Senator Feinstein has her facts muddled. The Tuolumne River is the source of San Francisco's water supply not Hetch Hetchy Valley. The Hetch Hetchy reservoir is one of nine reservoirs that San Francisco uses to store its water. Multiple studies have determined that continuing to use the Hetch Hetchy Valley is unnecessary and removing it from the system would result in a 4% loss of water. If San Francisco matched Orange County in developing sustainable local water supplies such as water recycling it could reduce its use of Tuolumne River water by 10-20%, easily offsetting the 4% loss.

Mike Marshall
Executive Director
Restore Hetch Hetchy
www.hetchhetchy.org

With all due respect, Sen. Feinstein is wrong on a number of counts. First, to suggest that Lungren's "allegations" are false is to simply ignore the legal analysis of one of California's leading water lawyers in a 37 page letter that is Appendix C to the 2004 Environmental Defense report on Hetch Hetchy restoration (see hetchhetchy.org/resources). In that letter lawyer Stuart Somach said, in discussing the Raker Act provision in question, "it is reasonable to conclude that Congress also intended for CCSF to rely on Tuolumne River water only to the extent it had fully developed its other resources. Nothing in the language of the statute fixes this limitation as of a particular time; accordingly, CCSF is arguably under a continuing obligation to develop its own resources, as by recycling, conservation, desalinization, and other available means, in order to relieve the pressure of its exports from the Tuolumne River and the Hetch Hetchy Valley."

Hard to tell what lawyers Senator Feinstein is talking to, but the analysis of Mr. Somach and former California Attorney General Lungren should mean something.

Second, Sen. Feinstein's insistence on continuing to say that "Hetch Hetchy provides critical water supplies ......" is a disingenuous way of obfuscating the simple fact that the source of the water is not "Hetch Hetchy" but, rather, the Tuolumne River. And it should be noted that 83 miles of the Tuolumne River were given the high distinction of being signed into law as a National Wild & Scenic river in 1984. Ronald Reagan signed that legislation. So, what Sen. Feinstein must mean is that a federally protected Wild & Scenic River is providing water to a city 160 miles away that turns around and sells 2/3 of it to others.

And the Senator's statement suggesting that SF is using its water efficiently is patently false. By definition you are being inefficient if you use something once and then throw it away (or in this case dump it in the Pacific Ocean or the SF Bay). Efficient use of water means recycling it and using it a second time to irrigate your six municipal golf courses, the 1000 acre Golden Gate Park, median strips along Sunset Blvd in SF, etc. etc. San Francisco is the only major city or county in California that does NO water recycling. See the 18 page list of municipalities that do recycle water at ---

http://www.swrcb.ca.gov/water_issues/programs/grants_loans/water_recycling/munirec.shtml

San Francisco is on page 12 with a big goose egg.

Sometimes the real facts help is these discussions.

"[Republican] Lungren endorsed a 2008 federal proposal to spend $7 million to study the feasibility of restoring Hetch Hetchy Valley, the Times reported. "The idea didn't get anywhere," Lungren told the newspaper. "I got the strongest impression it was stonewalled by the strongest powers in the House."...[Democrat]Feinstein "said restoring Hetch Hetchy to its original splendor is out of the question," the Times reported."

What a role reversal???

The Republican advocating for environmental conservation...the Democrat advocating for PG&E...Pacific Gauge and Extortion.

San Francisco owns and operates Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) non-jurisdictional hydroelectric and related transmission facilities pursuant to the Raker Act, 38 Stat. 242 (1913), and is a transmission customer of PG&E pursuant to an Existing Transmission Contract (ETC) on file with the Commission. The ETC provides for delivery of 200 MW of energy from the hydroelectric generation resources to load in San Francisco through Firm Transmission Rights and includes additional capacity and reserve obligations.

Maybe that's why there is no public owned power in San Francisco? The Democratic overlords all work for PG&E not you and me.