Preceding the qualification of a 2012 San Francisco ballot measure that will ask city residents to return the Hetch Hetchy Valley to the National Park Service for restoration, the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission admits its nearly ten billion dollar cost estimate for the project was not based on any study performed by it, but rather was an estimate based on a study by the same state agency that itself cites the SFPUC as the source for the figure.
Mike Marshall, Executive Director of the Restore Hetch Hetchy non-profit organization, explains the nearly ten billion dollar figure comes from a 2007 California Department of Water Resources Hetch Hetchy restoration feasibility report that footnotes the estimate was determined by SFPUC documentation DWR never received.
Marshall disputes the high cost estimate of the SFPUC and DWR, offering his organization's own cost estimate of around $1.5 billion, including $75 million to control the draw down of the valley to ensure native species, not invasive non-native species repopulate the habitat, $250-300 million to “re-plumb” the city’s pipes to the Don Pedro reservoir and up to a billion dollars to build a filtration system for the city’s water, “Which will be required in 25 years anyway,” claims Marshall, due to climate change and the increasing turbidity of the water.
According to Tyrone Jue, Director of Communications for SFPUC, "There was no detailed analysis done on our part because at the time there was already an independent study underway by the California Department of Water Resources to develop cost estimates," Jue wrote in an email to California Progress Report.
"Spending $65 million (as estimated by DWR in their report) of ratepayer money on a study or dedicating significant staff time to the exercise would have been a direct conflict to our clear voter-established mandate under the City Charter," said Jue.
Restore Hetch Hetchy has asked the SFPUC to hold a public hearing on the issue of returning the Hetch Hetchy to the National Park Service to restore the valley naturalist John Muir himself fought to preserve. The city commission has steadfastly refused to hold the hearing.
"Notwithstanding, in the interest of making sure the public was at least informed on missing elements from Environmental Defense and Restore Hetch Hetchy proposals," Jue wrote the [SFPUC] wants to make sure that the following factors are accounted for, including:
- New interties
- New pump facilities
- New conveyance facilities
- New capacity to accommodate the run of the river operation
- Increase local storage
- Treatment facilities
- Purchase of water in critically dry years (1 in 5 years)
- Replacement of lost power from the Hetch Hetchy Project
- Compensate Modesto and Turlock Irrigation Districts for storage in Don Pedro
- Operation, maintenance and powering of all these new facilities
- Removal of O’Shaughnessy Dam
"Even though our estimated costs were preliminary," wrote Jue, "they were essentially validated when DWR, using their own independent methodology and assessment, arrived at a similar estimate of up to $9.8 billion for draining Hetch Hetchy.
"The costs are clearly 3 to 10 times more than what was estimated by Restore Hetch Hetchy and Environmental Defense. DWR also cites that the estimate 'does not include the cost of conducting all the planning studies required to proceed with further consideration of the program,'" stated Jue.
"If a decision is made to continue the investigations, the cost would be approximately $65 million,” wrote Jue.
Marshall declined immediate comment, but said his organization will respond to the SFPUC correspondence on Monday, November 28th.
The expected November, 2012 local ballot measure will ask San Francisco’s environment-leaning, progressive voters to right what has been called the greatest environmental wrong in the nation’s history by returning the Hetch Hetchy Valley to the National Park Service for the 8 mile long valley’s eventual restoration.
Water and its conveyance are the top political debates in California today, a state of water rich and water-wanting regions. The destruction of the Hetch Hetchy Valley by San Francisco and Mono Lake's destruction by Los Angeles dating back more than a century, remain divisive topics as environmentalists seek to restore, preserve and conserve the natural beauty of the golden state.
(This article first appeared at California Water Wars .)
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