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Work on flood-damaged El Portal Road is expected to begin Oct. 1
By Michael
Doyle
The Fresno Bee - August 7, 1998
WASHINGTON - The good news for Yosemite-area businesses is that federally
funded repairs to flood-damaged El Portal Road are about to begin.
The worrisome news, some lawmakers believe, is that the repairs will begin
too soon. In this fight, for all concerned, time is literally money.
Yosemite-area business leaders and their political allies increased pressure
this week to slow down, even briefly, El Portal Road construction work. From
resolutions passed by the Mariposa County Board of Supervisors, to congressional
letters rocketing to Yosemite National Park Superintendent Stan Albright,
to a meeting in Washington Thursday with Interior Department officials, the
drumbeat has built quickly.
"It's caused some real problems," said Rep. George Radanovich, R-Mariposa.
"We've got the park service looking at it backwards and forwards."
The question is when to rebuild about seven miles of the cliff-hugging highway
that follows the Merced River canyon from Yosemite's Highway 140 entrance
to the edge of Yosemite Valley. The old road washed out in the floods of January
1997, and temporary fixes have not held up well.
Congress last year approved $179 million to repair the highway and other flood-damaged
Yosemite areas. The highway portions of the repair fund will be spent on a
bottom-up replacement and widening of the winding El Portal Road.
"This is a 75-year-old road that's seen a lot of hard wear," Yosemite spokesman
Kendell Thompson said Thursday.
The National Park Service has awarded a contract to a Bay Area firm and set
a project start date of Oct. 1. When work begins, the road will be open only
for brief windows in the early morning, late afternoon and sporadically during
the day.
The on-and-off closures could last for the two years needed to complete the
work. Those closures, in turn, worry El Portal businesses that rely on tourist
dollars from the roughly 4 million people who visit Yosemite annually.
"I know the contractor is trying to do the right thing," said Jan Mennig,
executive director of the Mariposa County Chamber of Commerce, "but anything
that inhibits use of the park when the weather is good is bad for business."
Mennig adds an additional concern: If travel agents and vacation planners
hear of El Portal Road travel being constricted two years hence, they might
route tourists to other locations. For this year, Radanovich argued Thursday,
postponing the road closures until Oct. 15 would help.
Delays, however, could also cost the government a lot of money. Yosemite officials
advised Radanovich Thursday that keeping El Portal Road fully open for about
60 additional days over the next two years-as requested by Mariposa County
supervisors -would cost about $1.7 million.
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