Hetch Hetchy / O'Shaughnessy Dam
Reservoir / dam
Hetch Hetchy / O'Shaughnessy Dam (reservoir / dam, run by the Public Utilities Commission): $28,749 paid to contractors for work here, $1.8B budgeted for its department in FY2025, 2,679 employees on the payroll, 29 contracts, 9 city documents at the Internet Archive, every figure linked to its source. The archive documents trace the O'Shaughnessy Dam and Hetch Hetchy system. A 2005 history records that San Francisco approved a "$45 million bond to build Hetch Hetchy System" in 1910, that the dam was built 1919-1923, and that it was later "raised to store 360,360 acre feet." A 1975-76 annual report of the Hetch Hetchy Water and Power System notes the dam was raised "an additional 85.5 feet," the system cost "some $100 million," and water reached Crystal Springs Reservoir in 1934. The system is operated by the Public Utilities Commission, whose FY2025 budget line is about $1.8B; a city contract for "Auto Parts for Hetch Hetchy" with Pine Mountain Auto Inc has been paid $28,748.78. Source: SF Controller open data and the Internet Archive.
img.freepik.com · Bing · UNVERIFIEDThe archive documents trace the O'Shaughnessy Dam and Hetch Hetchy system. A 2005 history records that San Francisco approved a "$45 million bond to build Hetch Hetchy System" in 1910, that the dam was built 1919-1923, and that it was later "raised to store 360,360 acre feet." A 1975-76 annual report of the Hetch Hetchy Water and Power System notes the dam was raised "an additional 85.5 feet," the system cost "some $100 million," and water reached Crystal Springs Reservoir in 1934. The system is operated by the Public Utilities Commission, whose FY2025 budget line is about $1.8B; a city contract for "Auto Parts for Hetch Hetchy" with Pine Mountain Auto Inc has been paid $28,748.78.
What the City actually paid, across 1 contractor. Contractors big enough to have their own page are linked; the rest are named only.
+ 25 more contracts
Every line opens that contract’s own page, with its spend curve and its subcontractors. Agreed amounts are ceilings, not spending.
Run by the Public Utilities Commission (water, power, sewer), whose whole-department budget is $1.8B across 2,679 staff (FY2025) — citywide, not this place’s own. The City does not publish a running cost per building.
The utility's own history of the system, tracing the aqueduct from the 1913 Raker Act and recording that the city bought out the Spring Valley Water Company for $39,962,606.51 in 1930.
San Francisco water and power : a history of the Municipal Water Department and Hetch Hetchy system · 1999 ↗Internet Archive — San Francisco Public Library partnership scansA year-by-year chronology of how the system was authorised — O'Shaughnessy's hiring as City Engineer, the Army Engineers' report, and the Raker Act's passage through Congress to Wilson's signature.
San Francisco water & power : a history of the Municipal Water Department and Hetch Hetchy System · 1985 ↗Internet Archive — Democracy's LibraryThe 2005 edition of the utility's history, carrying the timeline forward to the 1997 vote for $304 million of treatment-plant upgrades and the 2000–01 energy crisis.
San Francisco water and power : a history of the Municipal Water Department & Hetch Hetchy system · 2005 ↗Internet Archive — San Francisco Public Library partnership scansA 1995 groundwater master plan setting the city's local supply against its surface water from the Hetch Hetchy system.
San Francisco groundwater master plan : preliminary draft · 1995 ↗Internet Archive — Democracy's Library
See 5 more documents
The Public Utilities Commission's 1975 annual report, recording a record 2,057,609,000 kilowatt-hours of hydroelectric generation for 1974-75.
Annual report · 1975 ↗Internet Archive — San Francisco Public Library partnership scansThe final report of the PUC Infrastructure Task Force (2000-2002), convened on a capital programme then exceeding $4 billion and critical of the commission's project planning.
San Francisco Public Utilities Infrastructure Task Force : final report : June 1, 2000-June 17, 2002 · 2000 ↗Internet Archive — Democracy's LibraryThe 1988 mandatory rationing program of Hetch Hetchy Water and Power — rules, allotments and budget — written when storage was projected to last about 13 months for 2.1 million people.
Mandatory water rationing program · 1988 ↗Internet Archive — Democracy's LibraryThe 2013 climate action strategy, which counts Hetch Hetchy's clean hydroelectricity among the sources of the city's municipal emissions reductions.
San Francisco : Climate Action Strategy. · 2013 ↗Internet Archive — Democracy's LibraryThe 1935 official account of the system, from the early local sources through the acquisition of Spring Valley and the reach into the Sierra Nevada.
San Francisco water and power · 1935 ↗Internet Archive — San Francisco Public Library partnership scans
