Foolhardiness Defeated, Applause is in Order

Before Hetch Hetchy valley was dammed. (Sierra Club photo)

Entranced by visions of a vanished valley of Eden, environmentalists put forward a 2012 San Francisco ballot initiative to drain the Hetch Hetchy reservoir.

It failed in a landslide, 77-23 percent.

Two years ago California's water shortage was already apparent. If the measure had passed, today's drought emergency would have made the destruction of the O'Shaughnessy Dam one of the most foolhardy acts in California's history (it supplies water to over two million people).

To prevent another chance of a single election in a single city from having such a catastrophic effect on the lives of a much larger population, the San Francisco PUC declared that the greater Bay Area has a say in the matter. Per the Mercury News:

the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission has approved a plan to block the draining of the famed reservoir unless the 26 cities and water districts in San Mateo, Santa Clara and Alameda counties that receive Hetch Hetchy water give their approval.

It's rare for the general welfare to prevail over powerful special interests, and rarer still for public agencies to cede power willingly to ensure that such interests remain stymied. Applause is in order. © 2014 Stephen Yuen