Apropos of my article about the potential of draining the reservoir that floods Hetch Hetchy is this magnificent piece by novelist Greg Sarris published in yesterday’s L.A. Times. It's a longish read, but well worth your while.

The article is speculative in nature, taking place at three points in an imagined future (pay attention to the dates as you read it) in which the O'Shaughnessy Dam comes down and Hetch Hetchy is restored. The theme of restoration is ubiquitous, and the methods that Sarris describes are both fantastic and authoritarian at the same time. The idea that in thirty years we might be so ecologically minded that we would scan vehicle tires for oil deposits gives me hope, and yet the idea that Hetch Hetchy should be restored to the way it was when John Muir walked its fields is not one I agree with.

Even if we were to try, I doubt we would prove capable of restoring Hetch Hetchy to its former state. Nature is too dynamic for that. Sarris seems to agree: “There isn't – and never will be – a virgin garden.”