With the cost appearing to be about ten times what the environmentalist report “Paradise Regained” assumed awhile back, this really visionary project idea might not see the light of day for some time.
Too bad, but under-inflating costs for public projects to get them improved is becoming a tactic that no longer works very well with the continually higher access to good information the internet makes available to advocate and policy wonks.
An excerpt.
Awe-inspiring price tag to drain Hetch Hetchy
Phillip Matier and Andrew Ross Wednesday, July 19, 2006
It would cost anywhere from $3 billion to $10 billion to fulfill one of California environmentalists' fondest dreams -- draining Hetch Hetchy Reservoir and restoring a valley in Yosemite National Park that John Muir called "one of nature's rarest and most precious mountain temples."
That is the conclusion of a report worked up by the state Department of Water Resources, analyzing what it would take to bring back Hetch Hetchy Valley and find alternative sources of water and power for San Francisco, which operates the valley's O'Shaughnessy Dam. The cost estimate is more in line with what critics of the idea expected, and as much as 10 times the figure floated by environmentalists.
"Clearly, it's not cheap,'' said Assemblyman Joe Canciamilla, D-Pittsburg, one of a handful of officials who have been briefed on the findings. The report has not been made public.
"But we knew it was going to be expensive, no matter what the option,'' said Canciamilla, who is nevertheless still intrigued by the possibility of restoring Hetch Hetchy.
The idea was first raised back in the 1980s by then-Energy Secretary Donald Hodel, but it really gained traction two years ago when the nonprofit group Environmental Defense issued a report called "Paradise Regained." It put the cost of draining Hetch Hetchy, coming up with other sources of water for 2.4 million Bay Area customers and replacing the electricity that Hetch Hetchy generates for San Francisco at anywhere from $500 million to $1.5 billion.
Canciamilla and other state and local officials who have been informed of the state report, which Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger ordered up at environmentalists' urging, said its $3 billion estimate wouldn't even cover the cost of knocking down O'Shaughnessy Dam -- that would be enough only to punch a hole through it to drain the basin. The $10 billion figure would pay for full restoration of a valley drowned by the Tuolumne River after Congress authorized the dam's construction in 1913.
