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Sierra Club Bulletin 



Francisco, or by applying them to additional irrigation in the Tuolumne 

 region and using for San Francisco one of the other sources of water 

 supply available for that purpose. 



The whole case largely hinges upon the answer to the question of 

 whether the project would or would not seriously depreciate the value 

 of the Yosemite National Park for the purposes to which it has been 

 dedicated, 



I think I approached the matter with as little prejudice as a man, 

 sufficiently informed to be a competent judge, well could have; because 

 I did so with two general principles uppermost in my mind, one of 

 which pointed a priori to the assumption that the valley ought to be 

 used for water works purposes, the other that it ought not. 



COMBINING TWO USES 



The first principle is so well set forth by Mr. Allen Hazen in Mr. 

 John R. Freeman's report to the city of San Francisco that I cannot 

 express my own thoughts better than by quoting what he says, with 

 the addition of a single word, in square brackets, to qualify the uni- 

 versality of its appHcation: 



Granting the desirability of keeping certain areas free,, or substan- 

 tially free, from population, for the purpose of drawing public water 

 supplies from them, and of keeping certain areas free from population 

 for the purpose of using them for parks, the park areas being selected 

 with reference to their natural beauty and facilities for camping and 

 use by the people, there seems to be no reason why these two classes 

 or areas should be kept separate. [Ordinarily] the use of an area for 

 one purpose does not interfere appreciably with its use for the other 

 purpose, and from the standpoint of conservation and the fullest use 

 of the resources of the country there is every reason why the two uses 

 should be combined as far as it can be done advantageously, and the 

 same area used for park purposes and for water supply purposes. 



I have urged this principle again and again, and have done not a little 

 in helping to put it into practice. Where water supply is the prime pur- 

 pose to be served it is very often possible to secure incidentally im- 

 portant means of public recreation of certain kinds at a very slight 

 additional cost and with no impairment of the water supply function 

 whatever, thereby reducing the extent and cost of park facilities that 

 need to be independently provided. Not infrequently land acquired and 

 policed primarily for park purposes may serve incidentally to protect 

 the purity of a water supply,, or may afford rights of way for water 

 works or sites for reservoirs, with no impairment of their park value 

 or even with actual increase of park value; while the economy thus 

 effected in the waterworks may also justify the expenditure of water 

 supply funds for the accomplishment of additional park purposes, as 

 in the costly and interesting scenic road proposed by Mr. Freeman for 

 the Hetch Hetchy. 



UTILITARIAN AND .ESTHETIC VALUES 



The other principle is much harder to state clearly, but is equally 

 sound and equally important. It is based on the fact that the value of 

 any object of beauty, whether mainly natural or mainly a work of art' 



