Board OKs Merced plans despite critics

By Robert Salonga
Daily Bruin Staff

Let the construction begin.

A joint committee of the UC Board of Regents on Wednesday
unanimously approved the Environmental Impact Report and design
plans for the UC system’s 10th campus in Merced, reports that
have been criticized by environmental groups for the potential
damage they say the campus could have on native wildlife.

By certifying the campus’ EIR and approving its Long Range
Development Plan, officials said the university is on track to open
in 2004.

“We now look forward to building the nation’s first
major research university of the 21st century,” said UC
Merced Chancellor Carol Tomlinson-Keasey.

Located in the San Joaquin Valley, UC Merced will occupy 2,000
acres in what now consists of grasslands, vernal pools and a golf
course. The Virginia Smith Trust currently owns the majority of the
land which rests in the northeast corner of Merced County.

Merced was selected in 1995 as the site for the new campus and
is welcomed by the community, where, according to Mayor Hub Walsh,
more than 20 percent of families live below the poverty level.

It is Walsh’s hope that the new campus will improve the
region’s economy.

The approval came amid strong opposition from environmental
groups arguing that the LRDP and EIR did not comply with federal
regulations.

VernalPools.org, a group dedicated to preserving vernal pool
landscapes in California, said the construction of UC Merced was
approved without full compliance with the California Environmental
Quality Act, Clean Water Act and National Environmental Policy
Act.

“The current piecemeal process and inadequate EIR fail to
meet these tenets and will be challenged,” said Carol Witham,
coordinator for VernalPools.org.

Witham referred to the campus’ response to draft EIRs,
which address environmental issues and summarize impacts of
construction on the Merced ecosystem.

The argument of the opposition was that the university did not
take enough time to fully evaluate the effects of the campus on
wildlife in the area.

But the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research stated
that the UC had followed “the procedural requirements of
CEQA” in their respective reports.

Many regents acknowledged that there were still issues to be
resolved and stressed that the construction process was only
beginning.

“We need to get started, so that students in the (San
Joaquin) Valley have access to the UC,” said Regent Joanne
Kozberg, who had headed the board’s special committee on UC
Merced.