National Park Notes 



213 



On June 10, 1920, the President signed an act to create a Federal power 

 commission, to provide for the improvement of navigation, the development of 

 water power, and other purposes. The title of the act is "The Federal Water- 

 Power Act." In its early tentative form the bill was scrutinized by the Na- 

 tional Park Service and the form as submitted considered to safeguard the 

 national parks and monuments from commercial invasion for water-power or 

 irrigation purposes. When the bill, as finally passed by Congress, was sub- 

 mitted for the President's signature it was found that it contained provisions 

 opening up all the national parks and monuments for water-power develop- 

 ment. The bill, however, was signed with the understanding that necessary 

 amendatory legislation would be presented and passed at the next session of 

 Congress excluding the national parks and monuments from within the scope 

 of the act. 



This bill creates a commission which is empowered to issue to citizens of the 

 United States or to corporations licenses for the purpose of constructing, oper- 

 ating, and maintaining dams, water-conduits, reservoirs, power-houses, trans- 

 mission-lines, or other power project works along and on navigable waters of 

 the United States, or upon any part of the public lands and reservations of the 

 United States. The act then defines "reservations" to include national parks, 

 national monuments, Indian and forest reservations. These reservations, 

 among other public lands, are subject to the commission composed of the Sec- 

 retary of War, the Secretary of the Interior, and the Secretary of Agriculture. 

 In other words, the national parks and monuments are taken out of the hands 

 of Congress, which has always retained its immediate jurisdiction over the 

 national parks, and are turned over to the hands of this commission for com- 

 mercial development. As a result of this law, applications have been made to 

 the commission for licenses for water-power rights in the Sequoia and Yosem- 

 ite national parks and in the Grand Cafion National Park; in fact, there is 

 not a lake or a waterfall in any one of our national parks that can not be 

 levied on for water-power purposes. 



The city of Los Angeles has made application to the State Water Commis- 

 sion for various permits for utilizing water in the Yosemite and Sequoia na- 

 tional parks. The following examples will indicate the extent to which such 

 applications would affect these parks : 



The city's application. No. 1867, contemplates a reservoir within the Yo- 

 semite National Park in Virginia Canon, near its mouth; also a reservoir in 

 Tuolumne Canon, to flood Glen Aulin, together with a conduit which will by- 

 pass the water-wheels at California and LeConte falls, extending to a power- 

 house at the mouth of Return Creek. Another intake is to be constructed im- 

 mediately below this power-house and from it a conduit will lead to a power- 

 house in Tuolumne Canon, immediately below Harden Lake. 



Their application, No. 1868, for a permit to utilize water for the genera- 

 tion of electrical power, contemplates a storage reservoir on Merced Lake in 

 the Yosemite National Park, with a conduit leading from this reservoir to a 

 power-house to be located in Little Yosemite Valley; also a diversion of Illi- 

 louette Creek and Buena Vista Creek, at their mouths, with a conduit leading 

 from said diversion to the before-mentioned power-house in the Little Yo- 



