Tuolumne River

Vote for Environmental & Spiritual Restoration: Yes on Prop F

By: Rev. Canon Sally G. Bingham 10/14/12 8:13 PM

After many years of ministry devoted to deepening the connection between ecology and faith, I have come to realize that most people have a strong sense of the divine in nature. Nature, for many, is the place where we meet God and taste the beauty of creation. San Franciscans especially thrive on the natural wonder around us and have been famously progressive and forward-thinking when it comes to sustainable living and preservation of our natural resources. Read More

Hetch Hetchy ballot fight heats up as election nears

By: Dan Schreiber 10/09/12 9:58 PM

The latest battle in the intermittent centurylong war to drain the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir in Yosemite National Park is intensifying as the Nov. 6 election approaches. Read More

Talks falter for San Francisco’s ‘insurance’ water from Tuolumne River

By: Dan Schreiber 09/19/12 7:55 PM

San Francisco’s bid to secure a backup supply of water from the Modesto Irrigation District is dead for now after negotiations between that entity and The City’s Public Utilities Commission officially broke down Tuesday night. Read More

Hetch Hetchy helped San Francisco bloom at the cost of Yosemite gem

By: Amy Crawford 06/28/12 10:23 PM

In 1987, more than half a century after San Francisco built the O’Shaughnessy Dam, the debate over the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir was briefly rekindled. Donald Hodel, President Ronald Reagan’s secretary of the Interior Department, may have seemed an unlikely environmentalist, but San Francisco leaders saw no joke in his proposal that the reservoir be drained. Read More

‘Secret shadow’ of green city

By: Amy Crawford 06/28/12 1:46 AM

Along with its open-mindedness, embrace of eccentricity and political liberalism, nothing so defines San Francisco as its desire to be green. The Bay Area was the birthplace of environmentalism, and we express our ecological sensibility in everything from locally raised food to hybrid cars to bans on plastic bags. Read More

Taste for Hetch Hetchy water hard to shake

By: Amy Crawford 06/26/12 10:26 PM

In the minds of many San Franciscans, The City’s tap water is indelibly linked to the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir. But recently, when the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission announced plans to drill new wells on the west side of The City, officials concluded that they might have oversold the Hetch Hetchy brand. Read More

Hetch Hetchy Series #2: Proposal to study Hetch Hetchy dam removal gaining traction

By: Amy Crawford 06/26/12 1:29 AM

Restore Hetch Hetchy operates out of a shabby fifth-floor office in San Francisco's South of Market neighborhood, across Mission Street from abandoned storefronts and a rundown SRO hotel. The small nonprofit's staff is forced to drink bottled water, because the aging buildings rusting pipes make tap water unpalatable. Read More

Hetch Hetchy series: A valley drowns, a city thrives

By: Amy Crawford 06/25/12 6:00 AM

Yosemite National Park draws up to 4 million visitors each year. They come to admire the stunning granite of Yosemite Valley, hike in the Sierra Nevada and enjoy the unspoiled wilderness. Yet Yosemite also is the source of 85 percent of San Francisco’s drinking water. And that has made it the setting of one of the country’s longest-running environmental debates. Read More

Hetch Hetchy opponents prepare initiative

By: Amy Crawford 02/29/12 5:00 AM

As environmentalists said they will file paperwork today for a ballot initiative requiring city officials to plan for the possible removal of the O’Shaughnessy Dam and the draining of the Hetchy Hetch Reservoir, Mayor Ed Lee denounced their proposal.Restore Hetch Hetchy, a group devoted to returning the valley in Yosemite National Park to its original state, will need to gather 9,702 signatures by July 9 to put the initiative on November’s ballot. Read More