S.F.’s legendary Hetch Hetchy reservoir turns 100. What’s next?
On May 24, 1923, San Francisco officials sent water thundering into a valley that Sierra Club founder John Muir described as a “one of Nature’s rarest and most precious mountain temples.” Thus the controversial Hetch Hetchy reservoir was born – and 100 years later, some environmentalists still cherish the notion of restoring the temple by draining the valley, even as San Franciscans continue to rely, almost wholly, on its pure, high-quality water. … Yet at the same time, the opposite talk has even begun of raising the O’Shaughnessy Dam that encloses the reservoir, so the valley can hold even more water.