In 1906 , after a major earthquake and subsequent fire that devastated San Francisco , the inadequacy of the city 's water system was made tragically clear . San Francisco applied to the United States Department of the Interior to gain water rights to Hetch Hetchy , and in 1908 President Theodore Roosevelt 's Secretary of the Interior , James R. Garfield , granted San Francisco the rights to development of the Tuolumne River . This provoked a seven-year environmental struggle with the environmental group Sierra Club , led by John Muir . Muir observed :
a major earthquake
1906 San Francisco earthquake
Hetch Hetchy