Hetch Hetchy Overhaul Approved The Associated Press Modesto Bee - September 5, 2000 SAN FRANCISCO -- An alliance of engineering and design companies has won a $45 million contract to overhaul the antiquated system that delivers water from Yosemite's Hetch Hetchy Reservoir to 2.4 million Bay Area residents. In a 10-1 vote, the Board of Supervisors last week set in motion the first phase of a project estimated to cost $3.5 billion to update a system of aging pipes and tunnels -- which runs through Modesto -- that could be crippled by a major earthquake, fire or flood. San Francisco-based Bechtel Corp. will lead the alliance that will work with the state Public Utilities Commission to map out a series of improvements to the system that will likely go before voters as bond issues. Customers Help with Cost Customers in San Francisco, San Mateo, Alameda and Santa Clara counties will have to help pay for repairs and new construction that will expand the water supply by nearly a quarter. The board approved the contract despite its budget analyst's recommendation to reject it. Analyst Harvey Rose said the PUC never offered a comparison of what it would cost the city to do the job without the contractors. "We have a lot of questions about this contract," he said. "We'd like to see what it would cost the city to hire the same quality of people that Bechtel hires." The lone dissenting vote came from Supervisor Tom Ammiano, who said the plan is "putting the cart before the horse" while the PUC is without a full-time executive director, a position that has been vacant for months. He also said the contract will lead the county down a "path of too much dependence on Bechtel and privatization." Critics have suggested that a lack of funds for such a large project could lead to privatization, a charge that Bechtel and the PUC strongly denied. "There is absolutely no way, the way we have this set up, that can lead to that conclusion," said Lawrence T. Klein, assistant general manager of the PUC. Klein said the alliance is working as an extension of the PUC and all decisions will be made jointly. He said the city needed to go to contractors to provide expertise in dealing with multibillion-dollar project. In a recent audit, the infrastructure that dates back more than 70 years was found to be vulnerable to natural disaster and in need of improvement. Work Starting Soon Klein said the alliance, which is expected to assign 30 to 40 employees to the job, will begin work in the next couple of weeks after Mayor Willie Brown's expected signature on the contract. As the vote moves the Hetch Hetchy overhaul one more step toward reality, it seems certain to doom any hope that the reservoir in Yosemite National Park might some day be drained to restore the area to what naturalist John Muir referred to as Yosemite Valley's twin. Muir fought unsuccessfully to stop construction of the reservoir that was proposed after the earthquake of 1906 exposed San Francisco's insufficient water supply. The secretary of the Interior proposed draining the reservoir 12 years ago to restore the Hetch Hetchy Valley, but the suggestion was ridiculed as "dumb, dumb, dumb" by then-Mayor Dianne Feinstein and never approved.