2007 Silicon Valley Projections - Silicon Valley Leadership Group
2007 Silicon Valley Projections - Silicon Valley Leadership Group
2007 Silicon Valley Projections - Silicon Valley Leadership Group
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Environment<br />
Proposal to dismantle the dam and restore the<br />
Hetch Hetchy <strong>Valley</strong><br />
In the past few years, various environmental activist organizations<br />
in California have been pressing for studies and consideration<br />
of a proposal to dismantle the O’Shaunessey dam, drain<br />
the Hetch Hetchy reservoir and restore the valley to its preinundation<br />
condition. Recently the Department of Water<br />
Resources completed its evaluation of all previous studies related<br />
to this proposal and provided a gap analysis of necessary<br />
additional information and a cost estimate for such a project.<br />
While the DWR determined that the proposal was hypothetically<br />
feasible, there are many significant impediments,<br />
including; removal of the dam, replacing the water and energy<br />
with equally high quality and reliable supplies, water<br />
rights, protection of Native American sacred sites, and not<br />
least—a $10 billion dollar price tag.<br />
The proposal to restore the beauty of the valley that was sacrificed<br />
to provide San Francisco and the Bay Area with water<br />
will continue to have an emotional appeal, even though the<br />
cost is astronomical. It remains to be seen if this proposal will<br />
receive continued consideration, given the magnitude of the<br />
cost, and the many other pressing priorities for those<br />
resources.<br />
(Source: Jeffrey Mount, Ph.D, Professor; Director, Center for Watershed Sciences<br />
Roy J. Shlemon Chair in Applied Geosciences)<br />
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