Editing Hetch Hetchy (section)

==History==

===Indigenous peoples===
People have lived in Hetch Hetchy Valley for over 6,000 years. [[Native Americans in the United States|Native American cultures]] were prominent before the 1850s when the first settlers from the United States arrived in the Sierra Nevada. During summer, people of the [[Valley and Sierra Miwok|Miwok]] and [[Northern Paiute|Paiute]] came to Hetch Hetchy from the [[Central Valley (California)|Central Valley]] in the west and the [[Great Basin]] in the east. The valley provided an escape from the summer heat of the lowlands.{{sfn|Jones|2010|p=74}} They hunted, and gathered seeds and edible plants to furnish themselves winter food, trade items, and materials for art and ceremonial objects. Today, descendants of these people still use [[milkweed]], [[Muhlenbergia rigens|deergrass]], [[bracken fern]], [[willow]], and other plants for a variety of uses including baskets, medicines, and string.<ref name=hetchhetchy/>

Meadow plants unavailable in the lowlands were particularly valuable resources to these tribes. For thousands of years, Native Americans subjected the valley to controlled bushfires, which prevented forest from taking over the valley meadows.{{sfn|Jones|2010|p=75}} Periodic clearing of the valley provided ample space for the growth of the grasses and shrubs they relied on, as well as additional room for large game animals such as deer to browse. In the 19th century, the first white visitors to the valley did not realize that Hetch Hetchy's extensive meadows were the product of millennia of management by Native Americans; instead they believed "the valley was purely a product of ancient geological forces (or divine intervention)&nbsp;... this was fundamental to its allure as a destination and subject."{{sfn|Bibby|2006|p=92–94}}

The valley's name may be derived from a Miwok word earlier anglicized as ''hatchhatchie'', which means "edible grasses"<ref name=hetchhetchy/><ref name="name">{{cite web| url=http://www.yosemite.ca.us/history/place_names_of_the_high_sierra/h.html#page_39 | title=Place Names of the High Sierra | access-date=2006-09-09 | year=1926 | author=Farquhar, Francis P.}}</ref> or "magpie".{{sfn|Simpson|2005|p=14}} It is likely that the edible grass was [[Dipterostemon|blue dicks]].<ref name=hoffmann/> [[Chief Tenaya]] of the Yosemite Valley's [[Ahwaneechee]] tribe claimed that ''Hetch Hetchy'' was Miwok for "Valley of the Two Trees", referring to a pair of [[Pinus classification|yellow pine]]s that once stood at the head of Hetch Hetchy.{{sfn|Jones|2010|p=75}} Miwok names are still used for features, including Tueeulala Fall, Wapama Fall, and Kolana Rock.<ref name=hetchhetchy/>

While its cousin Yosemite Valley to the south had permanent Miwok settlements,{{sfn|Simpson|2005|p=4}} Hetch Hetchy was only seasonally inhabited. This was likely because of Hetch Hetchy's narrow outlet, which in years of heavy snowmelt created a bottleneck in the Tuolumne River and the subsequent flooding of the valley floor.{{sfn|Simpson|2005|p=13}}

===Exploration and early development===
[[File:Hetch Hetchy.jpg|thumb|"Little Arroyo" side canyon in the Hetch Hetchy Valley—by John Englehart, signed as C.N. Doughty; oil painting; 1908]]
[[File:Hetch Hetchy Side Canyon, I, by William Keith, c1908.jpg|thumb|[[William Keith (artist)|William Keith]], ''Hetch Hetchy Side Canyon, I'', c. 1908]]
[[File:Hetch Hetchy Valley From Road, Albert Bierstadt.jpg|thumb|Albert Bierstadt, ''Hetch Hetchy Valley from Road'', c. 1870]]

In the early 1850s, a [[mountain man]] by the name of Nathan Screech<ref name="Gazette">{{cite web|url=http://yosemitegazette.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=88:screech-brothers-find-hetch-hetchy-valley&catid=23:archives&Itemid=125|title=Screech Brothers Find Hetch Hetchy Valley|publisher=Yosemite Gazette|access-date=2013-05-26|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304212356/http://www.yosemitegazette.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=88:screech-brothers-find-hetch-hetchy-valley&catid=23:archives&Itemid=125|archive-date=2016-03-04|url-status=dead}}</ref> became the first non-Native American to enter the valley.<ref name=hoffmann>{{cite journal|first=Charles F.|last=Hoffmann|title=Notes on Hetch-Hetchy Valley|journal=Proceedings of the California Academy of Sciences|location=San Francisco|publisher=CAS|year=1868|series=1|volume=3|pages=368–370|url=http://www.yosemite.ca.us/library/notes_on_hetch-hetchy_valley.html|issue=5}}</ref> Local legend attributes the modern name ''Hetch Hetchy'' to Screech's initial arrival in the valley, during which he observed the Native Americans "cooking a variety of grass covered with edible seeds", which they called "hatch hatchy" or "hatchhatchie".{{sfn|Simpson|2005|p=14}} Screech reported that the valley was bitterly disputed between the "Pah Utah Indians" (Paiute) and "Big Creek Indians" (Miwok), and witnessed several fights in which the Paiute appeared to be the dominant tribe.<ref name="earlyhistory">{{cite web|url=http://www.intimeandplace.org/HetchHetchy/background/earlyhistory.html|title=Early History|work=Hetch Hetchy: Preservation or Public Utility|publisher=In Time and Place}}</ref>{{sfn|Whitney|1874|p=158}} About 1853, his brother, Joseph Screech (credited in some accounts for the original discovery of the valley)<ref name="Gazette"/> blazed the first trail from [[Big Oak Flat]], a mining camp near present-day [[Lake Don Pedro, California|Lake Don Pedro]],<ref name="bigoakflat">{{cite web
|url=http://www.sierranevadageotourism.org/content/big-oak-flat-no-406-california-historical-landmark/sieB019F76D44F59ECE4
|title=Big Oak Flat (No. 406 California Historical Landmark)
|publisher=Sierra Nevada Geotourism MapGuide
|access-date=2013-06-01}}</ref> for {{convert|38|mi|km|abbr=on}} northeast to Hetch Hetchy Valley.{{sfn|Whitney|1874|p=157}}

During this time, the upper Tuolumne River, including Hetch Hetchy Valley, was visited by prospectors attracted by the [[California Gold Rush]]. Miners did not stay in the area for long, however, as richer deposits occurred further south along the [[Merced River]] and in the Big Oak Flat area.<ref name="bigoakflat"/> After the valley's native inhabitants were driven out by the newcomers, it was used by ranchers, many of whom were former miners, to graze livestock. Animals were principally driven along Joseph Screech's trail from Big Oak Flat to Hetch Hetchy.{{sfn|Whitney|1874|p=157}} Its meadows provided abundant feed for "thousands of head of sheep and cattle that entered lean and lank in the spring, but left rolling fat and hardly able to negotiate the precipitous and difficult defiles out of the mountains in the fall."{{sfn|Righter|2005|p=17}}

In 1867, [[Charles F. Hoffman]] of the [[California Geological Survey]] conducted the first survey of the valley. Hoffman observed a meadow "well timbered and affording good grazing", and noted the valley had a milder climate than Yosemite Valley, hence the abundance of ponderosa pine and gray pine.<ref name=hoffmann/> The valley was slowly becoming known for its natural beauty, but it was never a popular tourist destination because of extremely poor access and the location of the famous Yosemite Valley just {{convert|20|mi|km}} to the south. Those who did visit it were enchanted by its scenery, but encountered difficulties with the primitive conditions and, in summertime, swarms of mosquitoes.{{sfn|Jones|2010|p=75}}<ref>{{cite book
|author=United States Army Corps of Engineers
|title=Hetch Hetchy Valley: report of Advisory Board of Army Engineers to the Secretary of the Interior on investigations relative to sources of water supply for San Francisco and Bay communities
|url=https://archive.org/details/hetchhetchyvall00engigoog
|publisher=United States Government Printing Office
|year=1913
|page=31}}</ref> [[Albert Bierstadt]], [[Charles Dorman Robinson]] and [[William Keith (artist)|William Keith]] were known for their landscapes that drew tourists to the Hetch Hetchy Valley. Bierstadt described the valley as "smaller than the more famous valley&nbsp;... but it presents many of the same features in his scenery and is quite as beautiful."{{sfn|Righter|2005|p=19}}

When Yosemite Valley became part of a state park in 1864, Hetch Hetchy received no such designation. As the grazing of livestock damaged native plants in the Hetch Hetchy Valley, mountaineer and naturalist [[John Muir]] pressed for the protection of both valleys under a single national park.{{sfn|Righter|2005|pp=22–23}} Muir, who himself had briefly worked as a shepherd in Hetch Hetchy, was known for calling sheep "hoofed locusts" because of their environmental impact.<ref>{{cite web
|url=http://www.nps.gov/yose/historyculture/muir.htm
|title=John Muir
|publisher=U.S. National Park Service
|work=Yosemite National Park
|access-date=2013-05-28}}</ref> Muir's friend [[Robert Underwood Johnson]] of the politically influential ''[[Century Magazine]]'' and several other prominent figures were inspired by Muir's work and helped to get Yosemite National Park established by October 1, 1890.{{sfn|Righter|2005|p=23}}<ref>{{cite magazine
|url=http://www.smithsonianmag.com/people-places/yosemite.html
|title=John Muir's Yosemite: The father of the conservation movement found his calling on a visit to the California wilderness
|magazine=[[Smithsonian (magazine)|Smithsonian]]
|author=Perrottet, Tony
|date=July 2008
|access-date=2013-06-01}}</ref> However, ranchers who had previously owned land in the new park continued their use of Hetch Hetchy Valley – a "sheep-grazing free-for-all [that] threatened to denude the High Sierra meadows"{{sfn|Righter|2005|p=23}} – before disputes over state and private properties in respect to national park boundaries were finally settled in the early 1900s.{{sfn|Righter|2005|pp=26–27}}

Interest in using the valley as a water source or reservoir dates back as far as the 1850s, when the Tuolumne Valley Water Company proposed developing water storage there for irrigation.<ref name="timeline">{{cite web
|url=http://www.sierraclub.org/ca/hetchhetchy/timeline.asp
|title=Timeline of the Ongoing Battle Over Hetch Hetchy
|publisher=Sierra Club
|access-date=2013-05-31}}</ref> By the 1880s, San Francisco was looking to Hetch Hetchy water as a fix for its outdated and unreliable water system.<ref name="timeline"/> The city would repeatedly try to acquire water rights to Hetch Hetchy, including in 1901, 1903 and 1905, but was continually rebuffed because of conflicts with irrigation districts that had senior water rights on the Tuolumne River, and because of the valley's national park status.<ref>{{cite news
|title=Proceedings Before The Secretary Of The Interior In Re Use Of Hetch Hetchy Reservoir Site, In The Yosemite National Park, By The City Of San Francisco, May 11, 1908
|author=United States Department of the Interior
|publisher=United States Government Printing Office}}</ref>

===Damming===
{{main|O'Shaughnessy Dam (California)}}

In 1906, after [[1906 San Francisco earthquake|a major earthquake]] and subsequent fire that devastated San Francisco, the inadequacy of the city's water system was made tragically clear.
San Francisco applied to the [[United States Department of the Interior]] to gain water rights to Hetch Hetchy, and in 1908 President Theodore Roosevelt's Secretary of the Interior, [[James R. Garfield]], granted San Francisco the rights to development of the Tuolumne River.<ref name="Hanson">{{cite web
|url=http://centerwest.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/gradnonhanson.pdf
|title=The Hetch Hetchy Letters: If a Group of Intellectuals Argues in a Forest, and then that Forest is Submerged Under Water, Does Their Argument Matter?
|publisher=Center of the American West
|author=Hanson, Jason L.
|access-date=2013-05-30
|archive-date=2014-07-02
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140702135055/http://centerwest.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/gradnonhanson.pdf
|url-status=dead
}}</ref> This provoked a seven-year [[natural environment|environmental]] struggle with the environmental group [[Sierra Club]], led by [[John Muir]]. Muir observed:<ref name=muir/>

<blockquote>Dam Hetch Hetchy! As well dam for water-tanks the people's cathedrals and churches, for no holier temple has ever been consecrated by the heart of man.</blockquote>

Proponents of the dam replied that out of multiple sites considered by San Francisco, Hetch Hetchy had the "perfect architecture for a reservoir",<ref>{{cite web
|url=http://humboldt-dspace.calstate.edu/bitstream/handle/2148/60/Davies.pdf?sequence=1
|author=Davies, Leslie T.
|title=San Francisco-Hetch Hetchy Valley Connection
|publisher=Humboldt State University
|date=May 2006
|access-date=2013-05-31}}</ref> with pristine water, lack of development or private property, a steep-sided and flat-floored profile that would maximize the amount of water stored, and a narrow outlet ideal for placement of a dam.<ref name="Hanson"/> They claimed the valley was not unique and would be even more beautiful with a lake. Muir predicted that this lake would create an unsightly "bathtub ring" around its perimeter, caused by the water's destruction of [[lichen]] growth on the canyon walls,<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.mercurynews.com/science/ci_21662101/hetch-hetchy-controversy-could-yosemites-second-valley-be|title=Hetch Hetchy controversy: Could Yosemite's 'second valley' be restored?|newspaper=San Jose Mercury News|first=Paul|last=Rogers|date=2012-09-30}}</ref> which would inevitably be visible at low lake levels.

Since the valley was within [[Yosemite National Park]], an act of [[United States Congress|Congress]] was needed to authorize the project. The U.S. Congress passed and President [[Woodrow Wilson]] signed the [[Raker Act]] in 1913, which permitted the flooding of the valley under the conditions that power and water derived from the river could only be used for public interests. Ultimately, San Francisco sold hydropower from the dam to the [[Pacific Gas and Electric Company]] (PG&E), which led to decades of legal wrangling and controversy over terms in the Raker Act.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://foundsf.org/index.php?title=The_Hetch_Hetchy_Story,_Part_II:_PG%26E_and_the_Raker_Act|title=The Hetch Hetchy Story, Part II: PG&E and the Raker Act|publisher=FoundSF}}</ref>

The controversy over Hetch Hetchy was in the context of other political scandals and controversies, especially prevalent in the Taft administration. The Great Alaskan Land Fraud and the [[Pinchot-Ballinger Controversy]] caused both [[Richard A. Ballinger]] and [[Gifford Pinchot]] to resign and be fired respectively. The openings in the Taft administration led to the eventual success of the Raker Act.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Mansfield|first=Gabriel|date=2018|title=The Forbidden Water: San Francisco and Hetch Hetchy Valley|url=https://www.eiu.edu/historia/5Historia2018GMansfield.pdf|journal=Historia|volume=27|pages=24–31}}</ref>

Work on the Hetch Hetchy Project began in 1914. The {{convert|68|mi|km|abbr=on}} [[Hetch Hetchy Railroad]] was constructed to link the [[Sierra Railway]] with Hetch Hetchy Valley, allowing for direct rail shipment of construction materials from San Francisco to the dam site. Construction of O'Shaughnessy Dam began in 1919 and was finished in 1923, with the reservoir first filling in May of that year. The dam was then {{convert|227|ft}} high; its present height of {{convert|312|ft}} was achieved only later, in 1938.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.tchistory.org/tchistory/Wonders_10.htm|title=Hetch Hetchy Water and Power System|publisher=Tuolumne County Historical Society|access-date=2013-05-26|archive-date=2015-03-18|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150318022530/http://www.tchistory.org/tchistory/Wonders_10.htm|url-status=dead}}</ref> On October 28, 1934 – twenty years after the beginning of construction on the Hetch Hetchy project – a crowd of 20,000 San Franciscans gathered to celebrate the arrival of the first Hetch Hetchy water in the city.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://archives.smdailyjournal.com/article_preview.php?id=3471|title=Idyllic Pulgas Water Temple still offers comfort for weary wanderers|newspaper=San Mateo Daily Journal|date=April 2, 2001|first=Paul D.|last=Buchanan}}</ref>

The Early Intake (Lower Cherry) Powerhouse began commercial operation five years before the O'Shaughnessy Dam was completed. The first Moccasin Powerhouse in [[Moccasin, Tuolumne County, California|Moccasin, California]] began commercial operation in 1925 followed by the Holm Powerhouse in 1960 (the same month the Early Intake Powerhouse was taken out of service).  In 1967 the Robert C. Kirkwood Powerhouse started commercial operation followed by a New Moccasin Powerhouse in 1969 when the Old Moccasin Powerhouse was taken out of service.  Finally, in 1988, a third generator was added to the Kirkwood Powerhouse.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://outside.chromoly.net/HHWP/chronology.htm|title=Chronology of San Francisco's Water Development|access-date=2010-09-23}}</ref>

<gallery mode="packed" heights="144px">
File:Hetch-Hetchy-dam-site.jpg|The narrow defile at the lower end of Hetch Hetchy Valley where San Francisco planned to dam the Tuolumne River, seen in 1914 before construction began
File:O'Shaughnessy Dam in Yosemite NP.JPG|The same area seen today, with O'Shaughnessy Dam and Hetch Hetchy Reservoir
Hetch Hetchy Reservoir.jpg|Hetch Hetchy Reservoir
</gallery>