long long time.

When we were at Yosemite a few years ago, Restore Hetch Hetchy had a video presentation on the issue at the LeConte Memorial in the Valley. I think it was Ron Good who was the presenter. I got a "Restore Hetch Hetchy" button for my backpack and a bumper sticker

If you want/need more info on this issue and don't know about this website, you should check it out:

http://www.hetchhetchy.org/