[A reproduction of an email to Nicholas Johnson with the permission of the author.]

You are one of the few people I have heard speak out with a passion about the "Iowa Rain Forest Project".  Clearly there are a number of individuals in our state and community who are looking to get in front of a parade.  Might I suggest that we just give them a different parade.  What I propose is we just reshape the project a little and involve different constituents.  Given the public's perception that it is merely a "pork barrel" project let's use that idea.  Why not turn the area into a large farrowing house.  Shape the cover of the farrowing house as a large pink hog that we could light at night to attract tourists on I-80.  Don't dismiss the idea to quickly.  I am sure the Iowa Pork Council would give support. To get the University of Iowa's support we could call it Floyd of Coralville. After all Audubon, Iowa has Albert the Bull.  Tourists could stop by to observe how hogs are raised.  In fact they could adopt a hog and pick it up in 6-9 months in one pound packages or to take the hog, which I understand are quite bright, as a pet or be trained to hunt truffles in Iowa.  In addition, the methane gas produced by hogs in confinement  could be piped over to Williams pipeline for distribution or could be used to heat the complex.  The waste material (a hog produces about three times the quantity daily that the average human does) could be turned into compose.
 
Feel free to take this idea and run with it.  No citation is necessary.
 
Keep speaking out.  Thanks.
 
bill matthes