Friday, March 16, 2007
Restore Hetch Hetchy Valley
Rep. Dan Lundgren, R-Gold River, now supports restoration of Hetch Hetchy Valley at Yosemite Park (Tuolumne River, California, USA). "A state study last year concluded that the 380,000 acre-foot reservoir could be drained and the valley restored at a cost of between $3 billion and $10 billion." (Hetch Hetchy plan has new ally - reported today in the Sacramento Bee.)
The organization Restore Hetch Hetchy completed a feasibility study in 2005 which revealed "that by diverting water from the Tuolumne River and a tributary (Cherry Creek) into existing pipelines, 95% of the water and 73% of the energy that would be lost if the dam were removed could be retained. Additional measures such as water and energy conservation, raising Don Pedro Dam, and groundwater storage could easily and economically replace the decreased water and energy."
This proposal has scrambled up the normal ordering of supporters vs. opponents for an environmental conservation project. I hope that there is sufficient leadership to get this dam removal and valley restoration project going and enough creativity to figure out how to get the major funding that would be needed to make it happen.
See also:
2007-03-15 - Tom Philp's Waterlog: Lungren leaps onto the Hetchy bandwagon.
2007-03-14 - Tom Philp's Waterlog: Hetchy's environmental coalition grows.
More about: River Conservation and Flood Control.
Tags: river conservation, dam.
The organization Restore Hetch Hetchy completed a feasibility study in 2005 which revealed "that by diverting water from the Tuolumne River and a tributary (Cherry Creek) into existing pipelines, 95% of the water and 73% of the energy that would be lost if the dam were removed could be retained. Additional measures such as water and energy conservation, raising Don Pedro Dam, and groundwater storage could easily and economically replace the decreased water and energy."
This proposal has scrambled up the normal ordering of supporters vs. opponents for an environmental conservation project. I hope that there is sufficient leadership to get this dam removal and valley restoration project going and enough creativity to figure out how to get the major funding that would be needed to make it happen.
See also:
2007-03-15 - Tom Philp's Waterlog: Lungren leaps onto the Hetchy bandwagon.
2007-03-14 - Tom Philp's Waterlog: Hetchy's environmental coalition grows.
More about: River Conservation and Flood Control.
Tags: river conservation, dam.
Labels: conservation
