Settlement blocks Yosemite commercial development

FRESNO, Calif. (AP) - Ending a lengthy legal battle with environmentalists, the federal government agreed Wednesday to halt all commercial development in Yosemite National Park's most popular stretch and to consider limiting access to its wilderness.

The settlement was reached by the National Park Service and two small environmental groups that sued the federal government in 2000.

The groups claimed the park's $442 million plan to move campgrounds and upgrade hotel rooms in Yosemite Valley would jeopardize the Merced River, a federally protected waterway that flows beside famous granite monoliths and dramatic waterfalls.

Under the agreement, the park service will hold off on all planned construction until at least December 2012, when officials are expected to finish a far-reaching plan to manage and protect the river.

The plan will include estimates for how many visitors could be allowed into the park without threatening the Merced's fragile ecosystem.

"Going back to the time of John Muir, citizens have been an active conscience for the national park system," said Greg Adair, director of Friends of Yosemite Valley, one of the groups that filed the suit. "Now Yosemite is catching up to what the public, the Congress and the laws told they must do, which is protect the place for the appreciation of nature."

Planners with the National Park Service had been following the case closely, fearing it could force officials to cap the number of people allowed into Yosemite each day.

The settlement lays out a new process for park managers, consultants and the public to determine the maximum number of people who can visit certain areas of Yosemite without harming the river.