In 1987, federal legislation designated eighty-one miles of the Merced River within Yosemite National Park as Wild and Scenic. The Merced River Plan brings together federal law and Park Service management direction to create an integrated plan for the river. This plan will provide a foundation for future actions within the park.

The New Year’s day deluge of 1997 not only restructured the configuration of the Merced River but also set into action a new wave of Yosemite Valley planning. After the flood, Yosemite National Park began reconstructing the El Portal Road. Legal action pertaining to the project’s environmental assessment resulted in a mandate that Yosemite National Park complete a comprehensive management plan (the Merced River Plan) for the Merced Wild and Scenic River. The court decision exhorted the Park to complete ongoing planning efforts (the Merced River Plan) and an environmental impact statement for the Merced Wild and Scenic River.

Public input on the Comprehensive Management Plan (the Merced River Plan) for the Merced River within Yosemite National Park has already influenced Valley planning. Comments on the Draft Merced River Plan/EIS were analyzed and used to help re-think and refine the criteria for making planning decisions in Yosemite Valley. The goals of this document are to ensure that no concerns relevant to the Merced River or Yosemite Valley planning efforts are lost, and to capture and carry forward concerns relating to the upcoming Yosemite Valley planning effort. The analysis presented in this document considers all comments whether general or specific, previously raised or new.

This document contains the Summary of Public Comments for the Draft Merced River Plan/EIS, which was produced by the USDA Forest Service Content Analyses Enterprise Team in cooperation with the National Park Service. This document also includes the responses to public comments prepared by the National Park Service and its consultant team.

The letters, emails, and faxes represented in this report were analyzed using a process developed by the United States Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Washington Office Ecosystem Management Staff, Content Analysis Team and used over the last five years for public comment on planning efforts including the Glacier National Park General Management Plan revision and the Interior Columbia Basin Ecosystem Management Plan, as well as for a combined analysis of Yosemite National Park planning efforts which included: the 1992 Draft Yosemite Valley Housing Plan, the 1996 Addendum to the Valley Housing Plan, the 1997 Yosemite Lodge Design Concept Plan, the Valley Implementation Plan, and initial scoping for the Draft Yosemite Valley Plan/SEIS.

This process is comprised of three main components: a coding structure, a comment database, and this narrative summary. Initially, a coding structure is developed to help sort comments into logical groups by topics. Code categories are derived from an analysis of the range of topics covered in relevant present and past planning documents, National Park Service legal guidance, and letters themselves. The object of these codes is to allow for quick access to comments on specific topics. The coding structure used was inclusive rather than restrictive—an attempt was made to capture all comments.

The second phase of the analysis involves the assignment of codes to statements made by the public in their letters, faxes, and emails. For each comment in a piece of correspondence, codes are assigned by one staff person, validated by another, and then entered into a database as verbatim quotes from actual public statements. The database, in turn, is used to help construct this narrative summary.

The third phase includes the identification of statements of public concern and the preparation of this narrative. A description of the layout and use of the narrative is included below. Statements of public concern are identified throughout the coding and writing process and are derived from and supported by quotes from original letters. These public concerns attempt to present common themes identified from comment in a statement that captures the action the public feels the National Park Service should undertake. Public concerns are derived directly from letters, and through a review of the database. Each is worded to give decision-makers a clear sense of what action the public’s concerns call for. Statements of concern are not intended to replace actual comments or sample statements. Rather they can help guide the reader to comments on the specific topic they are interested in. All identified public concerns, whether supported by the comments of one person or many, are included. Although it is important to note that the concerns presented in this document are numerous and exhaustive in content, public concerns are not intended to stand alone. They should instead be considered as one means of accessing information contained in original letters and the coded comment database.

All comments and concerns are considered, whether they were presented by thousands of people or a single person. Emphasis in this process is on the content of the comment rather than the number of people who agree with it. This is not a vote-counting process and no effort has been made to tabulate the number of people for or against a certain aspect of a specific planning topic. This information can be derived manually, and with some difficulty, from the database if desired.

Although the analysis process used attempts to capture the full range of public concerns, this summary should be used with caution. Comments from people who chose to respond do not necessarily represent the sentiments of the entire public. All comments are treated equally and are not weighted by number, organizational affiliation, or other status of respondents.

For more information, the reader should refer to the database reports prepared as part of this process and the original letters available in the Research Library, Yosemite National Park, P.O. Box 577, Yosemite National Park, California 95389.

This Comment Analysis Summary is divided into three chapters. Chapter 1 includes analysis of comments on general themes with reference to the purpose of Yosemite National Park, the purpose and need for action, relationships between different planning efforts, compliance with land management laws, public involvement, critiques of the Draft Merced River Plan/EIS and the use of science in decision- making. Chapter 2 covers key elements of the Merced River Plan/EIS such as river boundaries and classifications, Outstandingly Remarkable Values, the River Protection Overlay, management zones, the visitor experience and resource protection methodology, as well as alternatives considered and funding. Chapter 3 analyzes responses in detail organized by area of potentially affected resource or environmental consequence including natural resources, cultural resources, visitor experience, and social resources which include land use, transportation, scenic resources, socio-economics, access issues, park operations and facilities.

Each chapter begins with a general introduction followed by sections and subsections on more specific topics. At both the section and subsection levels, public sentiments on the relevant topic are described in a narrative, followed by one or more statements of public concern. These public concerns attempt to present common themes identified from comment in a statement that captures what action the public feels the National Park Service should undertake. (Note: Because all public concerns are presented, oftentimes these statements may offer contradictory direction.) Each public concern is, in turn, followed by sample quotes from public comment referenced to original letters.

Each sample quote is followed by an attribute which identifies the number assigned to the original letter it came from, whether the comment was made by an individual or an organization, a general description of the organization type, and a reference identifying the planning project for which the comment was originally solicited. This information appears as a parenthetical clause in the following format: organization or individual, city and state of letter - relevant planning effort - letter number. For example, "(Individual, Castro Valley, CA - #3273)" is a letter from an individual in Castro Valley, CA and assigned the letter number 3273.

Often public comments are submitted in the name of more than one person. In these cases, each signature or the total number of signatures is tracked in the analysis process. Table 1 offers three different ways of looking at how many people submitted input and how many comments they offered during the public comment period for the Merced River Plan. The first column, titled "Number of Responses," displays the total number of pieces of input (letters, emails, faxes, petitions, comments forms). The second column reports the number of signatures tabulated from all responses, including petitions. This number provides the most accurate gauge of how many people, whether individually or as co-signatories to a letter, offered input on each Yosemite planning effort. The third column displays the number of comments coded, categorized, and entered into the comment analysis database. Although there is no correlation between the numbers presented in each column of this table, the number of comments relative to the number of responses for a given planning effort can give readers some indication of the level of detail in public input.

Because Yosemite National Park has engaged in multiple planning efforts since 1980, a letter received during the comment period for the Draft Merced River Plan/EIS may contain comments on other plans. Comments relating to both the Draft Merced River Plan/EIS and the Yosemite Valley Plan were tracked during this content analysis process; the total number of comments for each is displayed in Table 2. If respondents stated they were commenting on the Draft Merced River Plan/EIS, their comments were coded under Merced River Plan.