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The dam and reservoir are the source for the Hetch Hetchy Aqueduct, which provides water for over two million people in San Francisco and other municipalities of the west Bay Area. The dam is named for engineer Michael O'Shaughnessy, who oversaw its construction. [7] Hetch Hetchy Reservoir watershed (Interactive map)
In 1923, the O'Shaughnessy Dam was completed on the Tuolumne River, flooding the entire valley under the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir. [2] The dam and reservoir are the centerpiece of the Hetch Hetchy Project, which in 1934 began to deliver water 167 miles (269 km) west to San Francisco and its client municipalities in the greater San Francisco Bay Area.
The reservoir has a natural catchment area of 25.4 square miles (66 km 2); [2] however, most of its water is imported through the Hetch Hetchy Project pipelines. In order to protect the high-quality Hetch Hetchy water, local flows from Moccasin Creek are captured upstream and routed through a bypass system that discharges downstream of Moccasin ...
Map of California's interconnected water system, including all eleven reservoirs over 1,000,000 acre-feet (1.2 km 3) as well as selected smaller ones.. This is a list of the largest reservoirs, or man-made lakes, in the U.S. state of California.
Flood water is released from Hetch Hetchy Reservoir into the Tuolumne River. By volume, the Tuolumne is the largest river draining the southern Sierra, with an estimated virgin flow of 1,850,000 acre-feet (2.28 km 3) per year – over 2,550 cubic feet per second (72 m 3 /s). [2]
The current lake was formed in 1918 by damming Eleanor Creek as part of the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir system, [2] constructed to supply water and power to the city of San Francisco. The original smaller, natural lake was also named "Eleanor" [2] after the daughter of Josiah Whitney, leader of the California Geological Survey in the 1860s.
The SFPUC provides fresh water from Hetch Hetchy Reservoir and other sources to 2.7 million customers for residential, commercial, and industrial uses. About one-third of its delivered water is sent to customers within San Francisco, while the remaining two-thirds are sent to customers in Alameda, San Mateo, and Santa Clara counties.
The San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC), of which Hetch Hetchy Water and Power is a division, provided about 45% of the funds for construction of the 1971 New Don Pedro Dam and so has the right to store 570,000 acre-feet (700,000,000 m 3) of water in the reservoir.