Visiting Hetch Hetchy Reservoir
Last week, Michael and I took our kids to beautiful Camp Mather near Yosemite National Park. Our week was filled with smores, swimming, and friendship bracelets. (And no cell phone service—it was magical.)
Leading up to the trip, I read Guardians of the Valley by Dean King and learned about the storied history that created the Hetch Hetchy reservoir that supplies San Francisco with our delicious water. I had always known that San Francisco's water was special, often hearing folks brag about how our tap water is the best of any major city in the world, and that we must take steps to reduce our water usage and conserve this precious resource. We even did a video with SF Water Power & Sewer, and worked with our teams to implement water-saving techniques at our cafes when we got our California Green Business certification.
Hetch Hetchy Valley in 1908. Photo by Isaiah West Taber, from hetchhetchy.org
Water is extremely important to our business—a cup of coffee is 98.75% water. And the mineral content of the water that you brew with can effect the flavor profile of your coffee. (This is why products like Third Wave Water exist.) When you visit one of our cafes in San Francisco, you're primarily drinking Hetch Hetchy water, with a little bit of Andytown coffee. We owe a lot to Hetch Hetchy water.
Hetch Hetchy is the ancient homeland of nearly a dozen Native Californian communities, including the Miwok and Paiute. Most of these peoples were forcibly removed from their lands in the 1800s, and in 1913, Congress allowed for the building of the O'Shaughnessy Dam, turning the beautiful Hetch Hetchy valley into a reservoir to provide water and power to the growing city of San Francisco. Every time you open up your tap in the City of San Francisco, you are using water that is the result of the destruction of these native lands. Furthermore, every cup of coffee or beer brewed in San Francisco owes its existence to the Hetch Hetchy valley—a land stewarded by indigenous peoples for thousands of years.
The view from the O'Shaughnessy Dam into the Hetch Hetchy valley.
All of the research in the world could not prepare me for the sight of the Hetch Hetchy reservoir and the magnitude of the O'Shaughnessy Dam. The reservoir itself is 8 miles wide—wider than the length of San Francisco itself. Granite cliffs rivaling Yosemite Valley's famed El Capitan emerge from the reservoir with waterfalls gushing into the water below. At the dam, we looked down 430 feet to the river valley below, in awe of the power of the water shooting off of the spillway.
Visiting Hetch Hetchy left an impression on me that I will never forget. Every time I take a shower, wash dishes, or make coffee, I'm going to think about the incredible beauty of the Hetch Hetchy Valley and its history. I encourage all San Franciscans to learn more about the water that we enjoy, and to conserve it out of respect for the people who unwillingly sacrificed their land for a city hundreds of miles away.
Learn more about Hetch Hetchy from the following resources:
