[Klickitat] 🐓 More Clucking, Less Honking - Bingen May '26 Round-up

In this episode, we break down the Bingen City Council meetings from May 5th and May 19th. We look at how the city is moving forward with a massive 2.2 million-dollar grant to silence train horns downtown, and why a recent water main strike has triggered new digging mandates for construction crews.

In This Episode:

• The new "potholing" mandate for utility verification.
• The city exempts small backyard chicken coops from setback rules.
• Upcoming night shifts at the Bingen Point roundabout.
• A massive drop in the city's water system leakage rates.

Resources & Links:

• Read the full written newsletter at SkamaniaDispatch.com.
• Read the raw agendas and minutes at the City of Bingen Website.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Good morning and welcome to your audio briefing for the Click of Taddler. We're starting on our next month of city roundups, and today we're looking at the Bijan City Council meetings from May 5th and May 19th. And the big story is happening right downtown. If you spent any time in Bijan, you know the train horns. The city just secured $2.2 million in state funding to finally turn the downtown crossing into a quote quiet zone, unquote. But silencing those horns isn't as simple as asking the trains to stop honking. Train horns are a federally mandated safety feature. To get a quiet zone approved, the city has to build massive physical barriers, like non-maltable medians, or full four quadrant gates to physically stop drivers from trying to weave around the arms and beat the train. Because the railroad company BNSF has a notoriously slow review process, the city is fast-tracking their engineering proposals. They want a preliminary infrastructure design in front of the railroad by early July to keep grant money moving. Turning now to some local construction headaches. You might remember the water main strike back on April 15th during the Highway 14 crosswalk project. That accident caused localized flooding, and it also caused the city to change its rules. So moving forward, Bing is mandating a practice called potholing for future excavation projects. This means crews have to physically dig a small test hole to visually confirm where utility lines are before they bring in the heavy machinery. It adds about $1,200 to $1,500 per hole as a project's budget, but Administrator Chris Deloney told the council she considers the practice, quote, cheap insurance, unquote, especially compared to the headache that they're going through right now for the localized flooding and municipal insurance claims. A quick look at a few other updates. If you've been thinking about getting chickens, the council just removed the municipal property line setbacks for small residential coupes, specifically those under 300 square feet. So as long as it's not a chicken Taj Mahal, you should be okay to put that wherever you need. And finally, heads up if you live near the Bidget Point Roundabout Project, the contractor has requested to work night shifts from 7 p.m. to midnight. The city didn't issue a formal noise variance, but they're sending direct mailers to warn nearby residents. Looking ahead, engineering proposals for the quiet zone are due on June 5th, and the council expects to select a firm to run through that process on June 16th. Also, the city expects the delayed light fixtures for the new Highway 14 crosswalk to finally arrive in July. For a full breakdown of this meeting, including links to those documents, check out the written version of this newsletter. You've been listening to a production of opengorge.org, home of Schmania Dispatch and the Click of Taddler. We believe that informed communities are stronger communities. To support our work and stay up to date on everything happening in the gorge, head over to schmania dispatch.com to sign up for our newsletters. You can also find us on Facebook at facebook.com slash opengorge. Join the conversation, share some pictures of your cutest chickens, and also your thoughts on today's episode. Thanks for tuning in, and we'll talk to you next time.