The DAMNing of the Tuolumne

(originally posted June 2008 at UCAN.org)


The Governor's 2008-09 budget called for $11.9 billion bond financing for 'water management investments', including $3.5 billion for development of additional storage.  Dam, there goes another river or two.


This takes me back to 2003, when I had the occasion to visit the Tuolumne River in Yosemite National Park.  My journal from that winter day tells the story:

Trip Log: February 18, 2003
Hetch-Hetchy: A sobering send-off


(click on thumbnail image)
The sun draws low on the western horizon as we make our way by VW bus to the western boundary of Yosemite National Park, to the drainage of the Tuolumne River.  For me this is a journey of discovery.  I seek to discover what power humankind has over the forces of nature.  I am reluctant to make the trip, and trembling at the emotion I will feel when I see It.

For my 47 years of life I have so far avoided confronting this horrific monster in the flesh.  Only in pictures have I seen it: O’Shaughnessy Dam.  The Hetchy-Hetchy Reservoir.  The damming of the Tuolumne.  The DAMNing of the Tuolumne.  The dam named to honor the engineer who dishonored the River.

As we approach the ranger kiosk, the time is 4:00.  We have exactly one hour to make the 24 mile round-trip drive to the reservoir, and pay our respects to the once-grand valley, before the gates close for another day.  I’ve never enjoyed funerals, and I especially despise open casket  viewings, so best to make this memorial tribute a quick one.  The viewing.  The river in death.  A poignant vision for 20 minutes that will stay with me for the rest of my life.  We drive on.

As we round the curve in the winding road, we gain our first view of the reservoir, hundreds of feet below us.  A pock on the landscape.  We press on, reluctantly.

Driving past the full-time caretaker housing, and the police cruiser which has become a constant fixture at the dam since '9-11' we approach the dam itself.  I've seen dams before, but this one is different.  This is the dam in a National Park that John Muir tried in vane to stop almost 100 years ago, dying shortly after the decision to build the dam was approved.

The painted over graffiti on the face of the dam, which once read 'Free The River', says it all.  The Tuolumne is a prisoner, and unfairly incarcerated.  It committed no crime, other than to flow freely and powerfully from the mountains to the sea.

Standing on the dam now (10 minutes left!), we look eastward.  We imagine what the fertile valley used to look like (we've seen pictures: Beautiful, serene.)  It is dead now.  And buried.

And then it hit us.  The stillness.  The coldness.  The lifelessness.  There is no life here.  THERE IS NO SOUND.  Sterile, antiseptic, like a morgue.  The eerie, solemn feeling of death.  The river and valley before us lay in state, dead of the greed that caused humankind to snuff it out for the water and power that it could provide to the Citizens of San Francisco.

The river is dead.  We pay our respects and depart.

There are rivers and mountains yet to be saved.  We pay our respects and climb slowly back up the road to the kiosk, making it out by 5:05 pm.

Fast forward to present.  Do we need to dam another river to slake our thirst for water?  Or can we get some political leadership in our region to implement sound water conservation policies that can produce real savings in water use?  Perhaps a visit to the Hetch-Hetchy should be mandatory for all in-coming electeds.  I'll drive.