The Nation - News from June 30, 1987

The House approved legislation to prohibit the construction of most new dams in national parks and monuments or near those facilities if they would inundate parklands. The only exception would be for the National Park Service, which could build a dam for its own purposes as long as the dam does not degrade the resources of a park or monument. The legislation, sent to the Senate by voice vote, is motivated in part by a proposal to develop a hydropower project on the Merced River outside Yosemite National Park in California. Critics say the dam would flood part of the park.