Notes and Correspondence. 327 



rights hereby applied for, submit the question of said water 

 supply to the vote of its citizens as required by its charter, 

 and within three years thereafter, if such vote be affirmative, 

 will commence the actual construction of the Lake Eleanor 

 dam, and will carry the same to completion with all reason- 

 able diligence, so that said reservoir may be completed 

 within five years after the commencement thereof, unless 

 such times hereinbefore specified shall be extended by the 

 Secretary of the Interior for cause shown by the city, or 

 the construction delayed by htigation; and unless the con- 

 struction of said reservoir is authorized by a vote of the 

 city and county and said work is commenced, carried on, 

 and completed within the times herein specified, all rights 

 granted hereunder shall revert to the Government. 



In considering the reinstated application of the city of San 

 Francisco I do not need to pass upon the claim that this is the 

 only practical and reasonable source of water supply for the 

 city. It is sufficient that after careful and competent study 

 the officials of the city insist that such is the case. By granting 

 the appHcation opportunity will be given for the city, by obtain- 

 ing the necessary two-thirds majority vote, to demonstrate the 

 practical question as to whether or not this is the water supply 

 desired and needed by the residents of San Francisco. 



I therefore approve the maps of location for the Lake Eleanor 

 and Hetch Hetchy reservoir sites as filed by James D. Phelan 

 and assigned to the city of San Francisco, subject to the filing 

 by the city of the formal stipulations set forth above, and the 

 fulfillment of the conditions therein contained. 



Very respectfully, 



James Rudolph Garfield, 

 Secretary. 



It will be of interest to our many friends who stood by us in 

 this fight for the preservation of some of the grandest natural 

 scenery in the Sierra to learn from the foregoing decision that 

 San Francisco must first develop and use the Lake Eleanor por- 

 tion of the system to the limit of its capacity. It has been 

 estimated that the Lake Eleanor supply when fully developed 

 is capable of furnishing 60,000,000 gallons of water daily. This, 

 in addition to San Francisco's present supply, will meet all her 

 requirements for more than a quarter of a century in all prob- 

 ability, and meanwhile Hetch Hetchy Valley will be untouched. 



Before the Lake Eleanor supply can be utilized, San Francisco 

 must vote on the question of the acquisition of this system and 

 determine whether she wishes to issue bonds for the $40,000,000 

 or $50,000,000 which it has been estimated the plant will cost 

 when completed. 



In deciding this question it will be well for the city to keep 

 in mind the fact that approximately five hundred square miles 

 of the Tuolumne watershed, or fully one half of the entire area 

 of the Yosemite National Park, drain directly into the proposed 



