This East Yosemite Valley Utilities Improvement Plan Environmental Assessment is intended to guide the development of consolidated utility corridors to provide efficient utility service to existing east Valley facilities and facilities proposed in the Yosemite Valley Plan.  The East Valley Utilities Improvement Plan Environmental Assessment evaluates the potential impacts of the project.  The park initiated public scooping on this project as the Yosemite Valley Integrated Utility Master Plan in January 2003.  The name of the project has been changed to the East Yosemite Valley Utilities Improvement Plan to more accurately reflect the scope of the project, which looks at improvements to major utility facilities in the east Valley.  The East Yosemite Valley Utilities Improvement Plan identifies and analyzes three alternatives:  Alternative 1 – the No Action Alternative; Alternative 2 – East Yosemite Valley Utilities Improvement Plan with Merced River Crossing at Housekeeping Camp (the preferred alternative); and Alternative 3 – East Yosemite Valley Utilities Improvement Plan with Merced River Crossing at Sentinel Bridge.

• Alternative 1, the No Action Alternative, represents the continuation of current management practices as they apply to utilities in the east Valley.  This includes the ongoing repairs and maintenance required to continue operation of existing utility systems.  This alternative provides the basis for comparison of each action alternative. The action alternatives (Alternatives 2 and 3) are based on the Purpose Of and Need For the Project and conform with the goals of Yosemite National Park’s General Management Plan and goals and management elements of the Merced Wild and Scenic River Comprehensive Management Plan and the Yosemite Valley Plan. The alternatives vary in the ways they would accomplish these goals.
   

• Alternative 2 would implement the East Yosemite Valley Utilities Improvement Plan with a Merced River crossing at Housekeeping Camp.  This alternative would develop consolidated utility corridors that are primarily located in previously disturbed utility and transportation corridors, and allow the abandonment or removal of existing utility infrastructure in environmentally sensitive areas such as floodplains and areas identified in the Yosemite Valley Plan for ecological restoration.  This alternative would construct a new consolidated utility crossing of the Merced River just west of Housekeeping Camp.  This would allow removal of several other individual utility crossings of the Merced River.
   

• Alternative 3 would implement the East Yosemite Valley Utilities Improvement Plan with a Merced River crossing at Sentinel Bridge.  This alternative would also result in the development of consolidated utility corridors and abandonment or removal of existing utility infrastructure in environmentally sensitive areas.  This alternative would construct a new consolidated utility crossing of the Merced River just east of Sentinel Bridge.  This would allow removal of several other individual utility crossings of the Merced River.

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