David Brower Open Letter opposing Merced River Destruction/Road Construction

Interior Secretary Babbitt:

We are writing you to express our alarm at the recently initiated project to widen the El Portal Road in Yosemite. At this writing, the Lower Merced River Canyon, a designated Wild and Scenic River segment in Yosemite National Park, is being logged, dynamited, cut and filled. The North slope of the River is being rebuilt with long stretches of concrete reinforced embankment reaching in many places to the very edge of the water's run.

This is being done to create a "better," wider road to Yosemite Valley. There was a time when engineers were not questioned. Roads and dams, hotels and stores, parking lots and urban sprawl spread across the land with sad regularity, and only a few of us insisted that not building them was the wiser course. There were only a few of us ready to stick our necks out and say "no" to the engineers, and there are still too few.

I am writing to ask you to find courage and to join us in stopping the destruction of the Lower Merced River Canyon. This road project is vandalism, Mr. Babbitt. It should never have started in Yosemite. You should put an end to this project.

There is no way to engineer a better Yosemite. The job was done perfectly by glaciers, and was finished at the close of the last Ice Age. The existing narrow canyon road worked for over 70 years to bring visitors to Yosemite, and was working fine after repairs in 1997.

According to the Park Service, the current destructive project is being done to create a wider road for tour busses, RV's, trucks and cars. More congestion at higher speeds seems to be the goal. That is not why Yosemite was protected as a National Park. The mandate of the National Park Service is ". . . to conserve the scenery and natural and historic objects and the wild life therein and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations." (from The Organic Act of 1916). The job of the Park Service is the protection of this wild river and the creatures that live there. The Lower Merced is an important river habitat. An incredible diversity of plants and animals including rare and endangered species occur in this beautiful, living canyon. The Lower Merced is itself a threatened type of river canyon habitat in the Sierra, due to the many dams which have been built in the 2 - 4000 foot range.

The National Park Service must not tear this canyon apart, but leave it wild. Listen to the River, it's wiser than all of us. It should live at least until the next ice age, many, many, many generations. Intervene, and stop this destruction.

Sincerely, David Brower, Earth Island Action Group
Sierra Club
Friends of Yosemite Valley
Yosemite Guardian
MERG (Mariposans for Environmentally Responsible Growth)
Mariposa Chapter Audubon Society and Green Party of California

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