San Francisco had secured congressional approval only months earlier when work on what would become one of California's largest water projects began in earnest in 1914. The project centered on Hetch Hetchy Valley, which is a glacier-carved valley inside Yosemite National Park that the city planned to turn into a reservoir. The decision had already triggered a national fight over whether a city should be allowed to build a dam inside a national park. Congress settled that question in December 1913, when President Woodrow Wilson signed the Raker Act, which granted San Francisco access to develop the Hetch Hetchy Valley for water and power. The San Francisco Public Utilities Commission's 2021 Urban Water Management Plan says construction of the broader Hetch Hetchy Project began in earnest in 1914.
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