In 1932, Franklin D. Roosevelt asked Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes to work on his presidential campaign. After Roosevelt won the Presidency, he appointed Ickes as Secretary of the Department of Interior in 1933. Ickes would hold this post for the next thirteen years. He was greatly involved with the New Deal, heading the Public Works Administration (PWA) and working closely with the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) in the National Parks.
Secretary Ickes battled San Francisco’s disposition of hydropower throughout the 1930s. The Raker Act stipulated that the power was to be used solely for public purposes. The battle came to a head in November 1941, and then disappeared a month later, after the attack on Pearl Harbor. During World War II, Hetch Hetchy hydropower was directed toward to war effort.
The “First Sip” [of Pulgas Water] event was reported in the San Francisco Examiner on October 28, 1934. The following are excerpts from the article by Wooster Taylor:
“In deep silence, like a multitude of old beholding a miracle, San Francisco greeted yesterday the coming of Hetch Hetchy water. Twenty thousand awestruck citizens, and people of the peninsula, crowded the roiling meadow at the south end of Crystal Springs reservoir, and struggled for a place along [the] hazardous edge of the 900 foot culvert that carried the stream through a classic water tower to the lake. Strangely enough, there was no cheering at first. From afar there had come a faint sound, as though grumbling giants in the Sierra Nevada, 170 miles away, were still loath to release their hold on melting snows…
“On the platform of the classic water temple, bearing the inscription [‘I will make the wilderness a pool of water’] … Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes had brought the congratulations of the President; Mayor Rossi had spoken a civic welcome; Supervisor James Coleman, while the vast throng stood with bared heads, had eulogized a ‘leader, a builder and a fighter,’ City Engineer M.M. O’Shaughnessy, the rugged Irishman born in County Limerick, whose life’s work was wrapped up in Hetch Hetchy. He died seventeen days ago, and the medal in his honor was posthumous…
“[Apart from the speeches, the attendees’ ears] … were also keyed for another sound. They were waiting for a ripple of water. At 2:30 Frank Havenner, chairman of the Citizens’ Committee, held up a warning hand: ‘I just heard from the gatekeepers at Dumbarton station 12 miles away. They have opened the valves. The water should be here in twenty minutes. I ask the parents of children present to keep them back from the weir – the capacity of Hetch Hetchy at the present moment is 250 million gallons a day – the flood coursing down this flume will be dangerous…
“[Inevitably] there was a fragment of sound, hardly discernible from the murmur of voices. But it was unmistakable. Water – you could hear it leaping and coursing in some subterranean channel – the Pulgas tunnel…
“[Then] the crowd gasped. Over the spillway came a slim stream, the width of the broad flume. It was transparent, and limpid – as clear as crystal. It curried in foaming effervescence and hurried on toward the temple. It was nothing to be excited about at first… But wait! As the valves opened wider at Dumbarton, end of the bay crossing, the supply increased. Then [came a] torrent…
“Hetch Hetchy was a reality. A magnificent vision of a generation ago had come true… San Francisco’s cup of joy was brim-full.”
SFPUC 