CalTrans is revamping their objectives for the Ferguson Slide area which closed highway 140 from Mariposa in April 2006 promising to conduct the most thorough study possible after environmental groups balked at their previous plan to provide a “quick fix” a few weeks ago.
The Modesto Bee | Harder look at fix for rock slide: “After activists objected to a quick analysis of major road work needed near Yosemite National Park, state officials Thursday said they will conduct the most thorough study possible of fixing a rockslide-blocked highway.
A full-bore environmental impact statement — not a shortened study, as the state previously proposed — will evaluate three alternatives for bypassing the Highway 140 rock slide. Environmentalists were pleased.
‘I think this is a good move, especially since they didn’t give full consideration to re-establishing the highway,’ said George Whitmore, chairman of a Yosemite-monitoring committee for the Sierra Club’s Tehipite Chapter.
The California Department of Transportation said a draft of the new study should be ready in 30 to 60 days. But any added delay worries Mariposa County business leaders, who already are anxious over longer commutes and lost tourism.
In the Ferguson rock slide, 70,000 tons of rock and rubble tumbled onto the highway 12 miles west of Yosemite, starting in April 2006. Although a temporary bypass has reopened the two-lane highway, traffic to and from Yosemite has been slowed.
A permanent bypass using several new bridges over the Merced River won’t be completed until at least 2012, Caltrans officials previously have estimated. Business leaders and lawmakers don’t want the wait to grow longer.”