Hetchy Valley Case Study

The damming of Hetch Hetchy valley was one of the first big controversial environmental debates that started the conservation movement, in the United States. The Hetch Hetchy Valley is a glacially formed valley in the northwestern corner of Yosemite National park in California. Yosemite was declared a national park in the late 1800’s by congress to protect this valuable wilderness for all people. The debate was between John Muir and Gifford Pinchot. Muir was against the dam and Pinchot was for it. Muir founded the Sierra Club and was one of the leading advocates for the creation of the U.S. national park system. Pinchot was one of the first scientific foresters (head of the US Forest service), and he worked to develop programs that created public interest in conservation. Both were considered to be founding fathers of the environmental movement in the US. In 1906 San Francisco experienced a devastating earthquake that highlighted their
He also refers to it as “Natures Cathedral”. To ignore the fact that it was an important area for economic gain is a short-sided decision. The Dam in Hetch Hetchy Valley should not have been built. The supposed immediate need for water as Alexander Paul Dejesse posted was not as “immediate” as the lobbyist made it out to be. There would have been time to source it from another source not so unique as Hetch Hetchy. A source perhaps a bit farther away but not in a protected area and perhaps not downstream from sewage. Even though the argument was pushed in a way suggesting that water to the residence was of upmost importance I believe the underlying importance was to harness the electricity that water could provide. This was in every way an economical decision disguised as a plight of the