Hetch Hetchy

We've been watching the Ken Burns documentary "National Parks: America's Best Idea." Since visiting all of the National Parks with Bee has become our Thing, we are very much interested in this film. Sparky and I also have a keen curiosity regarding Northern California's Hetch Hetchy. We got lost on a road trip once and ended up there, and thought "What the hell? This used to be a valley like Yosemite? And it ended up as a reservoir to provide water to San Francisco... How could that have happened?" It looked like it was man made, it was rather unsettling. The other night we found out all about it from watching the Burns movie. OMG. 

It was the Great San Francisco Quake of '06 that allowed Congress to turn a National Park into a Reservoir. The businessmen who backed this idea lied, and said that if Hetch Hetch had been dammed in the first place the Quake would not have caused so much fire damage. What? They could have found other sources of water, they didn't have to dam it. Hetch Hetchy is supposedly the twin of Yosemite, it was just as beautiful and awesome - before it was drowned by backward thinking politicians and businessmen. There has been a movement to drain Hetch Hetchy and restore it to its former glory for years, and it has been gaining traction recently. I think I need to join this movement. It would be great if this actually happened one day. Forget about San Fransisco; they can find water elsewhere. Give us back our National Park!