Parks in the News: Hetch Hetchy possibly unleashed!

Hetch Hetchy Valley was one of the first great casualties of the war waged by the conservation movement.  These days we tend to think of National Parks as nature preserves with recreational opportunities in them.  Back in the early days of the park system, protected lands were involved in a battle over utility vs. preservation.  San Francisco needed a reliable source of water delivered to it, and a reservoir capturing runoff from the Sierras seemed like a good idea at the time.  Unfortunately, instead of damming an expanse at slightly lower elevations, plans were drawn up to damn the valley, despite protests to the contrary by John Muir and many, many other people.  The valley, you see, was already a part of Yosemite National Park, and could easily go toe to toe with Yosemite Valley in terms of sheer beauty.  This is what it looked like before the damming:

Public Domain,  Sierra Club Bulletin, Vol. VI. No. 4, January, 1908, pg. 211.

These days it pretty much looks like a third to a half of the bottom of the valley is missing.  This might very well change soon, however...

 http://www.wdam.com/story/19195501/yosemites-lost-valley-will-be-subject-of-vote

In a change of pace from the usual entrenchment of the conservation movement well into liberal front lines, environmentalists are siding with the Republican party against the San Francisco Democrats, with both the green and the elephant hoping to unleash the waters of Hetch Hetchy so that they may flow freely once more.  This comes in the midst of an age when the Sierras and much of the rest of California are experiencing some heavy drought, which is the last time one would figure a vote would be put forth to remove a source of water from a major city.  The battle of the damn is turning into a very peculiar and unpredictable conflict, and the outcome might have ramifications for water use agendas elsewhere on the continent.