Plan for Yosemite

* Your March 29 editorial, “Yosemite: Embrace the Sublime,” was most welcome. Nothing is ever easy at Yosemite. To its credit, the National Park Service has demonstrated real finesse in balancing a wide range of interests. It is now the public’s responsibility to respond in kind and show an honest sense of give and take in its review of the plan. No one group can expect to get everything it wants.

The park service plan strikes an elegant balance between resource protection, habitat restoration and finding dignity and meaning in the way people experience Yosemite. The release of the Yosemite Valley Plan is a pivotal moment in the history of Yosemite. There will be a wide range of opinions. However, in the end, the park service must adopt a plan that both meets the test of time and measures up to the grandeur of Yosemite, if the park is to flourish in the decades ahead.

JAY THOMAS WATSON

Regional Director

Wilderness Society

San Francisco

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* Thanks for reporting on developments in the ongoing Yosemite Valley development debacle (March 26, 28). There are certain factual details of the plan, however, that would serve to illustrate the destructive agenda behind Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt’s proposed “restoration.” Babbitt’s plan will:

* Expand one hotel and convert tent cabins at another into large, luxury hotels; expand restaurant space in the valley; build a new hotel complex at the north entrance (including a new road across NPS forest land).

* Field Imax proposals for commercial cineplexes at entrances; remove about 50% of valley camping; add a concession attraction at Lower Yosemite Falls.

* Straighten and widen the El Portal Road for tour-industry buses and RVs; widen some roads in the valley; widen a segment of Highway 140 from Cascades Dam to Pohono Bridge; widen Highway 41 from Wawona to the valley.

* Remove Cascades Dam but enlarge the roadway.

Babbitt proclaimed, “We must restore a semblance of nature to this most sublime place in our country.” I think we can do far better than Babbitt’s “semblance.”

MIKE OUSLEY

Balboa