Interview Transcript Spreck Rosekrans Economic Analyst Land, Water & Wildlife, Energy Programs Environmental Defense Fund San Francisco, CA Office
"In his 19 years at Environmental Defense, Spreck’s work has help to improve fishery and wetland habitat along the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon, on the Trinity River in northern California and in the San Francisco Bay-Delta watershed. He works with water agencies, Indian Tribes and conservationists throughout California." - Environmental Defense Fund Staff
Date of interview: MAY 13, 2011. What do you think is the prime motivation for the people to restore Hetch Hetchy valley today? Feinstein has expressed opposition to this.
People who are opposed to restoration is because of cost- it costs money to replace the water supply, there is some hydropower that needs to be replaced, there are water quality issues. There is an exemption that they have- put in a few chemicals in the water, no filtration whatsoever. Most people are opposed because of cost. There are also folks opposed to it because of ideological reasons– like look at these crazy environmental people. Tuolumne river has a lot of storage on it, but Don Pedro downstream has six times more storage that Hetch Hetchy. As far as Feinstein goes- she is sort of , definitely hard to image how much power she has, she chairs the senate of appropriations committee- which is the committee that gives money to projects. She is California’s senior senator. She is going to figure out which senator is opposing the dam and wants money for some different things in their own state and she will figure it out and deny that senator. She was the mayor in 1987 in San Franscisco.
How the Hetch Hetchy controversy did created the environmental movement in US?
In the early part of the 20th century, there was not much of an environmental movement, there have been a few things that was done like the Audubon society, people were concerned that they are killing off buffaloes, a lot of open space and develop nature for natural spaces. And we had created a few of the natural parks. And then someone said “Wait a minute, you are going to put a dam in a natural park that was not meant to be”. There was a huge debate, the purpose of natural park, 100 news papers or more took sides, and nothing like this ever happened- kind of like an epiphany that people realized that world is becoming a more crowded place and we need to protect it. And that time Sierra was like an outing club, taking mountain trips, not too politically involved, and they became a political organization from a social club, led by Muir.
Today- what role do you see like organizations like EDF play in other similar controversies?
Well, there are not too many similar controversies. Glen canyon could be one of them. I work for EDF and I am on the board at Restore Hetch Hetchy. EDF for about 5 years got heavily involved to restore Hetch Hetchy, and then we backed out, we dropped the program, that is largely because of folks like Feinstein had a lot to do with that. We wanted to work with her on a lot of other issues like global warming, and some other things and it has proven to be an issue that many organizations will say they support but do not seem inclined to really pursue, it is very all consuming, once you get involved it is hard to balance other things. Restore Hetch Hetchy got started as the sierra club has a policy for supporting restoration, but they never really did anything about it, they talked to David Bower- former president of Sierra club and he said to start a separate organization. It makes sense that for single issue organizations to pursue this sort of single issue, like the Mono lake committee- who got help from other groups but they took the lead on Mono Lake, just like the Glen canyon institute. In this case, I do think we are likely to get more help from larger environmental groups but people might stay away as it is a political and controversial issue and the leadership will come from a group dedicated to that issue, and not from EDF or Sierra club who has huge smorgasbord of issues to accomplish.
So like Restore Hetch Hetchy is a specialized group for Hetch Hetchy and large groups are focused on less controversial environmental issues?
I do not want to say that the other issues are less controversial, but Hetch Hetchy is a narrow issue, and we find that in many places that the groups focusing on one geographical areas generally tend to be a single issue group.
It appears that the motivation damming is largely driven by economic benefits for the wealthy. Do you agree?
No, I do not know where that came from. San Franscisco had a water system- a private system, run by Spring Valley Water Company and in 1906 earthquake, they had water in storage, but pipes broke, and people were frustrated. I think as far as I know the effort to dam the Hetch Hetchy is to develop the whole community, led by business interests. Because business interests usually lead these things. I do not know of any evidence of economic benefits for the wealthy. I don’t have any evidence for that.
What do you consider are the true successes as a result of the debate over Hetch Hetchy?
Well, certainly the real success we are hoping for is to restore the valley, to make the other half of Yosemite to make available to the public, manage it in a way that is maybe more natural than Yosemite valley. It is kind of stunning, but crowded, more traffic, we can hopefully get a shuttle system, no private automobiles- that is a discussion for public to have and it would also undo sort of historical insult done to the natural park. One thing I don’t know if you have seen it in your research that the Raker act was passed in 1913, that allowed the construction of dam, and the congress passed after a few years a different act called a National Park Services act or an Organic act, and they did that largely to prevent more development of national parks. The army was in charge of administering national park and so forth, and it really helped to put it on a positive tract- undo the insult, to inspire the people around the world to take care of not just this park but places in their own community.. Beyond that, without having accomplished the Restore Hetch Hetchy, the Sf public utility commissions – folks who run the water system during the course of the time when we were arguing with them, going to courts etc., created a whole environmental water shed, and doing a lot of stuff on public lands, to make them more environmentally compatible. They now have a staff of 40 people, things were at zero- ten years ago, we have forced them in an environmental direction. That is a partial success as well.
As part of your job on the Restore Hetch Hetchy board, how have you been able to convey to people how important this is?
Well, I think it is important to people who cares about National park, National heritage and natural resources, it is not important to everybody. We have told a lot of people, we tell them the story, we tell them the alternatives to water, they don’t know what it is about and people make up their mind. And then generally once people learn about it, becomes more civic and they realize that the restoration is not unthinkable. Some people think that oh, no- our water comes from Hetch Hetchy, well no- it comes from the Tuolumne River. The water happens to be stored in the national park. And not everyone is still compelled by these arguments but certainly many are.
Hetch Hetchy supplies a low amount of energy to the state of California, but supplies large amount of good quality water to the bay area? In your opinion is this a success? Why or why not?
Certainly energy and water are important things, we have to balance and we have to figure out where we get them from and how we use them, the water that comes to San Francisco through that system now- 95% would still be available to them even if the dam is removed. So it is not like San Francisco is giving up the river, they are going to have to give up 5% of the average of the water they get. That 5% can be replaced. Similarly on the energy side, most of the energy will still be produced, there are three major power plants on the water shed- and they will all still be used. We get about 20% of the energy and we can do this without burning more fossil fuels and all that, which gets more expensive, it is not like all of these have to be replaced. Water and power issues are challenging and can be dealt with. There is no place like Hetch Hetchy valley and no opportunity like this to restore it that I know of.
So you think that the percentages that you listed are debate points? Could they be Topics that might help sway from Feinstein sides to other sides that support the restoration?
Those are really important numbers and I try to bring them as I talk about this. To many people, they are compelling but not to everyone, I don’t know or expect Feinstein to really care, she has heard enough and decided not to pursue it, but to other folks- it makes a big difference.
Ok, thank you so much for the interview, I understand the debate today a lot more about power, energy and the water topics, I understand more now.
Ok, thank you for choosing to do this project, your website looks fantastic; I will tell everybody about it and good luck for history day.