April 24, 2007
Because there is overwhelming desire for the preservation of Yosemite National Park, Californians and all Americans should be aware that their most beloved park is immediately facing a damaging construction boom. Sadly, the press has misrepresented this Yosemite Valley Plan (YVP) as a long-awaited plan to "restore" Yosemite. Government PR aside, the plan itself says just the opposite. Members of the local grassroots group Friends of Yosemite Valley (Friends) are familiar with park documents, regularly monitor park projects, and devote most of their public outreach efforts to countering the "green" spin of the National Park Service. Friends have also spent much of the past decade holding the federal government accountable to the law--holding the line against further commercialization of Yosemite.
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Yosemite's Merced River was designated Wild and Scenic in 1987. The supervising agencies were, by law, required to produce a protective management plan within three years. A plan for the lower river was produced on time by the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management. The National Park Service (NPS) has yet to do its part for the 81 miles of the Merced River that flows through Yosemite National Park. While the Yosemite flood of 1997 was a natural process, it caused widespread damage to park infrastructure, including segments of Highway 140. Under the guise of emergency repairs, the NPS decided to widen the canyon road to accommodate larger RVs and commercial buses. The public was horrified by the blasting of 18,000-year-old naturally-formed rock walls, the cutting of oaks, and the filling in of the riparian river bank with rocks and concrete. As a result, in 1999, The Sierra Club and Mariposans for the Environment and Responsible Government (MERG) brought suit against NPS to stop the destruction in the canyon. A portion of the canyon road remains untouched by this road-widening project only because it was stopped by the court. In July 1999, the court found NPS negligent in failing to have a Merced River Comprehensive Management Plan.
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Though plaintiffs have prevailed and many major YVP construction projects are currently enjoined, a valid Merced River Plan is 17 years overdue. In 2006, the U.S. District Court found continuing inadequacies in an amended/revised version of the Plan and again stopped major park construction projects, ordering completion of a new River Plan. The park now contends that it needs 33 months to redo the River Plan but wants to continue major development projects in its absence. Meanwhile, the NPS intends to appeal the District Court's decision to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
Like the Highway 140/El Portal Road project, the YVP is more about development than flood recovery or true ecological restoration. The Plan proposes to spend $441 million tax dollars, of which 94% would directly fund new construction projects while only 6% is dedicated to restoration activities. The plan states plainly that when completed, air quality in Yosemite would be worse, noise levels would increase, and the amount of asphalted surface in Yosemite Valley would be greater. Developed areas would expand beyond their existing footprint with new restaurant, hotel, and employee housing construction. Outside the Valley, large new parking areas would be built. More than 500 roundtrip diesel shuttle buses would arrive and depart from an expansive new 22-bay transit depot in Yosemite Valley, one bus every 1.4 minutes. Nearly half of the Valley's roads would be realigned, widened and upgraded; and while the plan removes a road from one meadow, it constructs another road along yet another meadow and wetland. A new ten-acre "check station" is planned for the quiet west end of Yosemite Valley. One YVP project nearing completion is the construction of concessioner employee housing in a deadly rock fall zone. Many Native Americans, descendants of the original people of Yosemite, are outraged at the multi-million-dollar makeover of Lower Yosemite Fall, the destructive utilities overhaul, as well as other proposed projects stemming from the YVP. The litany of harms from new construction is long, and alarming.
Most troubling is the plan's blatantly commercial priorities. Affordable family-friendly tent-cabins and camping are being displaced by upscale resort-style lodging and RV sites. Picnics alongside the Merced River will be "off limits" in favor of expanded restaurant seating. Service employees will increase by 30%. As acknowledged in the YVP, bus passengers historically spend more money--as the Park transports them from one profit center to the next.
A fundamental misunderstanding has been fostered since 1997 when the current push toward re-development in Yosemite Valley began. The 1997 flood event, although serious, was similar to earlier floods in 1937 and 1958--all natural events. Yet unlike the earlier floods, the Park Service spun the 1997 event as a "crisis" and soon Congress released an unprecedented amount of money, nearly $200 million, with only weak strings attached. By 1998, Yosemite had plans to launch a Lodge redevelopment, a project to widen a road in the sensitive Merced River canyon, and other large-scale construction projects. All of these ran contrary to the park's 1980 General Management Plan.
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For more information:
www.yosemitevalley.org
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TOC for Forest & River News, Spring 2007