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Sierra Club Bulletin. 



the city's evident good faith and the strong evidence that it 

 supposed its application was alive in the Department is shown 

 by the fact that at its request and solicitation the question of the 

 power of the Secretary of the Interior to grant the rights of 

 way applied for was referred to the Attorney-General, who, on 

 October 28, 1905, held definitely that the Secretary of the Interior 

 had full discretionary power to grant rights of way for reservoir, 

 irrigation, or hydro-electric purposes within the park. 



When the Secretary's decision of December 22, 1903, was made 

 final, the maps of location for the two reservoir sites were re- 

 turned to the city, and unfortunately were destroyed by the fire 

 which followed the earthquake of 1906. Fortunately, however, 

 exact tracings of these maps had been made by the city engineer 

 for use in court proceedings, and for that reason it has been 

 possible to file exact reproductions of the original maps, certified 

 by the city engineer. When the attention of the city's repre- 

 sentative was called to the fact that technically the city had no 

 application before the Department, he, on May 7, 1908, formally 

 filed a petition requesting the Secretary of the Interior to exercise 

 his supervisory authority and reopen the matter of the applica- 

 tion of James D. Phelan for the reservoir rights in question, thus 

 treating it as though it had never lapsed. I have given the most 

 careful consideration to this petition, and have decided that 

 the facts mentioned above are ample grounds for exercising my 

 supervisory power, and therefore reinstate the application of 

 ^Tames D. Phelan, assigned to the city, as though the case had 

 been technically kept aHve since December 22, 1903, by specific 

 compliance with the Rules of Practice of the Department. To 

 this end the tracings of the original maps of location as recertified 

 by Marsden Manson, city engineer, on April 22, 1908, will be 

 accepted in lieu of the original and treated accordingly. 



Congress, on February 1 5, 1901, provided specifically : — 



"The Secretary of the Interior ... is authorized ... to permit 

 the use of rights of way through . . . the Yosemite, Sequoia, and 

 General Grant National Parks, CaHfornia, for . . . water conduits 

 and for water plants, dams, and reservoirs used to promote . . . 

 the supply of water for domestic, pubhc, or other beneficial uses 

 . . . provided that such permits shall be allowed within or 

 through any of said parks . . . only upon the approval of the 

 chief officer of the Department under whose supervision such 

 park or reservation falls, and upon a finding by him that the 

 same is not incompatible with the public interest." 



By these words Congress has given power to the Secretary 

 of the Interior to grant the rights applied for by the city of San 

 Francisco if he finds that the permit "is not incompatible with 

 the public interest." Therefore I need only consider the effect 

 of granting the application upon "the public interest." 



In construing the words of a statute the evident and ordinary 

 meaning should be taken, when such meaning is reasonable and 

 not repugnant to the evident purpose of the law itself. On this 

 broad principle the words "the pubhc interest" should not be 

 confined merely to the public interest in the Yosemite National 

 Park for use as a park only, but rather the broader public interest 

 which requires these reservoir sites to be utiHzed for the highest 

 good to the greatest number of people. If Congress had intended 



