A federal appeals court on Tuesday blocked a wide slate of construction projects intended to upgrade visitor services in Yosemite National Park's beloved mile-wide valley, citing the potential for environmental degradation of the river that runs through it.
In a sharply worded two-page declaration, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals said a district judge erred last month by not requiring park officials to stop construction and redo a master plan to protect the Merced River, the scenic tributary that cleaves Yosemite Valley.
The ruling comes just ahead of an Earth Day visit to Yosemite by Interior Secretary Gale A. Norton on Thursday. Norton, the Bush administration's top official overseeing federal lands, is to tour several of the 14 refurbishment projects that had been underway or slated to begin soon.
With the new court order, park officials ordered a halt Tuesday to several construction jobs already underway along the river's footprint.
Projects hit by the stoppage include reconstruction of Yosemite Lodge, a redevelopment project in Wawona, a headquarters building annex, new employee housing to replace dorms washed away in a 1997 flood and an effort to improve the valley's aging system of utility pipes.
Two environmental groups, Friends of Yosemite Valley and Mariposans for Environmentally Responsible Growth, challenged the planning document for the Merced River out of concern that park officials had failed to establish daily visitor limits and proper restraints on new development to ensure that the river and traffic-choked valley were not harmed by overuse.
The court challenge put those groups at odds with several other environmental organizations that had worked for years with park planners and the public to draw up new blueprints for protecting the river while allowing rehabilitation of guest facilities on the valley floor.
"Congratulations -- they've just handed the job of planning Yosemite's future to the Bush administration," said Jay Watson of the Wilderness Society. "This could throw the whole process open, and there's no telling what future plans might look like."
Bart Brown, a spokesman for the two groups that challenged the plan, said the park risked becoming overwhelmed by new development.
"This is an opportunity for park officials to finally get it right," Brown said. "I think it was Ansel Adams who said, when the theater's full, you don't put people on the laps of others."
