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Environmentalists say the project is creating a 'freeway' to the park.
By Michael
Baker
The Fresno Bee - December 15, 1998
YOSEMITE - Saying a scenic mountain road is being widened to support tourism
at the expense of the environment, about 30 protectors gathered Monday at
the El Portal entrance to Yosemite National Park.
"By widening the road they are in the process destroying seven miles of the
north bank of the Merced River," Sierra Club spokeswoman Joyce Eden said Monday.
"We are extremely saddened and outraged by the park service veering from its
mandate to protect Yosemite for future generations."
Park officials said it is necessary to repair and widen El Portal Road, or
Highway 140, so that buses and other visitors and employees can safely navigate
the curvy, picturesque stretch of road.
"Nearly 25% of all vehicle traffic and 45% of the bus traffic into the park
comes through this entrance," said park spokesman Scott Gediman. "The project
is to safely accommodate tour buses, regional buses, recreational vehicles
and employees."
Monday's protest was not the first time the El Portal Road project has caused
an uproar.
Construction workers only began blasting a pathway for the new road in October,
after a federal judge ruled against Mariposa County's request to halt repairs.
Officials for Mariposa County argued that the two years of road closures would
adversely impact area businesses, who rely on tourism.
Funding for the construction project comes from the $178 million appropriated
by Congress in June 1997 to repair parts of Yosemite damaged during the floods
in January 1997, Gediman said.
When finished, the $33 million, 71/2-mile project will repair, straighten
and widen both lanes of El Portal Road from 91/2 feet to 11 feet.
But that l1/2-foot extension is too much for members of the Sierra Club and
other environmental organizations, who carried signs reading "Save the wild
river" and "Don't pave our river" Monday as construction workers drove by
in large orange trucks.
"Everybody agrees the road needs to be fixed for the American people and for
safety," said Sierra Club member Ron Mackie, who is a former wilderness manager
for the park. "It's the standard they're setting, and if they just plow ahead,
one day American history will judge them very harshly."
Central among the protectors' complaints is that the National Park Service
did not adequately study the effect of such a massive construction project
on the river or the surrounding wildlife and vegetation.
"We are here to bring to the American public the destruction that's happening
in this beautiful canyon," Eden said. "The Merced River is one of the few
federally designated 'wild and scenic' rivers, and the reason it's designated
as such is to protect it and the surrounding environment."
Eden said federal officials failed to do the proper studies for widening the
road and neglected to look into the effects on species such as the great gray
owl and the willow flycatcher.
"What they're doing instead of repairing the road is widening it enough to
where it becomes a major freeway," said Greg Adair, a member of the Friends
of Yosemite.
"We're here to say it's not too late to fix it. Every federal contract has
an escape clause."
Gediman said Yosemite officials have conducted environmental impact studies,
including reviews by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which conclude that
the road project "will not adversely affect" surrounding species.
"We're basically protecting the river corridor because the new road bed will
be stabilized," Gediman said. "We've been doing patchwork repair on the roads
for years, so it's time to plan for the long term and a safer road."
Further, Gediman said it's too late to object to the project now, especially
after Yosemite officials have held four public meetings and the road repair
project has been in the news since the 1997 flood.
The Wilderness Society, another environmental organization, agreed with Gediman.
Jay Watson, California-Nevada regional director of the society, said his organization
read the construction plans more than a year ago. Watson said there was time
to protest the project long before construction began.
Further, Watson said, the Sierra Club's claims of damage to the river are
"grossly exaggerated."
"There is no debris in the river," said Watson, who visited the Highway 140
construction last week. "The construction is contained in the highway corridor
itself."
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