Hetch Hetchy Restored

Thursday, May 1st, 2014 we held a celebration. We came together to celebrate an epochal moment in the history of this nation, namely the restoration of Hetch Hetchy. Maybe not tomorrow or the day after, but I see it coming. It will mark a turning point in the Life and spirit of this land. 

Here are some remarks I made:-

Situated inside Yosemite National Park, Hetch Hetchy Valley runs parallel to Yosemite Valley. It is a few miles to the north. It was said have been more beautiful.

It was described by John Muir as “one of nature’s rarest and most precious mountain temples.” The pristine Tuolumne River flowed along the valley floor boarded by flowering meadows and ancient forests which teemed with bears, bobcats,deer and eagles. Indeed, Hetch Hetchy Valley was considered one of the most unique and diverse ecosystems in the world.

Initially protected by the establishment of Yosemite National Park, in 1913 the city of San Francisco won congressional approval to build O’Shaughnessy Dam. This extraordinary wilderness valley was submerged under 300 feet of water.

The spokesmen of “progress and precision” asked, “Isn’t one Yosemite enough? Why do you need two?”. Quite right. After all, “if you've seen one redwood you've seen them all”.

It is my pleasure to introduce James Cogan, wilderness historian and master storyteller.

Jim came to California in 1962. He visited Yosemite after reading John Muir. He was converted forever to following in his footsteps. He became a Yosemite Park naturalist in 1972 .Upon visiting Hetch Hetchy, he was enthralled that there were two Yosemites.

One day as I was leafing through the Wall Street Journal I was much taken by an eloquent article in the Op-ed section. It inveighed about the way California was embarking on an enormously costly project to build a high speed rail system without first securing the necessary funding. They seem to be thinking that once they got started it would be deemed too big to fail and somehow the state would come up with the extra bucks.The taxpayer would ultimately bail them out.The author pointed out that history seemed to be repeating itself - the Hetch Hetchy dam project was financed on the same makeshift,dishonest basis.

I wrote to the author and invited him to come to Berkeley. He graciously assented.

The fight to preserve Hetch Hetchy was John Muir’s last struggle.Some say that when the battle was lost he died of a broken heart.
Jim is here to tell that story and by doing so will become a small part of the growing movement to complete John Muir’s work.

More stories:

http://www.livingtreecommunity.com/store2/cause.asp