A SHOCKER FROM HODEL

Image Gallery John Muir, the founder of the Sierra Club, in Hetch Hetchy Valley.

EARTH DIARY

Damned if you do, dammed if you don't.

By Tom Turner

John Muir, the
founder of the
Sierra Club, in
Hetch Hetchy
Valley.

Interior Secretary Donald P. Hodel stunned California environmentalists and politicians August 6 when he suggested tearing down O'Shaugnessy Dam in Yosemite National Park. Hodel, who has been harshly criticized by environmental leaders for insensitivity to the natural landscape, is said to have dreamed up the idea on his own.

The most intemperate reaction came from Dianne Feinstein, mayor of San Francisco.

"The worst idea since selling arms to Iran," she railed. The Sierra Club praised the idea, saying that the dam in Hetch Hetchy Valley was the oldest blot on the national park system.

Other environmentalists were skeptical of Mr. Hodel's motives, wondering, for example, if he was hoping to deflect the public's attention from ecological concerns in Alaska long enough for him to persuade Congress to let oilmen into the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

The San Francisco newspapers were quick to judge the proposal. "Hands off, Mr. Secretary," warned the Chronicle . "The best argument yet for drug testing of federal employees," thundered the Examiner .

To understand the reactions of Ms. Feinstein and the local press, one must realize that by virtue of heroic wheeling and dealing in the first part of this century, the city of San Francisco owns one of the sweetest deals for water and power of any city in the land. Enshrined in a law known as the Rak er Act, San Francisco has rights to a fair fraction of the pure, sweet water that flows down the Tuolumne River from the Yosemite high country. The city also operates several power plants on the river, which earned it a tidy profit of $50 million last year.

But let's stop and think about this for a minute. What right does a city have to defile a national park the way San Francisco does with this benighted reservoir? If the city—any city—tried to build a dam in the middle of a national park today, it would be run out of town. Mr. Hodel's motives may be other than he says they are, but that doesn't make the idea a bad one.