The Columbia Gorge would be a very different place without the protections of the National Scenic Area. Unchecked residential, commercial, and industrial development would have consumed parts of it, transforming cliffs, forests, meadows, and desertlands into crowded commercial and residential expanses stripped of scenic beauty and ecological integrity.
Thanks to AI image generation, here’s our crystal ball of what the Columbia Gorge might look like today if Friends of the Columbia Gorge and the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area never existed.
Fifty years ago, the Columbia Gorge was at a crossroads few people could see or understand. Standing on his riverfront property across from Multnomah Falls, John Yeon clearly saw the inflection point. As a child, he watched his father lead the efforts to build the Columbia River Highway. He spent his lifetime working to limit the impacts of dams and interstate highways in the Gorge, but the looming threats were too much for this brilliant, determined man to take on alone. The area we now know as Steigerwald Lake National Wildlife Refuge was being considered for a nuclear power plant. Across the river in Oregon, after the Reynolds aluminum plant poisoned nearby water and land, and eventually killed all the cattle grazing in its open fields, the company was forced to purchase the area we now know as the Sandy River Delta. The large, undeveloped Steigerwald and Sandy River Delta lands were zoned for industrial use. They were literal and figurative gateways: if developed, sprawl would march east. If protected, there was a chance for larger-scale Gorge protection.
Just west of the Gorge, a large interstate bridge (now the I-205 bridge) was being planned, ensuring the small, sleepy towns of Camas and Washougal would become burgeoning suburbs for the Portland/Vancouver metropolitan area. Subdivision proposals would soon pop up on the Washington side of the Western Gorge as land-use laws were nonexistent and access to Portland and Vancouver was to become exponentially easier.
Anticipating these emerging challenges, John Yeon set out to ensure progress did not smother the Gorge. He recruited Nancy Russell to spearhead large-scale efforts to protect the Gorge by launching Friends of the Columbia Gorge. Nancy took the baton and worked tirelessly to ensure Congress passed and President Reagan signed the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area Act into law.
While we all benefit from the foresight and tenacious advocacy of John, Nancy, and countless others, I often wonder what would have happened had those early conservationists not taken the steps they did. Here are a few major differences we would likely see today.
Gorge Gateways Go Away
It is possible that without the early momentum of National Scenic Area protection efforts, Steigerwald Lake National Wildlife Refuge and the Sandy River Delta could have been lost forever to industrial development. It is easy to imagine Washougal and Troutdale’s industrial parks jumping Gibbons Creek and the Sandy River and taking over these lands, wiping out what are now critical bird migration and recreation areas.
Idea of What the Gorge is Shrinks
Today, we think of the Gorge as stretching 85 east-to-west miles from the Sandy River to the Deschutes River. Without the National Scenic Area, most people’s perception of what the Gorge is would be the 15-mile waterfall corridor between Latourell Falls and Eagle Creek.
Historic Highway a Shell of Itself
The National Scenic Area Act came with a mandate overlooked by many: to restore and reconnect the old, neglected Columbia River Highway. The road was in disrepair in the early 1980s in the waterfall area and, without the National Scenic Area, restoration efforts would be piecemeal. The popular section from Hood River to Mosier of the Historic Columbia River Highway would still be lost, in private hands, and filled with gravel pits that have since been reclaimed.
Energy Corridor
Perhaps the most impactful difference we would see in the Gorge is the preponderance of energy infrastructure. The Gorge has three assets that makes it uniquely attractive to energy developers: lots of water, cheap power, and a sea-level transportation corridor through the Cascade Mountains. Energy projects from coal and oil terminals and natural gas plants to industrial wind and solar farms would have descended upon most of the Gorge. That would have been followed by energy-intensive data centers which in turn would require even more energy production.
Mansions on the Cliffs: Private Slices of Heaven
The absence of the National Scenic Area would have created a run on viewscape mansions on the cliffs and bluffs of the Gorge. With so much of the Gorge gated off into private communities, residential development would have preceded the emerging wine industry, meaning many of the wineries we enjoy today, particularly on the Washington side, would have never had the chance to establish themselves because agricultural lands would have been replaced by subdivisions and view lots.
Gorge Recreation Brand
The Gorge’s waterfall area would likely still be a major tourism area without the National Scenic Area, but the question remains: without the land-use laws the National Scenic Area created, what would have become of the outlying areas? One only has to look at what lies at the base of the Smoky Mountains in Tennessee where the once-small communities of Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge have gone into tourism overdrive to capitalize on the draw of the nearby Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
While these scenarios may seem overdramatic as the Gorge has always had individuals and communities interested in its preservation, it is critical to understand that it is only because of the strength of federal legislation that strong protections on both sides of the river have kept the Gorge from being exploited and overrun. The impact and legacy of the National Scenic Area Act cannot be overstated.
Read on to explore an alternate timeline of the Gorge if the National Scenic Area never existed. To view full-size images online, visit gorgefriends.org/whatif.
STEIGERWALD LAKE NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE: The site of a proposed nuclear power plant in the 1970s, the land at Steigerwald was once zoned for industrial use and sits next to the Port of Camas-Washougal industrial park.
Sandy River Delta: Across from Troutdale’s industrial area, this land was once zoned industrial and was purchased by Reynolds Aluminum as environmental mitigation when emissions from its aluminum plant killed the cattle grazing on the property.
COYOTE WALL: With no land-use zoning in Klickitat County in the early 1980s, the development possibilities at Coyote Wall were endless. Mining, subdivisions, and energy development could have quickly subsumed this landscape.
BEACON ROCK: The area near Beacon Rock was the site of a proposed subdivision in the early 1980s, a time when Skamania County had little to no zoning. With its proximity to the Columbia River, North Bonneville, and transmission lines, the area was very susceptible to intensive development.
WASHINGTON FROM VISTA HOUSE: A primary driver of the efforts to create the National Scenic Area in the early 1980s was concerns over sprawling subdivisions taking over the Western Gorge in Washington. No place was more susceptible than the farmlands across from Oregon’s Vista House.
HEARTLEAF BLUFFS: One of Friends’ newest preserves, this property sits in Klickitat County, where there were no zoning restrictions in the early 1980s. This area was ripe for development.
CAPE HORN OVERLOOK: The farmlands below Cape Horn sit just 30 minutes from the Portland-Vancouver metropolitan area and would have been susceptible to all kinds of development pressure, including industrial development.
CAPE HORN FROM RIVER: The Cape Horn Bluffs would have been an ideal location for large homes overlooking the river and the Gorge.