With a new twist in the fight to restore Hetch Hetchy, Harrison Ford, best known for his role portrayal of Indiana Jones and Han Solo, is speaking out and lending his support to the thousands already calling for the once pristine valley to be restored.
SF Gate: Can Indiana Jones rescue Hetch Hetchy Valley from its watery Temple of Doom?
No sooner did the California Department of Water Resources issue a report concluding it would cost between $3 billion and $10 billion to drain the Hetch Hetchy reservoir and replace San Francisco’s water and power supply than never-say-never environmentalists enlisted action hero actor Harrison Ford to their daunting cause.
The 64-year-old Ford flew his own plane into Tuolumne County this past week, then drove to Hetch Hetchy in Yosemite National Park to shoot a bit of added footage and commentary for the 19-minute Environmental Defense documentary, “Discover Hetch Hetchy.” The short film, which has already premiered at a Nevada City film festival, also features the likes of former U.S Secretary of Interior Don Hodel and state Assemblywoman Lois Wolk, D-Davis.
Jennifer Witherspoon of Environmental Defense, which has been leading the charge to restore Hetch Hetchy, said Ford was tapped for the role because he is “really dedicated to protecting and restoring important natural places around the world.”
I think this point by a spokesman for the SFPUC is by far the most amusing part of the whole article.
But Tony Winnicker, spokesman for the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, whose 2.4 million customers rely on the Hetch Hetchy for their drinking water, had a very different take on Ford’s involvement: “As an actor best known for starring in major fantasy and science fiction movies, appearing in a film about draining the Hetch Hetchy sounds like a role right up his alley.”
Comments
2 responses to “Harrison Ford Takes Up The Fight To Restore Hetch Hetchy”
Note that this was in an opinion piece (Matier and Ross?) in the Chronicle and not, as far as I know, actually covered as a new story.
The Chronicle (and SFGate, the online arm of the paper) has been consistent in ridiculing the proposals to drain Hetch Hetchy – to the point that they now can claim little objective credibility on this subject.
Now if we can just get Chewy to support the effort as well! 🙂
That is a lot of money, but how can you put a price tag on such gems of nature. Future generations will need more places like Hetch Hetchy.
Randy