The San Francisco call., 1909-12-15
SIERRA CLUB MEMBER
GETS OFF THE "SPRING
VALLEYS FENCE

Harold French, leading spirit in the
| Sierra club, and we'll known nature
writer told yesterday how some of the
false impressions held by members of
the organization had been removed
| Sunday by City Engineer Marsden
Manson.
After listening to Mr.. Manson" said
| French, those of us who had been on
! the fence, realized that the fence we
stood on was that of the Spring Valley
water company, which indirectly and
| utterly without collusion of any sort,
our club has been repairing for the
| last few years
Manson's denial Of the statement that
the public would ultimately be ex-
cluded from visiting the Tuolumne
watershed appealed especially to the
members of the club and won many
of them over.
In discussing the subject yesterday,
French said:
81 desire to correct the impression
given in this mornings Call that
criticised the motives of John Muir
or those of his followers in the Sierra
club who are opposing the % Hetfa
that in the peripatetic debate in the
Sutro forest Sunday. the principal pro-
ponent of the protect was Marsden
father of the movement to emancipate
the city from the thralldom of the
Spring Valley water company.
"A number of those present at this
open air discussion desired to have
Mr.. Manson's side of the case heard
before the members of the club, and for
this impromptu assembly. He proved
to the satisfaction of the great major
ity of his audience the following points,
which thus far have been stumbling
he showed that the city already owns
in fee simple two square miles in the
Hetch Hetchy valley and only asks to
trade its patented holdings. in the
spots in the Yosemite national park in
return for three quarters of one square
mile of the remainder of the Hetch
Hetchy valley; The entire ent area of the
hence all the city asks congress is one
sixteen -hundredth OF the entire area.
SECOND POINT SCORED
''The. second point Mr.. Manson scored
was the complete refutation of the
mately excluded from visiting the Tu-
ofumne watershed. Under no circum-
stances can pathogenic germs survive
rents and the exposure to sunlight In
this vast storage reservoir" Many of
us who previously regarded this con-
tention of the opponents of the city
of the millions of our fellow beings
who will ultimately drink the. unpol-
luted waters.
The third point on which most Sier-
rams honestly differ with the city was
the assertion by E. T. Parsons
that other sources of supply. such as
the Eel river or the Stanislaus are
available. Mr.. Manson demonstrated
that the outlets of these streams be-
low the turbines of the power plants
are at such low elevation as to
necessitate the payment of more than
81 ,000, 900 annually by the city to pri-
vate corporations who monopolize the
power.
This annual cost to the city. cap
italfzed, would amount to a perpetual
Indebtedness of s25,000,000, which
would hang as a milestone about the
neck of the generations to come" was
the concluding argument of Mr.
Manson.
SEE SPRING VALLEYS HAND
Mr. Clay Gooding, representing the
directors of the Sierra club, then sug-
gested that 1t would be better for
congress to grant the sum of $25, 000- :
600 to San Francisco in return for the
relinquishment of the city's claims to
the Hetch Hetchy. After listening to
Mr.. Manson those of us who had been
ION the fence" realized that the fence
we stood on was that of the Spring
Valley water company, which indirectly
and utterly without co1lusion of any
sort our club has been repairing for
the last few years
I'VE came to this conclusion, as mem
bers of the Sierra club, that our Or
ganization as body had taken no