STATEMENT OF MR. EDMUND A. WHITMAN, OF BOSTON, REPRESENTING THE SOCIETY FOR THE PRESERVATION OF NATIONAL PARKS.

Mr. Whitman...Now, to answer the question of the Senator from Colorado [Mr. Thomas] as to the need of San Francisco for this water: If you have been to San Francisco, sir, you know that there is a range of mountains close down to the city-the Coast Range-and the present water supply of San Francisco comes from that range. The board of Army engineers report, after their investigations, that the amount of water which can be obtained from that coast range is 233,000,000 gallons daily. Mr. Freeman's report says-

Senator Thomas. Unappropriated for purposes of irrigation?

Mr. Whitman. Unappropriated, and which they can use.

Senator Thomas. At what cost?

Mr. Whitman. I do not think that the cost has been figured, but that water is close at hand and can be obtained by the laying of pipes. There would have to be no long tunnels. It is an extension of the present source which the Spring Valley Co. and which the other company across the bay, the Bay Cities Co., were intending to develop. At any rate, there is at their back door 233,000,000 gallons a day which can be developed. That is mountain water. The present use of San Francisco and the people who live in that neighborhood is not over 100,000,000 gallons a day, so that the immediate supply at home is ample for over two million and a quarter people. There are now 750,000 people in that vicinity. So, sir, what this bill seeks to bring about is not an immediate supply to satisfy an immediate need or an immediate shortage of the city of San Francisco, but to provide for sometime in the distant future when that 233,000,000 gallons a day has been used up, which will be 50 or 60 years from now, according to the engineers. What San Francisco will do at that time they are now asking you to tell them, and they are asking you now to appropriate to them a portion of a national park. Nobody knows how that park will be used at that time, or how many people will be on the floor of the Hetch Hetchy Valley 50 or 60 years from now.

I have said, and I think those with whom I have discussed it have always said, that if San Francisco needs any part of the national domain she ought to have it if she can not get a similar thing elsewhere; but she can get it at home, and the engineers of the local companies were providing for further water, either by going to the San Joaquin or going to the Sacramento.
The idea of mountain water has carried the people away. What is San Francisco asking for? She is not only asking to destroy the large use of this corner of the park, but she is getting an electric power which the engineers estimate is worth $45,000,000, and which Mr. Freeman says in his report is capable of developing 200,000 horsepower. What is it for? Well, they have recently started a municipal electric car line in San Francisco. I have no objection to San Francisco trying any experiment in municipal ownership that they see fit, but not at my expense as a citizen of this country.

Senator Norris. Mr. Whitman, it ought to be said here that the bill requires San Francisco to develop this horsepower.

Mr. Freeman. Certainly, for their own benefit.

Senator Norris. Yes. I think the general opinion is that they ought to be required to develop it, and that is one argument in favor of the proposition. Here is a lot of horsepower going to waste which ought to be developed, and the bill therefore requires San Francisco to develop this horsepower.

Mr. Whitman. Yes, sir; and they get it from the Nation.

Senator Norris. But it goes to the city.

Senator Chamberlain. It goes to the people closest at hand.

Senator Pittman. If the natural resources adjacent to each community were utilized for the benefit of nearly all the people in that community, such a benefit as furnishing with cheap power or furnishing them with cheaper and purer water, would not that be one of the very best uses to which public property could be put?

Mr. Whitman. I think so; yes, sir.

Senator Pittman. Is it not a fact that the water in the Hetch Hetchy will supply $45,000,000 worth of power?

Mr. Whitman. Yes, sir; $45,000,000 worth.

Senator Pittman. It will supply that much power to the adjacent country there. Is not that another great reason why that should be developed, instead of utilizing the coast-range water supply?

Mr. Whitman. If I may answer that, is it not necessary in order to utilize that power to have a dam at Hetch Hetchy. That river is damable downhill for 50 miles. You can build any quantity of dams down below.

Senator Pittman. But you can not from the water supply in the coast range.
Mr. Whitman No; but I mean to say so far as the development of power is concerned that there is on the other rivers in that locality a quantity of power developed now.

Senator Pittman. You were comparing the coast-range water supply with that of the Hetch Hetchy.

Mr. Whitman. I agree that the coast range will supply water for drinking and domestic purposes.

Senator Pittman. You say that this project will flood a valley 2 square miles in extent?

Mr. Whitman Yes, sir.

Senator Pittman. And you know that there are some 1,500 square miles, approximately, in that beautiful Yosemite Valley?

Mr. Whitman. You have never seen it, sir, and I have, and most of it is unusable.

Senator Pittman. You know from the hearings that it contains approximately 1,500 square miles.

Mr. Whitman I have been there twice, but I say most of that 1,500 miles is not usable for camp purposes. It is largely rocky cliffs and mountains sides.

Senator Pittman. Then, as I understand your position, one of the arguments you use is that in order to save 2 square miles of camping ground you would compel the people in the vicinity of this natural resource to use water they would probably have to filter, water that the people of Boston and New York would not use-you would compel those people to go to enormous public utility corporations and buy from them, at whatever price they might ask, coast-range water sources?

Mr. Whitman. No, sir.

Senator Pittman. All for the purpose of preserving 2 square miles or more of this little mountain valley.

Mr. Whitman. No, sir; that is not the proposition.