The State - News from Dec. 23, 1985

Concerned about possible damage to soil and wildlife, the U.S. Forest Service rejected a proposal to explore for geothermal power sources in the wetlands of the Sierra Nevada’s pristine Monache Meadows, about 130 miles north of Los Angeles. A Santa Rosa company, Geysers Geothermal Co., had sought Forest Service permission to lease 16,900 acres at Monache Meadows to conduct exploratory drilling. The area, federal officials pointed out, contains the largest meadow in the Sierra Nevada and is traversed by the migration routes of California’s largest deer herd. “The high mountain and meadow-dominated setting is broad and presently undisturbed by industrial development and should remain in that condition,” said Zane G. Smith, the Forest Service’s regional forester in San Francisco.