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Topic: Hetch Hetchy

Overview April 24, 2014

Hetch Hetchy

Owned by San Francisco, Hetch Hetchy Reservoir in Yosemite National Park provides water to nearly 3 million people in 29 cities across the San Francisco Bay Area. The water, provided by snowmelt via the Tuolumne River, does not require filtration.

Stored in Hetch Hetchy Reservoir behind O’Shaughnessy Dam, the water is delivered by a gravity based system and aqueduct to the Bay Area.

Hetch Hetchy has generated controversy since it was first proposed as a source of water following the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. Congress also had to approve the project because it was located in a national park. John Muir and the Sierra Club unsuccessfully fought the reservoir’s establishment since it required flooding a scenic mountain valley. After its construction in the 1920s, various groups have lobbied to restore the Hetch Hetchy Valley to its natural state.

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Aquafornia news February 10, 2021 Los Angeles Times

Earthquakes and climate change threaten California dams

Although the 1971 San Fernando earthquake and the near failure of the Lower Van Norman Dam have given rise to construction improvements … the overwhelming majority of California dams are decades past their design life span. And while earthquakes still loom as the greatest threat to California’s massive collection of dams, experts warn that these aging structures will be challenged further by a new and emerging hazard: “whiplashing shifts” in extreme weather due to climate change.

Related articles: 

  • NBC Los Angeles: Fifty Years Ago, the Sylmar Earthquake Jolted Southern California
  • KCRW: Fifty years after the San Fernando earthquake, are we more prepared?
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Aquafornia news January 29, 2021 Palo Alto Online

Going against the flow, City Council member draws rebukes for position on water plan

When Palo Alto officials adopted a position in 2018 in support of the Bay-Delta Plan, which aims to protect the Yosemite ecosystem by restricting how much water cities can draw from the San Joaquin River and its tributaries, they knew were swimming against the prevalent political tide. Prompted by water conservationists and environmentalists, the City Council went against recommendations from the city’s Utilities Department staff and its water supplier, the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, which relies on the Tuolumne River for much of its water. 

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Aquafornia news October 19, 2020 CBS San Francisco

Major earthquake retrofit work complete at Lake Merced pump station

It all started with a 2002 state law demanding quake-resilient water delivery. Nearly $5 billion later, San Francisco has retrofit the system from Hetch Hetchy to the city, just now crossing the finish line on the shore of Lake Merced.

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Aquafornia news September 10, 2020 San Francisco Public Utilities Commission

News release: SFPUC extends popular emergency customer assistance program through end of year

The San Francisco Public Utilities Commission is extending its Emergency Residential Community Assistance Program, designed to help customers struggling to pay water, sewer and Hetch Hetchy power bills during the COVID-19 pandemic. The program, which launched in May, was originally set to expire Sept. 4, but will now be expanded through the end of the year

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Aquafornia news February 10, 2020 CALmatters

Opinion: Once again, San Francisco officials are limiting public access to the majestic Hetch Hetchy Valley

In the waning moments of 2019, San Francisco’s Water Department persuaded Congress to deny long-promised access to unreachable areas of Yosemite National Park. This power play would ban environmentally benign boating on Hetch Hetchy Reservoir. The move reverses the guarantees of improved access and recreation which San Francisco made in 1913, when it pleaded with Congress to pass the Raker Act and allow it to build the reservoir in Hetch Hetchy Valley in Yosemite National Park.

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Aquafornia news January 13, 2020 Associated Press

Arizona’s water supply a major issue for legislative session

Republican and Democratic Leaders of the Arizona House are again eyeing the state’s water supply as a major issue in the coming legislative session. GOP House Speaker Rusty Bowers and Democratic Minority Leader Charlene Fernandez have both highlighted overpumping in the state’s rural areas as a major issue for lawmakers when return to work on Monday.

Related article:

  • Capitol Media Services: Rural groundwater pumping is next big Arizona water issue for lawmakers
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Aquafornia news December 19, 2019 The Ceres Courier

Opinion: San Francisco needs to pay the price for desecrating Yosemite National Park

Those who are the most politically correct among those that lecture the rest of the state from their perches atop the 40 plus hills of San Francisco about the environmental shortcomings of the rest of California should take a long hard look in the mirror. They thrive on some of the original — and most hideous — environmental sins ever committed in the Golden State.

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Aquafornia news December 19, 2019 San Francisco Chronicle

House sinks Hetch Hetchy boating proposal

The House has torpedoed a proposal to allow limited boating on Hetch Hetchy Reservoir in Yosemite National Park. Critics feared the plan could introduce contaminants to the reservoir that supplies famously pure drinking water for 2.7 million people in the Bay Area. Boating on its waters has been banned for nearly a century.

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Aquafornia news September 17, 2019 Teen Vogue

What climate change will do to three major American cities by 2100

For San Franciscans … there are new worries for the city. Fires now burn more regularly across the Sierra Nevada as well as coastal mountain ranges. The flames may ruin plans for weekend getaways to Yosemite or deliver noxious smoke to the Bay Area. And locals may start to reach for air masks as dangerously smoky days become more common.

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Aquafornia news September 9, 2019 Valley Public Radio

Another iconic valley in Yosemite? Report estimates tourism benefits of a restored Hetch Hetchy

A recent analysis by ECONorthwest, an economic consulting firm based in Portland, Ore., estimates that a restored Hetch Hetchy Valley, drained of its water and offering recreation options and infrastructure in the same vein as Yosemite Valley, could attract orders of magnitude more visitors.

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Aquafornia news August 12, 2019 San Francisco Chronicle

Editorial: Latest plan to drain Hetch Hetchy water system doesn’t add up

There is hard reality that can’t be dodged in pursuing a dreamy idea that’s existed as long as the 100-year old water and power system. Pulling the plug on the watery expanse to expose the original valley is much more complicated than a sunny study commissioned by an anti-dam environmental group hoping to pump up its cause.

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Aquafornia news August 2, 2019 FishBio

Blog: An ocean away: The genetics of Yosemite’s trout

It’s been over 150 years since the rivers in Yosemite National Park flowed freely to the ocean without interruption by dams and reservoirs. … But, as a study by researchers from the National Marine Fisheries Service and UC Santa Cruz revealed, even after a century and a half, the ocean-run legacy of Yosemite’s rainbow trout lives on in their DNA…

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Aquafornia news August 1, 2019 San Francisco Chronicle

Could Hetch Hetchy Valley be worth $100 billion?

Yosemite’s Hetch Hetchy Valley was dammed and flooded nearly 100 years ago, but the prospect of draining the reservoir continues to inspire romantic imaginings… The fantasy of Hetch Hetchy’s grand return was recently given new dimensions with the release of an economic assessment concluding that the valley represents a sunken treasure trove of tourism revenue.

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Aquafornia news March 4, 2019 Palo Alto Weekly

Peninsula cities seek more oversight on water projects

It’s a treasure that is all too easy for Palo Alto to take for granted — an abundant supply of pristine water that flows from the Sierra Nevada snowpacks and passes through the Hetch Hetchy system before splashing out of local showers and faucets. Palo Alto is one of 25 cities that belong to the Bay Area Water Supply and Conservation Agency (BAWSCA), which manages the member cities’ supply agreement with the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission. … Even so, the cities don’t always know which projects they’re helping to fund.

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Aquafornia news January 31, 2019 Water Education Foundation

Updated Colorado River Layperson’s Guide explores drought planning, tribal water rights, binational agreements

The 32-page Layperson’s Guide to the Colorado River covers the history of the river’s development; negotiations over division of its water; the items that comprise the Law of the River; and a chronology of significant Colorado River events.

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Aquafornia news January 2, 2019 ABC30.com

Sanitation concerns shut two areas in Yosemite National Park

Yosemite National Park officials say Hetch Hetchy and Mariposa Grove are now closed from lack of available restrooms and the impact of human waste as a result of the government shutdown.

Related articles:

  • Hi Desert Star: Human Waste Concerns Prompt Joshua Tree National Park to Close All Campgrounds
  • Washington Post: In Shutdown, National Parks Transformed into Wild West
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Aquafornia news November 5, 2018 San Francisco Chronicle

San Francisco Mayor Breed vetoes supervisors’ resolution that supported state river plan

San Francisco Mayor London Breed broke her silence on California’s latest water war Friday, saying she wouldn’t support a state river restoration plan that would mean giving up some of the city’s pristine Hetch Hetchy water.

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Aquafornia news October 31, 2018 San Francisco Chronicle

San Francisco supervisors urge backing off alliance with farmers, Trump on reviving rivers

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors issued a rare rebuke of the city water department Tuesday, claiming the agency is on the wrong side of a state water debate that pits California against President Trump. The San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, which provides water to the city and more than two dozen suburbs, has fiercely opposed a far-reaching state plan to revive California’s river system, including the languishing Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, because it means giving up precious water supplies.

Related Article:

  • The Sacramento Bee: San Francisco leaders hate Trump enough they voted to limit the city’s water rather than do this
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Aquafornia news October 23, 2018 San Francisco Chronicle

Editorial: San Francisco and its PUC need to innovate on water use

San Francisco has always been on the periphery of California’s water wars — until last week. That’s when San Francisco Supervisor Aaron Peskin introduced with three co-sponsors a resolution to the Board of Supervisors that San Francisco should help maintain river flows in the San Joaquin by reducing its take from the Tuolumne, a tributary.

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Aquafornia news October 19, 2018 San Francisco Chronicle

San Francisco water safe to drink — tests after scare in Sunset show no pesticides

Independent lab tests ordered by the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission found no evidence of pesticides in San Francisco’s drinking water, the agency announced Thursday. The SFPUC collected and analyzed 21 water samples following a minor panic last week after several residents in the Sunset District complained that their store-bought water-testing kits yielded positive results for the herbicides Atrazine and Simazine. Their concerns were amplified over social media.

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Aquafornia news October 18, 2018 San Francisco Chronicle

State high court rejects Berkeley group’s suit to drain Hetch Hetchy Reservoir

The California Supreme Court rejected a conservation group’s lawsuit Wednesday seeking to drain Yosemite’s Hetch Hetchy Reservoir, a source of water for San Francisco and surrounding Bay Area communities. Restore Hetch Hetchy, a Berkeley group, argued in its suit that the location of the dam and reservoir, which flooded a valley in the park after construction in 1923, violates a provision of the California Constitution requiring reasonable water use.

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Aquafornia news October 15, 2018 San Francisco Chronicle

Monday’s Top of the Scroll: Plan to revive rivers pits San Francisco against California

The rivers that once poured from the Sierra Nevada, thick with snowmelt and salmon, now languish amid relentless pumping, sometimes shriveling to a trickle and sparking a crisis for fish, wildlife and the people who rely on a healthy California delta. A state plan to improve these flows and avert disaster, however, has been mired in conflict and delays.

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Aquafornia news October 10, 2018 San Francisco Chronicle

San Francisco officials to test tap water across the city after Sunset District pesticide scare

A San Francisco woman who tested her tap water with a store-bought kit and got a positive reading for pesticides, then posted the results to social media, has prompted the city to step up water testing not just near her home in the Sunset District but across the city. Officials at the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission insisted Tuesday, for the second day in a row, that municipal supplies are safe to drink.

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Aquafornia news September 21, 2018 San Jose Mercury News

Friday’s Top of the Scroll: Construction finished on largest Bay Area dam in 20 years

After toiling away in the remote hills east of Interstate 680 on the Alameda-Santa Clara county line for seven years, hundreds of construction workers have finally finished the largest dam built in the Bay Area in 20 years. The 220-foot tall dam at Calaveras Reservoir — as high as the roadway on the Golden Gate Bridge soars above San Francisco Bay — replaces a dam of the same size, built in 1925.

Related Article:

  • KQED: New South Bay Dam Could Save Lives
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Aquafornia news August 22, 2018 Water Deeply

A century on, the battle over Yosemite’s Hetch Hetchy Valley continues

When Spreck Rosekrans visits Hetch Hetchy – the valley in Yosemite National Park that San Francisco turned into a reservoir nearly a century ago – he looks beyond what is. Instead, he envisions what once was and could be again. … Hetch Hetchy is just 15 miles north of Yosemite Valley and the two are often called twins

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Aquafornia news August 16, 2018 San Francisco Chronicle

SFPUC starts repairs to Moccasin Dam, which almost failed last March

Repair and renovation work at the Moccasin Reservoir and dam in Tuolumne County is under way nearly five months after a punishing rainstorm pushed it to the brink of failure, prompting the evacuation of nearly 200,000 people.

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Aquafornia news August 2, 2018 Bay Area Monitor

Blog: The great Hetch Hetchy debate

When Spreck Rosekrans visits Hetch Hetchy — the valley in Yosemite National Park that San Francisco turned into a reservoir nearly a century ago — he looks beyond what is. Instead, he envisions what once was and could be again.“ I imagine a meadow, dotted with oak, pine, and fir trees, and with the Tuolumne River meandering through it,” said Rosekrans, executive director of Restore Hetch Hetchy, a Berkeley-based nonprofit.

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Aquafornia news August 1, 2018 San Francisco Chronicle

Yosemite closure extended into the weekend, Hetch Hetchy area shut down

Yosemite National Park officials on Tuesday extended the shutdown of much of the park until Sunday because of ongoing wildfire concerns while expanding the closure to include the Hetch Hetchy area. … A San Francisco Public Utilities Commission spokesman said officials are monitoring the water quality but had no concerns at this time.

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Aquafornia news July 26, 2018 San Francisco Chronicle

No real worry that Hetch Hetchy will be drained after Zinke’s visit

U.S. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke appears to be interested in the idea of draining Hetch Hetchy Reservoir in Yosemite National Park after meeting with a group that wants to tear down the century-old O’Shaughnessy Dam.

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Aquafornia news July 24, 2018 The Wall Street Journal

Interior secretary meets with group seeking to drain San Francisco reservoir

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke is interested in restoring the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir in Yosemite National Park to its natural state after more than 100 years of providing water to the people of San Francisco and some suburbs.

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Aquafornia news July 12, 2018 KQED Science

Hetch Hetchy water’s epic journey, from mountains to tap

If you live in San Francisco — or even certain parts of Alameda, Santa Clara and San Mateo counties — a portion of your drinking water travels over 150 miles to get to your tap.

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Aquafornia news July 10, 2018 San Francisco Chronicle

Tuesday’s Top of the Scroll: Appeals court rejects effort to tear down Yosemite’s Hetch Hetchy Reservoir

The push to drain Yosemite’s Hetch Hetchy Reservoir and restore the Sierra canyon to its natural state was rejected by the courts — again — Monday, though opponents of the dam said they plan to take their fight to the California Supreme Court.

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Aquafornia news May 31, 2018 San Jose Mercury News

Hetch Hetchy lawsuit touches a nerve with readers

News this week that a Bay Area non-profit’s dream of draining the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir got a welcome boost in the courts hit readers like a stick to a hornet’s nest. They loved the news. They hated the news. They hated the people who loved the news.

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Aquafornia news May 31, 2018 San Francisco Chronicle

Thursday’s Top of the Scroll: The battle over Hetch Hetchy Reservoir in judges’ hands

The battle to drain the reservoir in Yosemite’s Hetch Hetchy Valley reignited Wednesday as critics of the historic dam told a panel of judges in Fresno that their legal case to raze it should proceed, despite an earlier decision to dismiss the suit.

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Aquafornia news May 30, 2018 San Jose Mercury News

Lawsuit to drain Hetch Hetchy Reservoir goes back to court

Two years after losing in court and six years after being rejected by voters, a Berkeley environmental group is continuing its long-running battle to drain Hetch Hetchy Reservoir, a linchpin of the water supply for 2.6 million Bay Area residents from San Francisco to San Jose to southern Alameda County. … The group will pursue its appeal Wednesday morning in the Fifth District Court of Appeal in Fresno.

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Aquafornia news April 27, 2018 San Francisco Chronicle

San Francisco raising water, sewer rates over 4 years

Water bills in San Francisco are set to rise steadily over the next four years, after the approval of a rate schedule by the city’s Public Utilities Commission. …  In addition to funding the commission’s regular operations, the rate increases will pay for a series of ambitious infrastructure upgrades to the city’s sewer system and vast Hetch Hetchy network that sends drinking water to 2.7 million Bay Area residents.

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Aquafornia news April 17, 2018 San Jose Mercury News

Dam project unearths whale skulls, giant shark teeth now heading to UC Berkeley

For the past five years, construction workers building a new 220-foot-high dam in the remote canyons east of Milpitas and Fremont have been slowly discovering a long-ago, not-quite-tropical world of buried treasures — from giant shark teeth to whale skulls to pieces of ancient palm trees. Now the huge haul of fossils beneath the Calaveras Reservoir is heading for a permanent new home at UC Berkeley.

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Aquafornia news April 4, 2018 San Jose Mercury News

Bay Area’s newly linked water lifelines

The Bay Area’s deeply unequal cities, home to mansions and shacks alike, are linked by one thing: thirst. Banding together, the region’s water agencies on Tuesday unveiled the latest upgrades to a vast network that connects six million people and provides mutual aid in a crisis, such as an earthquake or severe drought.

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Aquafornia news March 29, 2018 The Modesto Bee

Storm flooded foothills hatchery with 1.4 million trout. Fast work saved thousands.

The California Department of Fish and Wildlife is praising its Moccasin Creek Hatchery workers after they saved nearly a quarter of the hatchery’s trout when water from a nearby dam flooded the facility.

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Aquafornia news March 26, 2018 San Francisco Chronicle

Experts fault San Francisco water agency in scare at Moccasin Reservoir

San Francisco officials on Friday were still trying to figure out why one of their dams in the Sierra foothills was driven to the edge of failure a day earlier, but engineering experts were quick to suspect errors in management.

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Aquafornia news March 23, 2018 San Francisco Chronicle

Friday’s Top of the Scroll: Sierra foothills dam, part of San Francisco’s Hetch Hetchy system, pushed to near failure

Heavy rain in the Sierra foothills pushed a small dam within San Francisco’s Hetch Hetchy water system to the brink of failure Thursday, sending a brief scare through the rural region where roads were closed and a few dozen residents were forced to evacuate.

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Aquafornia news March 6, 2018 San Francisco Chronicle

Hetch Hetchy water’s long trip from Sierra to San Francisco

The Chronicle archives overflow with photos documenting the downstream journey of Hetch Hetchy’s water — an engineering marvel that feeds power stations and fills reservoirs. So here’s a follow-up to our previous column on O’Shaughnessy Dam and Hetch Hetchy Valley.

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Aquafornia news January 17, 2018 San Francisco Chronicle

Commentary: How Hetch Hetchy Valley’s natural beauty was sacrificed to quench San Francisco’s thirst

It’s an environmental conflict that has been coursing through California for more than a century: the unrelenting thirst of San Francisco versus the pristine beauty of nature. After years of debate, O’Shaughnessy Dam opened in 1923, holding back the Tuolumne River and flooding Hetch Hetch Valley, a Sierra gem compared in its grandeur to nearby Yosemite Valley.

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Aquafornia news May 26, 2017 San Francisco Chronicle

West side San Franciscans are none too happy about new water mix

San Franciscans take pride in drinking pristine water from Hetch Hetchy Reservoir, which they treasure as among the purest in the nation. So a recent move by the Public Utilities Commission to introduce groundwater gradually into the city’s drinking supply prompted anxiety and suspicion.

  • Read more
  • Original article
Aquafornia news February 22, 2017 San Francisco Chronicle

San Francisco’s pure drinking water to get a new ingredient

San Francisco’s famously pure High Sierra water is about to be served with a twist. Starting next month, city water officials will begin adding local groundwater to the Yosemite supplies that have satiated the area’s thirst since the 1930s and made the clean, crisp water here the envy of the nation.

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  • Original article
Aquafornia news January 3, 2017 San Francisco Chronicle

Bay Area cities prepare for 60 days without Hetch Hetchy supply

In late December, the filtration tanks at a treatment plant in San Bruno were quietly filled with millions of gallons of raw water. 

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  • Original article
Aquafornia news June 8, 2016 High Country News

Why Hetch Hetchy is staying under water

Early 20th century visitors to Hetch Hetchy Valley, a few miles north of Yosemite Valley, saw a rich meadowland and green oak groves, with the clear Tuolumne River winding through them, embraced by towering granite walls. It’s a landscape no one has seen since 1923, when the valley was drowned by Hetch Hetchy Reservoir, the main water supply for San Francisco, 180 miles west.

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  • Original article
Aquafornia news May 30, 2016 The Sacramento Bee

Commentary: Restore Hetch Hetchy Valley, help repair the world

In 1913, President Woodrow Wilson signed the Raker Act, which allowed for the building of the O’Shaughnessy Dam to supply earthquake-stricken San Francisco with water – at the expense of an integral part of one of the world’s most beautiful national parks.

  • Read more
  • Original article
Aquafornia news May 3, 2016 The Modesto Bee

Ruling snags push for Hetch Hetchy restoration

The group trying to erase Hetch Hetchy Reservoir from Yosemite National Park has lost a round in court.

  • Read more
  • Original article
Aquafornia news April 29, 2016 San Jose Mercury News

Friday’s Top of the Scroll: Court rejects lawsuit to drain Hetch Hetchy Reservoir

A judge on Thursday dismissed a lawsuit seeking to force the city of San Francisco to drain Hetch Hetchy Reservoir, a key part of the water system for 2.6 million residents of Bay Area cities stretching from Hayward to San Jose to San Francisco.

  • Read more
  • Original article
Aquafornia news April 19, 2016 San Jose Mercury News

New Bay Area dam project reaches major milestone

In a significant step for the largest reservoir project in the Bay Area in 20 years, workers have finished building the spillway — a massive concrete channel as wide as eight lanes of freeway and a quarter mile long — at Calaveras Dam near the Alameda-Santa Clara county line.

  • Read more
  • Original article
Aquafornia news June 29, 2015 San Francisco Chronicle

New round of big state water cuts to hit San Francisco

State water officials not only told more Central Valley farmers Friday that they need to stop drawing water from low-flowing rivers and creeks — but they tossed the city of San Francisco onto the list as well.

  • Read more
  • Original article
Aquafornia news June 28, 2015 Associated Press

San Francisco told to stop taking some water during drought

Regulators on Friday told San Francisco to stop taking some of the river water it routinely stores in the Hetch Hetchy reservoir.

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Aquafornia news June 10, 2015 San Francisco Chronicle

San Francisco water supply in OK shape, but officials keep on pressure

Four years into a drought that has left many cities and farms desperate for water, the vast Sierra-fed water system that serves San Francisco and much of the Bay Area is in relatively good shape — and should get the region through the dry months ahead, officials said Tuesday.

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Aquafornia news April 28, 2015 The Fresno Bee

Blog: San Francisco groups oppose lawsuit aimed at emptying Hetch Hetchy

The health, safety and economic well-being of 1.7 million residents and 30,000 businesses would be threatened if Hetch Hetchy Reservoir in Yosemite National Park is drained, says a San Francisco water agency in reaction to a new lawsuit over the reservoir. 

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Aquafornia news April 24, 2015 San Jose Mercury News

Environmental group sues to drain Hetch Hetchy Reservoir

Spurned at the ballot box three years ago and facing an even more uphill battle now because of California’s historic drought, an environmental group has filed a lawsuit attempting to drain Hetch Hetchy Reservoir, a linchpin of the water supply for 2.6 million Bay Area residents from San Francisco to San Jose to southern Alameda County.

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Aquafornia news April 22, 2015 The Fresno Bee

San Francisco’s Hetch Hetchy Reservoir in Yosemite faces new legal challenge

San Francisco is unreasonably monopolizing spectacular Hetch Hetchy Valley by using it as a 117-billion-gallon reservoir, says a new lawsuit in a decades-old fight to restore the Yosemite National Park landmark. 

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Aquafornia news November 25, 2014 San Francisco Chronicle

Chronicle food writers critique San Francisco’s new tap water

In a tasting that could have evoked the joie de vivre of a Napa Valley showroom if it weren’t for the stiff office chairs at the water department and the inherent blandness of the fare, five Chronicle food writers — amid boozy gurgles and talk of soft finishes — were introduced to what will soon be San Francisco’s new tap water.

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Aquafornia news October 15, 2014 San Francisco Chronicle

Wednesday’s Top of the Scroll: Big debut for 1st-of-its-kind water tunnel below San Francisco Bay

This week, the $288 million tunnel begins carrying the Bay Area’s water supply from the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir in Yosemite National Park to the Peninsula, bolstering the dependability of the region’s water system.

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Publication August 18, 2014

Water & the Shaping of California
Published 2000 - Paperback

The story of water is the story of California. And no book tells that story better than Water & the Shaping of California.

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Publication August 18, 2014

Water & the Shaping of California
Published 2000 - hardbound

The story of California is the story of water. And no book tells that story better than Water & the Shaping of California.

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Maps & Posters May 20, 2014

Water Cycle Poster

Water as a renewable resource is depicted in this 18×24 inch poster. Water is renewed again and again by the natural hydrologic cycle where water evaporates, transpires from plants, rises to form clouds, and returns to the earth as precipitation. Excellent for elementary school classroom use.

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Maps & Posters May 20, 2014

California Water Map, Spanish

Spanish language version of our California Water Map

Versión en español de nuestro mapa de agua de California

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Maps & Posters April 17, 2014 California Water Bundle

California Water Map
Updated December 2016

A new look for our most popular product! And it’s the perfect gift for the water wonk in your life.

Our 24×36 inch California Water Map is widely known for being the definitive poster that shows the integral role water plays in the state. On this updated version, it is easier to see California’s natural waterways and man-made reservoirs and aqueducts – including federally, state and locally funded projects – the wild and scenic rivers system, and natural lakes. The map features beautiful photos of California’s natural environment, rivers, water projects, wildlife, and urban and agricultural uses and the text focuses on key issues: water supply, water use, water projects, the Delta, wild and scenic rivers and the Colorado River.

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Aquapedia background February 4, 2014

Hetch Hetchy Reservoir and Water System

Located in the northwest portion of Yosemite National Park, Hetch Hetchy refers to a valley in the Sierra Nevada and a reservoir that supplies water to the San Francisco Bay Area. The valley is drained by the Tuolumne River. The name Hetch Hetchy is derived from a Sierra Miwok word for a type of wild grass.

Owned by the city of San Francisco, Hetch Hetchy Reservoir provides water to 2.7 million residents and businesses in the San Francisco Bay Area.

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