Muir's Legacy: Restoring Yosemite's Hetch Hetchy Valley

The damming of Hetch Hetchy Valley in Yosemite national Park looms large, not only in the history of the Sierra Club but in the history of America's conservation movement. In 1913, for the only time in American history, Congress allowed a single municipality to occupy and develop one of America's national parks. Undoing this "Great American mistake" (as Ken Brower describes the title of his recent book), has long been an objective of the Sierra Club. Restore Hetch Hetchy, a Sierra Club offshoot, is actively working to make restoration a reality. Executive Director Spreck Rosekrans will provide a background of Hetch Hetchy's legacy, and tell us how Restore Hetch Hetchy plans to successfully accomplish restoration. Before joining Restore Hetch Hetchy, Spreck Rosekrans spent more than 20 years at the Environmental Defense Fund, working with water agencies, electric utilities, Indian tribes and conservationists to improve native fisheries and wetland habitat in the Grand Canyon, on the Trinity River and in California's Central Valley. In addition, Spreck has provided expert testimony in Federal Court, at the State Legislature, and before the State Water Resources Control Board. Rosekrans was a founding board member of Restore Hetch Hetchy and the lead author of the Environmental Defense Fund's groundbreaking report: "Paradise Regained: Solutions for Restoring Yosemite's Hetch Hetchy Valley," which successfully showed that San Francisco would still be able to access reliable high quality Tuolumne River supplies when Hetch Hetchy Valley is restored.