The proposition of San Francisco is to build a dam across Hetch-Hetchy Valley 100 feet at the bottom, 760 feet at the top and 300 feet high. This will cover 1930 acres of land with water and extend the water back between seven and eight miles and one and one-half miles wide at the widest point. It is also proposed to build a dam 150 feet high and 1500 feet long at Lake Eleanor. This will flood 1443 acres. The Hetch-Hetchy dam and reservoir will supply in dry seasons 250 gallons a day per capita for 1,000,000 people. Colonel John Biddle of the Board of Army Engineers estimated the cost of the Hetch-Hetchy supply at $77,000,000.
The final development will give to the command of San Francisco between 400 and 500 million gallons a day. The dams will be of massive masonry. The water will be carried through cement-lined steel pressure pipes and concrete lined tunnels ten feet in diameter, cut through the mountains of the coast range. There will be about eighty-three miles of water tunnels. Under the formation of water districts this water can be divided between the two sides of the Bay and approximately 1,000,000 people can now use it. At the upper end of the aqueduct will be two main power-houses capable of developing 145,000 mechanical horse-power twenty-four hours each day of the year.
The present plans of the city provide for its water needs as far ahead as the year 2,000, when at the present rate of growth there will be over 3,000,000 people around the Bay, causing a necessity for 540,000,000 gallons of water daily.
(2) Before the House Committee in Washington, June, 1913, Colonel Biddle testified that he had made a personal examination of every available source of water for the city and in detail described the features of each source, its advantages and disadvantages. Each one was considered not merely as to benefits to San Francisco, but as to whether or not the taking of water would be harmful to other sections now using it for other than domestic purposes, especially for irrigation.
The testimony of Colonel Biddle was that all the water of California was needed for domestic use and irrigation; that as the State is settled more and more, and as better and better facilities are devised for irrigation, more and more the streams are becoming used for these purposes; and that the only available sources of water for San Francisco would reach either the Sacramento or San Joaquin rivers, both flowing into San Francisco Bay, one from the north and one from the south, and together forming a valley about 500 miles long.
The chairman of this committee, Scott Ferris, conducted the examination as follows:
“With the information before you, coupled with the results of these two investigations, if you were a member of this committee, having due regard for the rights of the irrigation people, those of the nature lovers, who believe that you should not interfere with the Yosemite National Park, and the needs of San Francisco, which system would you vote for?”
“Biddle—I would vote for the Hetch-Hetchy system.”
“Chairman—Would you feel, in casting a vote of that kind, that you had inflicted a greater wrong upon the irrigation people and the nature lovers than if you had voted for one of the other systems?”
“Biddle—No, sir.”