“Restore Hetch Hetchy” By Michael Frantz, President of the TID Board of Directors hanging your own lifestyle to improve the environment is commendable. But promoting a personal agenda that requires others to live with less without any sacrifice of your own is something altogether different.
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Environmentalists began calling for the restoration of the Hetch Hetchy Valley practically before the O’Shaughnessy Dam was built. John Muir himself carried the torch in the early 1900’s, and still today a loyal and passionate group lobby for a return to the natural beauty of the Hetch Hetchy Valley. More recently, the group “Restore Hetch Hetchy” has attempted to link the separate water systems of the City and County of San Francisco, (CCSF) and Don Pedro reservoir, the source of both Modesto and Turlock Irrigation districts’ water. They promote the idea of storing water currently held in Hetch Hetchy in Lake Don Pedro to facilitate their dream of removing the O’Shaughnessy Dam by claiming CCSF owns storage in Don Pedro. This linking of two water systems is not only untenable for a host of reasons, it is factually false. The facts are this: Prior to CCSF building the Hetch Hetchy water system, the U. S. Congress passed the Raker Act which formally recognized the senior rights of both TID and MID to the Tuolumne river. The city was only allowed to divert flood flows,
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with all normal levels of runoff flowing to the irrigation districts. CCSF, needing additional operational flexibility, paid for half of the cost of the New Don Pedro Reservoir. In trade for their dollars we assumed the flood control responsibilities of CCSF’s three upper reservoirs, and allowed CCSF to prerelease water into our reservoir. This gives CCSF the right to divert water in the future when flows are below the amount promised by the Raker Act to the districts. All water and storage space in Lake Don Pedro belongs to the irrigation districts, and the entire facility is wholly owned by the ratepayers of Turlock and Modesto Irrigation Districts. Those in the farming community know that this is a critically dry year. Our farmer ratepayers are being asked to make do with half of their normal allocation, which for some means significant financial sacrifice. With this as a backdrop, the idea of us allowing CCSF to take storage space away from our municipal and agricultural users is entirely unacceptable. In fact, it would be laughable were the topic not so serious. We all know someone who has made personal sacrifices for a cause they believe in. We admire them for their commitment. But those in the Bay Area who would tear down their dam at our expense should be ashamed of themselves. And they should look somewhere else to store their water.
BUSINESS NEWS « MARCH 2012