Yosemite National Park Announces Merced River Plan Spring Workshops

Yosemite National Park Announces Merced River Plan Spring Workshops
Date: March 11, 2011

Public Encouraged to Participate in Important Park Planning Effort

Yosemite National Park is currently working on the Comprehensive Management Plan for the Merced Wild and Scenic River (MRP). This plan will provide the framework for management decisions regarding the Merced River and the Merced River Corridor in Yosemite National Park. The park contains 81 miles of the Merced River, a federally designated Wild and Scenic River.

Public participation in the planning effort is vitally important. The park will be conducting six workshops this spring concerning various aspects of the plan. These workshops are designed to inform visitors and elicit feedback about management issues necessary to complete the Merced River Plan. Each spring workshop will focus on a different and unique management concern that directly relates to the Merced River. The public is highly encouraged to attend all of these important workshops.

Spring meetings on the Merced River Plan will occur on the following dates:

Date	Time	Location	Topic
March 25, 2011	1:00 pm to 4:00 pm	Yosemite Valley Auditorium	Recreation
April 22, 2011	1:00 pm to 4:00 pm	Yosemite Lodge--Garden Terrace	Hydrology/Biology/Geology
April 26, 2011	1:00 pm to 4:00 pm	Yosemite Lodge--Garden Terrace	Transportation
April 27, 2011	1:00 pm to 4:00 pm	Yosemite Valley Auditorium	Cultural Resources
April 29, 2011	1:00 pm to 4:00 pm	Yosemite Lodge--Garden Terrace	User Capacity
May 13, 2011	1:00 pm to 4:00 pm	Yosemite Lodge--Garden Terrace	Science Forum

People entering the park to attend a workshop will have the entrance fee waived. These people should inform the Park Ranger at the entrance station that they are entering the park to attend the workshop.

Each workshop will also be available for viewing as a webinar. Online webinar participants will be able to view each workshop in real-time video as it is delivered to the live audience. In addition, webinar participants will be able to submit questions. For more information on how to view these workshops as webinars, and to learn more about the Merced River Planning effort, please visit http://www.nps.gov/yose/parkmgmt/mrp_meetings.htm

The Park Service supposedly wants "public" input so they schedule all the workshops inside the park itself in the spring during weekdays!?!?

How many of the public at large can take a day off from work and travel to Yosemite to attend the workshop? Sounds vary insular to me.

If they wanted real public input, they would have done what they did during the planning phase of the Yosemite Valley Plan and hold workshops not just inside the park itself, about around California and also a couple on the East Coast, IIRC.

At the very least, they could have scheduled these "public" workshops for the weekend. But I guess the park planners don't work weekends.

Sheesh...