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Late Breaking News |
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| Date: August 20, 1998 5:08 pm Contact: Sierra Club Joyce Eden, (408) 973-1085 John Rasmussen, (209) 646-6559 Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund: Joe Brecher, (510) 658-2500 |
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Latest News Releases
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Sierra Club Files Lawsuit Challenging Yosemite Lodge Rebuilding Plan | ||
| SAN FRANCISCO, CA - August 20 -The Sierra Club filed a complaint
today in Federal District Court challenging the National Park Service's rebuilding plan
for the Yosemite Lodge area. The flawed Lodge Plan would further degrade the natural
environment of the Yosemite Lodge area in the heart of Yosemite Valley by relocating and
adding roads, parking lots, employee housing, and expanded lodging facilities in currently
undeveloped and environmentally sensitive areas, including the Merced River floodplain. "The Yosemite Lodge Site Plan will harm sensitive riparian resources in this important part of Yosemite Valley," stated Sam Cogswell, Chair of the Sierra Club's Yosemite Committee. "We want to ensure that the plan adequately protects this sensitive area within the heart of Yosemite National Park." The Lodge Plan seeks to rebuild, relocate, and expand lodging units and employee housing in the Merced River floodplain that were washed away by the floods of the winter of 1997. The plan proposes to relocate Northside Drive even closer to the river, threatening to degrade the river and its surrounding habitat, and further aggravating the substantial traffic problems in Yosemite Valley. In addition, the plan calls for expanding lodging units into a currently undisturbed woodland area used by hikers, picnickers, and climbers. The Lodge Plan was created and approved in a hurried, piecemeal manner entirely separate from the comprehensive Yosemite Valley Implementation Plan (VIP), and in violation of the 1980 General Management Plan governing management of Yosemite National Park. "Park management long ago called for a reduced human footprint in Yosemite Valley and a greater protection of the Valley's fragile ecology," noted Cogswell. "While we generally support National Park Service efforts to restore the Valley to a more natural state, the planned expansion of the lodge is a 180 degree reversal from that goal," he added. "Because the plan is not integrated into overall planning for the Valley, it is impossible for the public, or even the Park Service to evaluate whether this makes any sense for the long-term needs of Yosemite Valley." The Sierra Club is represented in the lawsuit by the Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund. Earthjustice Attorney Joe Brecher stated, "In approving the Lodge Plan, the Park Service committed numerous violations of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA); their environmental review of the proposed Lodge Restoration Plan is terribly inadequate." ### |
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