The State : Hetch Hetchy Plan ‘Dead’

Interior Secretary Donald P. Hodel’s proposal to tear down O’Shaughnessy Dam in Yosemite National Park, removing the main source of water for 2 million San Francisco Bay Area residents, is virtually dead, state water officials were told recently. Deborah Rohrer of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission said at a meeting of the California Water Commission that the Interior Department tried to get congressional approval for a $600,000 study of Hodel’s proposal to knock down the 75-year-old dam and restore the Hetch Hetchy Valley to its original state. But both the House and Senate have rejected the proposal, and an effort to use money already budgeted for other projects was unsuccessful. The 330-foot-high O’Shaughnessy Dam was built in 1913 by the city and county of San Francisco.