Everyone should say 'no!' to proposed Liberty Quarry

What if John Muir and Teddy Roosevelt had not stood up to protect Yosemite Valley? What if someone had said, “Hey, look at Half Dome! That’s a great source of granite for you!”

I have loved and painted these hills since I was a boy. The representatives of the Granite Construction Company have said about their misleadingly named Liberty Quarry project: “You won’t see it. You won’t hear it. You won’t smell it. You won’t feel it. You won’t even know it’s there.” I don’t believe it for a second. This will be one of the largest open pit gravel mining operations in the United States.

I grew up in El...