New Yosemite Park Superintendent Named

Yosemite National Park Supt. Stanley T. Albright will be replaced by his counterpart at Glacier National Park, a career National Park Service ranger whose main task will be to complete a long-delayed plan for managing the park, Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt announced Thursday.

David A. Mihalic, 53, has spent years devising a plan to control traffic and crowding at Glacier National Park in Montana, which, like Yosemite, has difficulties managing the impact of tourists, Babbitt said.

Yosemite’s park plan involves restoring several natural habitats by removing parking areas and some overnight accommodations. The idea, officials say, is to reduce summertime traffic gridlock, along with air pollution and noise.

The plan is tied up in two lawsuits filed by the Sierra Club, which blocked a key road project and forced a study on the Merced River before any large-scale renovations could be put into action.

“We are hopeful that the appointment of a new superintendent will usher in a new period of protection for Yosemite and be remembered as a moment when protection and restoration of the park were put first,” said Joyce Eden, speaking for the Sierra Club’s Yosemite committee.

During his two-year tenure, the 68-year-old Albright continued the controversial process of reshaping public access to the immensely popular park. He will become natural resources consultant to National Park Service Director Robert Stanton.

Babbitt’s announcement came at a briefing on the lush floor of the Yosemite Valley with the famous granite monolith known as Half Dome featured as a backdrop.

Mihalic will be called to bring the park plan to final approval by the end of next year, a plan hailed for its vision by some environmentalists and condemned as slipshod by others.

Eden criticized the one-year timetable. Though the plan is two decades in the making, she said: “They need to take more time and consider their options. This has been an opportunity of a lifetime to do the plan right. And they’ve been rushing it through.”

When Albright assumed his park post in 1997, officials estimated that 1.5 million cars were traveling through the 7-square-mile Yosemite Valley each year, carrying tourists who come to see the majestic granite cliffs and towering waterfalls. On a typical summer day, the park plays host to about 7,000 cars, officials say.

They say they will scale back a part of the management plan that called for busing in tourists from an array of outside parking areas. They will instead set a less elaborate shuttle bus service that operates within the park.

Jay Watson, state director of the Wilderness Society, said the new superintendent must be given time to accomplish his daunting task--delivering a national treasure intact to future generations.

He criticized Sierra Club calls to slow down the management plan, saying the fixes need to be made soon so the overcrowded park will be more attractive to visitors.

“The time has come for a superintendent who can take the park plan to the public and sell it,” he said. “The park will be introducing some sweeping changes and those will take some explaining. People have to stop throwing obstacles up in front of park officials so they can get their job done.”