Timetable Set for Work at Yosemite

Criticized for moving too slowly on its restoration plan for Yosemite Valley, the National Park Service on Thursday released a timetable that calls for completion of several substantial projects over the next three years.

The blueprint sidestepped the plan’s two most controversial elements: the number of parking spaces and campsites that will be allowed in the hugely popular valley. But it signals the service’s intention to move ahead with reconstruction of parts of Yosemite Lodge damaged in the 1997 floods, removal of Cascades Dam from the Merced River and building of employee dorms.

The work schedule was drawn up in response to congressional complaints that a $443-million preservation plan adopted after the extensive floods was crawling forward at a tortoise-like pace.

“I think the project list is just great,” said Rep. George P. Radanovich (R-Mariposa), who has been critical of some parts of the restoration document. “It proves there is a lot in the plan that is moving forward pretty quickly.”

The list involves construction or planning for 15 projects, to be finished by late 2004.

The Yosemite restoration plan, unveiled in late 2000, was designed to take some of the visitor pressure off the valley by restoring open space and riverbanks and moving some facilities.

Radanovich, chairman of the national parks subcommittee, has objected to plans to significantly reduce parking and cut the number of valley campsites from the 849 pre-flood figure to 500.

Environmentalists were awaiting release of the project list to see whether the park service was retreating from more controversial facets of the plan. Jay Watson, California director of the Wilderness Society, noted that the hardest decisions are yet to be made but said he was generally pleased with the work schedule.

“I actually think it demonstrates the park service is committed to the valley plan and will be moving it forward in the coming years,” he said. “I’m really encouraged by a number of projects on this list.”

The timetable calls for the park service to have finished $105.1 million worth of projects in the next three years. Among them:

* Construction of cottages to replace the 200 Yosemite Lodge cabins destroyed in the flood.

* Designing expansion of Camp 4, a walk-in camp in the valley used primarily by climbers.

* Construction of 10 duplex cabins at Curry Village to replace flood-damaged facilities.

* The installation of about 70 campsites in the valley, which lost 374 of them in the floods.

* Construction of employee dormitories to replace flood-damaged housing.

* Removal of the only dam on the park’s stretch of the Merced, the Cascades Dam, built in the 1920s to provide power for the valley but unused for decades.

* Development of plans to restore to natural habitat the 374 campsites washed out in the flood.