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Argument Against The Hetchy Dam

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Mahatma Gandhi once said that “Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's needs, but not every man's greed.” 1 The quote talks about how Earth gives us beauty and our basic needs, but when people get greedy it disappears and in my opinion I feel like this quote relates to the topic about the debate of Hetch Hetchy Dam. Back in 1913, there was a Congress hearing debating whether or not the Hetch Hetchy Dam should be built into a part of the California’s Yosemite National Park. The dam was being built so water could be brought to the city of San Francisco. However, during the debate there were some people who were about the dam being built and there were others who weren’t. The people who were for the dam being built were known as preservationist. An example of a preservationist was John Muir; he thought building the dam was being more useful to the nation compared to not disturbing it. But then there were people who argued against the debate like Gifford Pinchot. Pinchot was known as a conversevasionlist, and they were the people who cared more about nature and wanting …show more content…

As recent April 2015 there was a lawsuit against San Francisco from the Restore Hetch Hetchy group, to shut down the dam. 2 In my opinion I agree with the shutting down of the dam; I believe that nature should be left the way it is. The Hetch Hetchy Dam is destroying a piece of land that is the homes of multiple types of animals. Back in the early nineteen hundreds, when the debate start about The Hetch Hetchy dam being built a large majority of people did not realize or care how valuable nature is. Now in the present day, people are realizing how valuable our national parks are, and how we should stop destroying them. There are alternative ways of supply water the people of California, that does not destroy

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