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History of the Oregon Environmental Council and the Biography of Larry Williams
History of the Oregon Environmental Council and the Biography of Larry Williams Author:Rodney R Stubbs, Larry Williams, Michael O'Rourke The grass roots environmental movement began in the Pacific Northwest by the founding of the Washington and Oregon Environmental Councils. A small group of activists and politicians joined forces that changed the awareness of environmental concerns. The Willamette River in Oregon was fouled with agricultural and industrial waste depleting the ox... more »ygen needed for fish to survive. The wilderness and old growth forests were disappearing in an onslaught headed by the United States Forest Service, who constructed 72,000 miles of roads to extract the timber. Nothing was sacred not French Pete, the Three Sisters Wilderness, Mt. Jefferson or anyone of a thousand places of absolute beauty. The condo mania began along the Oregon beaches with plans to prevent the public from experiencing their Pacific coastline. Inland, the farms of the Willamette Valley were being overran by speculators, diggers, cutters, and builders. More than 200 nuclear power plants were to be located in Oregon. The air was fouled with smoke from mills, forest fires, wildfires, slash and field burning. Land use planning was left to the real estate industry to determine the highest and best use of the land. This is a story about how that all came to an end thanks to a handful of leaders. Among those people leading the charge were Maradel Gale, Larry Williams, and others mentioned throughout this book. The politicians who worked diligently to help the movement included Governor Tom McCall, Senator Bob Packwood, and Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Larry Williams moved to Washington DC and joined the White House staff under President Jimmy Carter; then on to the International Director of the Sierra Club; the World Bank. He left his footsteps everywhere he turned to preserve the wilderness.« less