Hetch Hetchy
The Progressive Era’s most controversial environmental issue was the 1908–1913 struggle over federal government approval for building the Hetch Hetchy dam in a remote corner of federally-owned land in California’s Yosemite National Park. The city of San Francisco, rebuilding after the devastating 1906 earthquake, believed the dam was necessary to meet its burgeoning needs for reliable supplies of water and electricity. At Congressional hearings on Hetch Hetchy held in 1913, supporters of the plan like Gifford Pinchot, the first Chief Forester of the United States and a noted environmentalist, argued that conservation of natural resources was best achieved through management of the wilderness. Preservationist and Sierra Club founder John Muir did not testify before Congress, but he argued against the Hetch Hetchy plan in this excerpt from his 1912 book, The Yosemite. In the end Congress chose management over aesthetics, voting 43–25 (with 29 abstentions) to allow the Hetch Hetchy dam on federal land.
~Roderick Nash |
These temple destroyers, devotees of ravaging commercialism, seem to have a perfect contempt for Nature, and, instead of lifting their eyes to the mountains, lift them to dams and town skyscrapers. |
Correspondance between John Muir and President Theodore Roosevelt regarding the Hetch Hetchy Plan.
Letter from John Muir to James R. Garfield
Click For Letter Transcript
Muir was also a practical man. He knew that depriving a city of water would not sit well with many Americans. He proposed that dams be constructed in other parts of the Sierra’s or in Toloumme. These proposals were shot down as unfeasible. The Conservationists wanted to make their stand over Hetch Hetchy. -Brian Manetta
Hetch Hetchy was a very important part of U.S. Environmental history. Historian Roderick Nash explains: “The most amazing thing about the Hetch Hetchy controversy was that it occurred.” The whole country was involved in the controversy. Environmental policy was major news. Newspapers were involved and taking sides. People in places like New York City, who had never and would never see the valley, had opinions about its use. A controversy about environmental issues had never before happened in America. Despite the fact that an irreplaceable part of nature had been lost, the environment had become a major issue to America and its citizens. -Brian Manetta