Urgent: a River Needs Help

In almost record time, a bill to grant wild-and-scenic-river status to a California stream has been considered in committee and passed by the full House of Representatives. The House voted its approval Tuesday of legislation sponsored by Rep. Tony Coelho (D-Merced) to incorporate the south fork and most of the main stem of the Merced River, which flows out of Yosemite National Park, in the national system of wild and scenic rivers.

Congress will have an opportunity in 1987 to afford wild-and-scenic-river protection to major stretches of at least three Sierra-spawned streams: the Kings and the Kern, as well as the Merced. The undammed portions of all these spectacular streams are worthy of such designation, and Congress should complete action this year. Most urgent, however, is protection for the Merced, because of a pending application for a hydro-electric power project just 500 feet downriver from the western boundary of Yosemite.

Developer Joseph M. Keating has applied for a license from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to build a dam at El Portal, just outside Yosemite, to capture the Merced’s waters and divert them seven miles through a 12-foot-wide tunnel for the generation of electric power. Although the dam would be only 10 feet high, it would back waters into park territory. The diversion would leave that stretch of the Merced, the grand entryway to Yosemite Valley, totally dry for as much as nine months of the year. The idea of devastating a highly popular stretch of this scenic river for a minimal amount of electric power is ludicrous.

Various local organizations as well as the National Park Service, the U.S. Forest Service and the U.S. Bureau of Land Management all support wild-and-scenic status for the Merced. A similar bill sponsored by Sens. Alan Cranston (D-Calif.) and Pete Wilson (R-Calif.) has been introduced in the Senate. Now that the House has acted, the Senate should join in putting a quick end to any further thoughts of damming the Merced on the very doorstep of Yosemite National Park.