Groups File Lawsuit to Block Yosemite Plan by Ellen Chrismer Modesto Bee - August 16, 2000 Two environmental groups filed a lawsuit Monday to halt implementation of Yosemite National Park's Merced River Plan. The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Fresno, alleges that the National Park Service failed to write a restoration plan that adequately protects the river. Last week, the park service released the final version of the Merced River Plan, a set of guidelines for restoration along 81 miles of the river, while also providing for continued recreation in the area. In general, the park plan calls for a quarter-mile protection zone on both sides of the river. Before releasing the three-volume, 1,000-plus-page plan, the park service held public meetings to gather comment on the agency's proposals. Members of the small, nonprofit Friends of Yosemite Valley, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, spoke at about five of the sessions, spokesman Greg Adair said. In its final plan, the park service failed to recognize the concerns of his group and co-plaintiff Mariposans for Environmentally Responsible Growth, Adair said. "The park claims to have done a river plan that will protect the Merced," Adair said. "We think quite the opposite." The Merced River Plan provides overall guidelines that will be enacted once the Yosemite Valley Plan, which outlines specific restoration projects, is finished. That is likely to be in November or December, according to Yosemite spokesman Scott Gediman. Early last year, the Sierra Club and Mariposans for Environmentally Responsible Growth, which promotes environmental protection in Mariposa County, filed a lawsuit in federal court to stop the widening and repair of Highway 140. The highway had been damaged in the floods of 1997. In its decision, the court ordered the park service to create the Merced River Plan to ensure that development in the park protected the Merced, which has been designated a federal Wild and Scenic River. But Adair said the plan developed by the park is inadequate. "We feel the park's repeatedly ignored the court's and the public's cry for the protection of the river," he said. Adair said the groups' recent lawsuits stem, in part, from opposition to river-area developments like rebuilding flood-damaged areas of Yosemite Lodge, building a parking lot at Yosemite's Camp Six, and continued widening of Highway 140 into the park. Gediman said he could not comment on the specifics of the lawsuit. The restoration strategies in the Merced River Plan stand as the park's answer to river protection, Gediman said. His office was notified of the lawsuit Tuesday through a Friends of Yosemite Valley press release. Park service attorneys have not had a chance to review it, he said. "That's our position now," Gediman said. "It will be up to the courts to decide further."