More than 500,000 people are predicted to move to the Portland metropolitan area by 2010, and the National Scenic Area is close enough to serve as a bedroom community for this new population. Secondly, current environmental protections on many private lands will expire soon if the government does not purchase these tracts. This will allow landowners to build in a manner that could impact all of the adjacent public lands. Furthermore, with the retirement of Senator Hatfield, advocates are afraid that the land acquisition program will be dramatically curtailed. Lauri Aunan, executive director of Friends of the Columbia Gorge, feels that increased awareness is the solution.
People have a perception it has been saved.
That's not true. The groups plan to work together to incorporate a pro-active agenda for a clean environment and sustainable pork production. Due to the outrage that has resulted from animal waste spills and other environmental problems caused by hog operations, some of the nation's largest producers are relocating to southwest Utah. One of the reasons cited for the move was that the citizens of Utah have not expressed as many environmental concerns about industrial hog farming as citizens of North Carolina have. Several corporations are working together to build the world's largest hog operation in Utah, with an expected production of 2.5 million hogs annually.