Chinook salmon in the Tuolumne.

MEDIA CENTER - Press

Pipeline dropped from retrofit plan
Public hearing tonight in Fremont to address environmental impacts
Source: Alameda News Group
Douglas Fischer
October 11, 2005

The manager of San Francisco's Hetch Hetchy water system has asked policy-makers to drop plans for a controversial "fourth pipe" to carry more Tuolumne River water from Yosemite National Park to the Bay Area.

In a letter to the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission released Monday, the utility's general manager, Susan Leal, recommended members drop plans for a 47-mile pipe across the San Joaquin Valley that would have increased the aqueduct's capacity by nearly 50 percent, to 460 million gallons a day.

Instead, she proposed building a nine-mile bypass that would add just 4 percent more capacity to the system. The recommendation, part of an analysis of the utility's $4.3 billion retrofit, goes before the commission at today's meeting in San Francisco.

A public hearing on the retrofit's environmental impacts is scheduled for 6 tonight at the Fremont Main Library, 2400 Stevenson Blvd.

The SFPUC delivers water to more than 4 million people in the Bay Area, including all of San Francisco, Hayward, most of San Mateo County, and Fremont, Union City and Newark.

"This alternative can achieve the same commission-defined goals and levels of service as the original San Joaquin Pipeline proposal," Leal wrote in her recommendation to the commission.

Environmentalists on Monday hailed Leal's decision.

"Leal is showing leadership and foresight in her recommendation," Tuolumne River Trust executive director Jenna Olsen said.