Hetch Hetchy. Hetch Hetchy is a valley, a reservoir, and a water system in California in the United States. The glacial Hetch Hetchy Valley lies in the northwestern part of Yosemite National Park and is drained by the Tuolumne River. For thousands of years before the arrival of settlers from the United States in the 1850s, the valley was inhabited by Native Americans who practiced subsistence hunting-gathering. During the late 19th century, the valley was renowned for its natural beauty-often compared to that of Yosemite Valley-but also targeted for the development of water supply for irrigation and municipal interests. Not only was the Hetch Hetchy controversy one of water and preservation, but it became mired in the political issues of the day. This issue spanned at least three presidents before finally being passed in Congress on December 7, 1913. In addition, this controversy exemplified the political and cultural landscape of the end of the Gilded Age and the midst of the Progressive Era in the United States. With large conglomerates such as William Randolph Hearst controlling much of the media in the San Francisco area, as well as newspapers in other parts of the country, he helped shape the outcome of the passing of the Raker Act in Congress, allowing the dam to be built. Other prime examples of the progressive era included political scandal and controversy, especially prevalent in the Taft administration with the Great Alaskan Land Fraud and the Pinchot-Ballinger Controversy, which led to both Richard A. Ballinger and Gifford Pinchot to resign and be fired respectively. With these openings, this led to the eventual success of the land permit to be granted by Congress and the new president, Woodrow Wilson in 1913. In 1923, the O'Shaughnessy Dam was completed on the Tuolumne River, flooding the entire valley under the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir. The dam and reservoir are the centerpiece of the Hetch Hetchy Project, which in 1934 began to deliver water 167 miles west to San Francisco and its client municipalities in the greater San Francisco Bay Area. Before damming, the high granite formations produced a valley with an average depth of 1,800 ft and a maximum depth of over 3,000 ft; the length of the valley was 3 mi with a width ranging from an eighth to a half of a mile. The valley floor consisted of roughly 1,200 acres of meadows fringed by pine forest, through which meandered the Tuolumne River and numerous tributary streams. Kolana Rock, at 5,772 ft, is a massive rock spire on the south side of the Hetch Hetchy Valley. Hetch Hetchy Dome, at 6,197 ft, lies directly north of it. The locations of these two formations roughly correspond with those of Cathedral Rocks and El Capitan seen from Tunnel View in Yosemite Valley. A broad, low rocky outcrop situated between Kolana Rock and Hetch Hetchy Dome divided the former meadow in two distinct sections. The valley is fed by the Tuolumne River, Falls Creek, Tiltill Creek, Rancheria Creek and numerous smaller streams which collectively drain a watershed of 459 sq mi. In its natural state, the valley floor was marshy and often flooded in the spring when snow melt in the high Sierra cascaded down the Tuolumne River and backed up behind the narrow gorge which is now spanned by O'Shaughnessy Dam. The entire valley is now flooded under an average 300 ft of water behind the dam, although it occasionally reemerges in droughts, as it did in 1955, 1977 and 1991. Upstream from the valley lies the Grand Canyon of the Tuolumne, while the smaller Poopenaut Valley is directly downstream from O'Shaughnessy Dam. The Hetch Hetchy Road drops into the valley at the dam, but all points east of there are roadless, and accessible only to hikers and equestrians. The O'Shaughnessy Dam is near Yosemite's western boundary, but the long, narrow, fingerlike reservoir stretches eastward for about 8 miles. Wapama Falls, at 1,080 ft, and Tueeulala Falls, at 840 ft-both among the tallest waterfalls in North America-are both located in Hetch Hetchy Valley. Rancheria Falls is located farther southeast, on Rancheria Creek. Formerly, a small but noisy waterfall and natural pool existed on the Tuolumne River marked the upper entrance to Hetch Hetchy Valley, informally known as Tuolumne Fall. The waterfall on the Tuolumne is now submerged under Hetch Hetchy Reservoir. The Hetch Hetchy Valley began as a V-shaped river canyon cut out by the ancestral Tuolumne River.