44 



Sierra Club Bulletin. 



EDITORIALS. 



The Hetch Hetchy A hearing on the Hetch Hetchy question was 

 Situation. conducted by Secretary Fisher during the week 



from the 25th to the 30th of November. The 

 final decision has not been rendered, but on a number of points Secre- 

 tary Fisher's attitude was made perfectly clear. The City's representa- 

 tives were informed that the acquisition of the Spring Valley Water 

 Company's properties would have to be a condition of any permit, unless 

 previously acquired, and that the available capacity of this system must 

 be taken into account in estimating the City's needs; that no power 

 privileges would be granted except on condition of immediate develop- 

 ment ; and that the sanitary protection of the Tuolumne watershed and 

 the extent of its interference with the recreational uses of the park 

 are serious elements in the problem. 



Secretary Fisher explained that a fundamental principle of public 

 policy was involved in requiring the City to begin with the purchase of 

 the existing water system; that any other procedure would be an 

 economic waste which the Government was determined to avoid. Conse- 

 quently it would also have to be a matter of serious inquiry to determine 

 which of the various sources open to the City in the Sierra Nevada 

 or elsev/here would be least subject to the demands of local beneficial 

 use. 



The Secretary declined to accept the opinion of the City's speciaHst 

 that one or two thousand visitors a season is all that ever needs to be 

 counted upon in devising measures of protective sanitation for the 

 Hetch Hetchy watershed. He insisted that the possibilities of pollution 

 be considered on the basis of a seasonal average of at least twenty 

 thousand visitors. 



One of the City's experts testified that it would not be necessary to 

 exclude campers from the Tuolumne watershed; that long storage was 

 sufficient to overcome the dangers of pollution. But George C. Whipple, 

 also one of the City's experts and professor of sanitary engineering at 

 Harvard, testified that Hetch Hetchy water would ultimately have to be 

 filtered under those conditions. Surgeon-General Rupert Blue, of the 

 Marine Hospital Service, testified that he would rather drink filtered 

 water from the Sacramento than Hetch Hetchy water under the lax 

 sanitation proposed by the representatives of San Francisco. 



Examination of Mr. Freeman's report disclosed the fact that the cost 

 of alternative sources of supply had all been figured on a much higher 

 unit basis than that which was adopted in the case of Hetch Hetchy. 



