Lake Eleanor and Cherry Valley are northwest of Hetch-Hetchy. Lake Eleanor, distant about eight miles, is approximately 1000 feet higher than Hetch-Hetchy. Cherry Valley is distant about twelve miles and is approximately 1000 feet higher than Eleanor. Cherry Valley has tributary to it 114 square miles of territory, all in the Stanislaus National Park. Lake Eleanor and the seventy-nine square miles tributary to it are entirely in the Yosemite National Park. The outlets of Cherry Valley and of Lake Eleanor empty into the Tuolumne River several miles nearer the San Joaquin than Hetch-Hetchy.
(2) A report of the State Geologist of California in 1879 suggested Hetch-Hetchy Valley and Lake Eleanor as possible sources of water supply for the city of San Francisco.
In 1883 a corporation was formed to supply water to San Francisco from the sources of the Tuolumne River. Filings were made and considerable work put in. In 1901 the City Engineer was directed to examine the available sources of water supply for San Francisco. He investigated fourteen different sources and under suggestion of the reclamation service spent about $50,000 in detailed investigation of the sources of the Tuolumne, with a view to utilization at Hetch-Hetchy and Lake Eleanor. That was before the section was taken into the Yosemite National Park in 1905.
The city engineer made his report in 1901 when James D. Phelan was Mayor. This report was immediately approved by the Board of Public Works and since then has been the settled municipal policy of San Francisco so far as water is concerned. This report recommended the Tuolumne River in the following words:
“This source presents the following unrivalled advantages: Absolute purity by reason of the unhabitable character of the entire watershed tributary to the reservoirs and largely within a forest reservation. Abundance far beyond possible future demands for all purposes. Largest and most numerous sites for storage; freedom from complication of water rights; power possibilities outside the reservation.
“It has the drawback of distance to overcome, requiring the constructing of conduits aggregating 142 miles in length. But considering the partial and rapid rate of pollution to which all other sources may in the future be subjected, particularly nearby sources, the Tuolumne River is far superior to any other.”
Thereupon, Mayor Phelan posted notices on the banks of the Tuolumne on July 29, 1901, of his claim to 10,000 miner’s inches of the waters of that river, “for irrigation, manufacturing purposes, water power and domestic use.” Phelan, when his rights matured, assigned them to the city, as the law did not allow a municipality to make a filing.
Under a grant issued May 11, 1908, by James R. Garfield, Secretary of the Interior, San Francisco obtained permission to store the waters of Lake Eleanor and Cherry Valley, develop them to their highest capacity, and when they should prove insufficient for the needs of the city, to store water in the Hetch-Hetchy Valley by crossing it with a dam. Secretary Garfield conditioned in this grant that San Francisco should submit the proposition to the people of the city for ratification, should buy up all the land held by private owners around Hetch-Hetchy and Lake Eleanor and hold such land for the city.
This proposition was voted upon by the legal voters of San Francisco in November, 1909, in a resolution as to whether or not they wished to acquire a means of water supply in the sources of the Tuolumne River, according to the terms of the Garfield permit, and to vote a municipal bond issue of $600,000 to obtain the land and water rights necessary therefor. The proposition was carried by a vote of more than five to one.
Thereupon San Francisco paid $174,311.20 for 720 acres of privately owned land in the Hetch-Hetchy Valley and for certain other lands so held which were not on the floor of the valley, but which, under the permit, the city must buy for camp sites, so that when campers were excluded from the floor of the valley they still might have a place to camp. These 720 acres comprise about two-thirds of the floor of Hetch-Hetchy Valley. They are now held by San Francisco in fee simple title. Next the city bought standing timber from the Government around Lake Eleanor for $13,428.77. Then out of the $600,000 voted, the city bought the land and water rights claimed by private owners around Lake Eleanor for $400,000.