SMCC Mission Statement

In the northeast corner of Alabama and forty five minutes from Chattanooga, Tennessee, the banks of the Tennessee River rise fifty feet on the west side of the river, but on the east side of the river the bank rises over a thousand feet to the top of Sand Mountain. Near Scottsboro, Jones Cove occupies an area approximately. One mile by one mile extending east from the Tennessee River and Lake Guntersville. On that cove is the last Boy Scout camp in the state of Alabama which allows its guest to swim in natural waters.

Jones Creek, a seasonal class five white water rapid, gives Jones Cove the clean water which forms a rare point on the Tennessee River, Nature at its finest. Jones Creek makes this thousand feet fall to the valley below in less than two miles of streambed. The roar of the waterfalls can be heard from the bluffs hundreds of feet above. The deep gorge which nature has carved is the Pisgah Gorge. Its wildness is locally renowned; its beauty is unsurpassed in this part of the state.

This is now in jeopardy. Sand Mountain has been selected as an ideal location for expansion of the swine industry. An area of great poverty (post NAFTA - GATT), an area of low education, Sand Mountain is the swine industries prime farmland.

One operation under construction has been so bold as to build in site of the tree line, which is the bluff over looking the Tennessee Valley, and will run off to the Pisgah Gorge and Jones Cove. The Corporations contracting would be growers have been quietly adding names to their lists of interested farmers. If it were not for a small group of local citizens, it is our opinion that there would be at least ten large factory hog farms under construction or in operation on the Jones Creek drainage system before the year 1999 is out. Our effort has slowed the progress of the industry; it will not stop them. The history of these facilities is long and horrifying. The Sand Mountain Concerned Citizens are trying to stop the operation of this facility without court action if possible. We are dedicated to the education of all rural communities on Sand Mountain so they may understand how to defend themselves from corporate factory hog farms.

Sand Mountain Concerned Citizens Focus

We the Sand Mountain Concerned Citizens oppose the proliferation of Corporate Factory Hog Farms in densely populated rural areas or in close proximity to recreational waters and streams or that risk drinking water supplies.

The Sand Mountain Concerned Citizens has two primary reasons for our founding. The first purpose and the primary reason the organization was formed is to oppose the operation of a Corporate Factory Hog Farm in the Pleasant View community near Pisgah, Alabama. Secondly, we strive to educate the public of the dangers of Corporate Factory Hog Farms. In order that the public will understand the environmental, economic, social and public health problems which occur in communities where these facilities are built.

We ask the state of Alabama to improve those aspects of the regulations governing Confined Animal Feeding Operations, which do not take the necessary steps to guarantee the protection of drinking water supplies, the quality of life in rural communities, and our rivers and lakes.

Our movement is not an anti-farming issue but a pro-quality of life issue. It focuses on a single area of the farming industry, the Corporate Factory Hog Farm.

The Sand Mountain Concerned Citizens will support all political efforts to restrain or restrict this industry across the State of Alabama and America where human lives are impacted or the environment is endangered.