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Can you clarify what you mean by: “they refuse to repurpose a downstream dam”

California has insufficient water storage to meet demand, it’s not like we have huge dams lying around that we leave empty when there is water available to fill them.

You might be referring to Don Pedro dam - but we are already filling that up (modulo what we need to keep empty for flood control). SF has some contractual right they could possibly exercise to water in Don Pedro but that doesn’t magically result in California’s water supply being held constant if we stop storing water in the Hetch Hetchy. If SF gets the Don Pedro water, that means someone else that was going to get it is deprived.

Now, you could argue that the state can get by with lower storage because ag needs to consume less or more groundwater recharge or whatever, but that’s a different question.

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Crystal Springs isnt anywhere near Yosemite if that is what you are referencing. That being said it supposedly was gorgeous and almost as amazing before being filled with water
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Not Crystal Springs. Hetch Hetchy, the damning of which legendarily caused John Muir, the founder of the Sierra Club, to die of a broken heart.
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It’s a nitpick but the words you are looking for are “dam”, “dammed”, and “damming”. Damning is a very different thing entirely.
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They both work, really
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They are referring to Hetch Hetchy.
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