Creator
Charles N. Elliot
Recipient
John Muir
Preview
Transcription
public uses such as city water-supplies, unless it can be shown that the need is extreme, and can be met from no other source. This is not at all the case in regard to a water supply for San Francisco. There are plenty of other available supplies. The city wants to use the Hetch Hetchy Valley merely because it will probably cost less to get a water supply from that source than from any of the nearer sources, and it can also make the Valley the source of saleable mechanical power.Thirdly, far the west profitable use of the water which might be stored in the Hetch Hetchy Valley, the interests of the whole state and of the country being considered, would be its use for irrigation purposes on the farming lands which lie within easy reach of the Valley. If any large amount of water is to be stored in the Hetch Hetchy Valley in the immediate or the remote future, it should be for the irrigation use, and not for the urban and suburban uses of far-away San Francisco. The time may come when the Hetch Hetchy Valley ought to be converted into a lake- to its great injury as a health and pleasure resort- but it should be for the purpose of increasing this food supply raised on a large area of the state's arable but too dry lands. If that time should come, it would be a heavy public loss if San Francisco had already secured its water supply from the Hetch Hetchy Valley, and so made it impossible to convert hundreds of square miles of arid lands not far from the Valley into highly productive agricultural areas.I venture to hope that you will become in the Senate a vigorous defender of all the national parks we have and an advocate of new national parks in New England. Why should not the hilly, wooded parts of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, and Connecticut supply some national parks? The05605
Location
Cambridge, Mass.
Date Original
1913 Nov 7
Source
Original letter dimensions: 28 x 21.5 cm.
Resource Identifier
muir21_0972-let.tif
File Identifier
Reel 21, Image 0972
Copyright Status
Copyright status unknown
Copyright Statement
Some letters written to John Muir may be protected by the U.S. Copyright Law (Title 17, U.S.C.). Transmission or reproduction of materials protected by copyright beyond that allowed by fair use requires the written permission of the copyright owners. Responsibility for any use rests exclusively with the user.
Owning Institution
University of the Pacific Library Holt-Atherton Special Collections. Please contact this institution directly to obtain copies of the images or permission to publish or use them beyond educational purposes.
Page Number
Page 3
Keywords
John Muir, correspondence, letters, author, writing, naturalist, California, correspondent, mail, message, post, exchange of letters, missive, notes, epistle
