Reopening of Bidding on Yosemite Pact Urged

Environmentalists and would-be concessionaires accused the federal government this week of placing business interests over conservation concerns in awarding Yosemite National Park’s lucrative visitors services contract to a firm that specializes in selling food at sporting events.

Representatives of the Sierra Club and other environmental groups, as well as unsuccessful bidders for the contract, called Wednesday on the Clinton Administration to reopen the bidding process and broaden the selection criteria during testimony at a joint hearing of the House Interior and Insular Affairs subcommittees on national parks, public lands and oversight.

The critics said the firm was inexperienced in running national park concessions and said they feared that it might not follow through on promises to help clean up toxic waste in the park and to take steps to ease congestion.

They suggested that the selection process, completed in December, was a rushed, “business-as-usual” job railroaded through in the waning days of the George Bush Administration.

But park officials countered that they had followed all the government rules in awarding the contract. The principle criteria used in choosing the concessionaire were “business experience and expertise . . . and financial capability,” said John H. Davis, associate director of operations for the National Park Service.

Park Service officials have awarded the contract to operate Yosemite’s hotels, restaurants, stores and recreational activities to Delaware North Cos., a $1.3-billion conglomerate known for selling hot dogs and beer at baseball games.

Delaware North was named the successor to the Yosemite Park & Curry Co., whose contract expired after its parent company, MCA, was purchased by a Japanese firm. After the change in ownership, the Park Service indicated that it wanted to keep the concession in U.S. hands.

Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt has agreed to review the contract before allowing it to go forward. He said the Yosemite contract might provide the government with a chance to examine larger issues surrounding park concessions and set a new course.

In the past, the Interior Department had been criticized for allowing its concessionaires to reap huge profits while the government got relatively little revenue. Under the new contract, the government’s share is increased.

Park Service officials particularly drew fire this week for their statements that Delaware North was awarded the contract in part because it was the only bidder that agreed to accept unlimited liability in the cleanup of Yosemite’s underground toxic wastes.

California Rep. George Miller (D-Martinez), who is chairman of the Interior Committee, and Bruce F. Vento (D-Minn.), chairman of the national parks subcommittee, noted that if cleanup costs run into tens or hundreds of millions of dollars, Delaware North might successfully argue that its unlimited liability commitment was interfering with its ability to make the “reasonable profits” to which it is entitled by law.