Hetch Hetchy Editorial Series Wins Pulitzer Prize

The Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing was awarded today to the Sacramento Bee for its editorial series on the restoration of Hetch Hetchy Valley in Yosemite National Park. 

Environmental Defense congratulates Tom Philp and the Sacramento Bee for this great honor, and commends them for recognizing that the restoration of Hetch Hetchy Valley, in Yosemite National Park is a unique, economically feasible, opportunity.

The first editorial of the Bee series was published as Environmental Defense was completing our report, Paradise Regained: Solutions for Restoring Yosemite’s Hetch Hetchy Valley, which analyzed the feasibility of restoring the submerged valley.  The report’s release and the Bee’s continuing series launched restoration from a good idea to the center stage of California’s public debate.  Tom Philp and the Sacramento Bee were the first to publicly address the valley’s restoration, and their well-researched analysis added clarity and insight to the public debate.

And for that very reason, it has caught fire in California. Members of the California Legislature are backing the idea.  Governor Schwarzenegger’s administration is studying its feasibility.  Nearly 6,000 Californians have signed an online petition urging state leaders to carefully examine the possibility.

Since the series began, the restoration effort has, indeed, garnered significant momentum. As a result of the series, Assembly member Lois Wolk (D-Davis), who chairs the Water, Parks and Wildlife Committee in Sacramento, has become a vocal proponent of restoration. The idea was praised by Assemblyman Tim Leslie, a conservative Republican representing Tahoe City, in an op-ed he penned for the Sacramento Bee.

This past November, California’s Resources Secretary Mike Chrisman announced that this summer, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s administration will issue an analysis of existing restoration studies (including Environmental Defense’s report).

And later this spring (between April and June) the scoping process for the environmental review of the physical upgrade of the Tuolumne River water system will begin. We have encouraged the Commission and other policymakers to make sure that studying the feasibility of restoring Hetch Hetchy is a part of the SFPUC’s process as it examines its options for retrofitting and possibly expanding the system’s infrastructure.

The restoration of the Hetch Hetchy Valley is both a unique environmental story and Pulitzer nomination.  Past environmental entries, whether for news or editorial writing, have focused on threats or problems.  So too have been most environmental issues that make their way to the national stage. The story of Hetch Hetchy’s restoration, however, is about hope and possibility.  California has the opportunity, as E.O. Wilson wrote in The Diversity of Life, “to go beyond mere salvage to begin the restoration of natural environments, in order to enlarge wild populations and stanch the hemorrhaging of biological wealth.”

See the latest news articles and opinion pieces about the effort to restore Hetch Hetchy at www.discoverhetchhetchy.org/.