[Skamania] ⛏ A Quarry on the Clock - Skamania BOCC 7/7 - 7/21

July was quiet in the room at the Skamania County Board of Commissioners, and busy underneath. Commissioners closed the books on the county's old budget system, seated a batch of new volunteers, and watched two long-running fights inch forward: the Storedahl gravel quarry, whose public comment window closes July 30, and the arrival of the state's energy-siting council in the National Scenic Area.

In This Episode:

• Commenter pleas against the Storedahl quarry, and the July 30 comment deadline
• EFSEC, the state energy council, reaching into the Scenic Area for a transmission line
• Supplemental Budget #1: the first budget fix under the county's new finance system
• New faces on the Board of Equalization and the Homeless Housing Council
• Forest Youth Success survives another summer, with a donor shout-out (and a disclosure)
• Carson traffic, a hatchery guardrail, and 850 racers on the river

Resources & Links:

• Read the full written Dispatch at SkamaniaDispatch.com
• Comment on the Storedahl Draft EIS before July 30: see the county's project page at skamaniacounty.gov
• Skamania County Board of Commissioners agendas, minutes, and audio: skamaniacounty.gov
• Catch up on the quarry fight: our June BOCC recap
• The bigger EFSEC story: The Nuclear Plant Wants Power, Skamania Wants Answers

Stay Connected with the Gorge

The Skamania Dispatch and The Klickitattler are community-led projects of OpenGorge.org.

To stay updated on local news, governance, and community events across the region, you can sign up for both newsletters at SkamaniaDispatch.com. For real-time updates and to join the conversation, follow us on Facebook at facebook.com/OpenGorge.

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Hey there, and welcome back to Open Gorge. I'm Kate, and I'm glad you're here. Today we're catching up on your Scamini County Commissioners meetings for the month of July. Three meetings on the 7th, the 14th, and the 21st. And I'll be honest with you, from the outside, it might have looked like a slow month with light crowds and a lot of thank you for volunteering. But underneath the quiet, the board was setting up some of the biggest decisions of the year. So let's get into it. A quick note before we start. The county hasn't published its official minutes for any of these July meetings yet. We usually use those for a bit of fact-checking and confirmation of numbers, but those tend to come out weeks later. So today a lot of what I'm going to tell you about comes from the meeting recordings and not yet the signed record. When I give you a dollar figure, try to hold it loosely and I'll flag it when I do. Those are taken from the audio recording rather than the written record. So with that bit of look under the hood, let's start with the gravel quarry. If you've been listening for a while, you know the name, Stored All. It's a proposed gravel mining operation out on the West End, and it's a big environmental study, the draft EIS, has been open for public comment since April. That window closes July 30th, so the clock is running. Stevenson resident Mary Repar stepped up to public comment and did not hold back. She called the study, quote, one of the not best she's ever heard to comment on. She said it's full of gaps. And she pointed right at the road that it would feed into Highway 14, in her words, quote, there are way more trucks on our side of the river, unquote, and quote, we've got more patches than pavement, unquote. She figures the quarry could add 500 more trucks, an estimate you may have seen going around some of the local organizing groups that are trying to advocate around this issue. And she said plainly that she hopes the project, quote, dies on the vine, unquote. Here's why that matters. This is the same worry that the commissioners themselves raised this spring, but about 150 people packed an open house. The study says very little about what all those trucks would do to a Highway 14 that's already crumbling and underfunded. And here's the thing, the county isn't the one who decides this. So a written comment before July 30th is really the main lever you've got as a resident. If you care about this one, that's your deadline. And one more thing. Wonder who pays to clean up an abandoned mine? We did, so we reached out and asked the state DNR. And they were really kind about walking through the whole process with us bit by bit. It turns out that there's a bond for it set by the state, not the operator. You can see more details about how that process works in the written edition. Now, a quieter item that might be even more down the road. It came up in the July 21st department reports. Public Works Director David Weymeyer told the board that the county has worked out an agreement with the state, the Gorge Commission, the County Prosecutor, that lets FSEC, which is the state's Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council, one of the other agencies we cover at this newsletter, review the county's scenic area code. So it's the body that reviews the big energy projects, and this one is a transmission line, the Cascade Renewable Transmission Project, which you might have heard about in other local coverage. So, Weimar said it's the first time FSEC has ever done a project inside the national scenic area. And that's the whole point of the deal. When FSEC signs off on an energy project, it can override local zoning, but we'll see how that runs into what the scenic area rules are, which are actually the result of a by-state compact empowered by Congress. So the county's trying to get the state to read scenic area rules into the process rather than around them, which always sounds like a good idea. One commissioner went to an FSEC meeting and asked what role local government even gets to play here. You might have remembered from a prior episode that it seems like it might not be much, and they didn't have an answer for him quite yet. This one is still moving, so we're going to keep an ear out for you. And of course, if you want that whole FSEC story that we covered, the powered man, the nuclear angle, all of it, we've got a companion issue on it called The Nuclear Plant Wants Power, Schemania Wants Answers in the written edition and on this podcast. Definitely worth your time. Okay, so let's talk money briefly. On July 21st, the board adopted its first supplemental budget of the year, and this was a bit of a milestone. It's the first one that the county has run through its brand new finance system with new account codes. The finance officer said, quote, it looks a little bit different than in the past, unquote. Most of it was just trueing up the numbers, and nearly all of it was covered by revenue, not the general fund. Only about $30,000 came out of current expenses, according to the recording. A week earlier, the board also passed a resolution distributing the federal forest money. That's the timber money this county has spent all year worrying about. And that one matters more than it sounds. As we all know, Scamania is a timber county, and when the federal payments that backfill lost logging revenue get shaky, and they've been shaky all year, as we've heard, it hits the sheriff, it hits emergency medical services, it even reaches the schools. So moving that money out the door is very good news in a long and nervous story. Now July was appointment season as well. The board seated three people on the Board of Equalization. That's the citizen panel that hears your appeal if you think the assessor overvalued your property. Brenda Bush and Susan Haynes were reappointed, and Jeff Payson is new. And there's a small, honest comment from the Dais. Each of the three was the only person who applied. As one commissioner put it, in the era of hard to get volunteers, I appreciate the want to be on the board. The board also appointed Caitlin Conrath to the Homeless Housing Council, and that council is also getting a shakeup. One commissioner said he reopened bylaws to push it towards real task-based work, instead of just being, in his words, quote, a community update group. So here's a bit of good news. Forest Youth Success, that's the summer work and learning program for local teens who helped do critical forest management work in the Gifford Pinchhow every year, is finally running again. About 18 kids enrolled, and that's a relief because back in the spring, as we had heard, a federal contract got rejected and the whole summer was potentially in doubt. So it made it. And there was a sweet moment in the report. The extension thanked a couple of private donors who covered what the grants couldn't. One pair took five of the students to the store and outfitted them head to toe, work boots and all, so that they could show up on day one, ready to go with the right equipment to stay safe and get this important forest management work done. Now, full disclosure, one of those donors writes this very newsletter. That's me. I'm telling you because it's on the public record and honestly because it's a nice reminder. I actually got to know the Forest Youth Success Program a lot better through covering their journey over the last year for this podcast. And I wanted to share it with you because it's actually my hope that our coverage can help you connect better with the causes that could use a friend here in our area too. The programs you hear about on this show often have small specific needs that a neighbor can actually help with, and especially that big grants often can't cover. I think they're also a great opportunity to create new relationships between all of us as neighbors that can last not just for the summer, but for many years to come. So, a few quick hits on the ground before we go. Out in Carson, Public Works restored some parking spaces at the four-way and painted new lines to stop those downhill T-bone crashes. Commissioners are still fighting WS DOT for a turn lane at the Hot Springs intersection, and one of them even sent along a video of a close call to make the point. Public Works also opened a long 60-day comment window on a critical area ordinance update, so that affects your property, you'll have time to weigh in. And you can ask questions at National Night Out on August 4th. After a string of cars ended up in the ponds at the Washoogle salmon hatchery, the county's working with the state on a guardrail. And on the river, the Gorge Downwind race began on July 16th. More than 850 racers paddling from Home Valley Park down to Hunter River. One commissioner volunteered as a safety boat and said Stevenson was absolutely packed. It's the friendlier side of a story we keep going back to on this show. The gorge's recreation economy is booming, and the launches and highways are straining to keep up. The board's still planning a sit-down with all the stakeholders sometime in late July or early August before the fall fishing season starts. And the goal, of course, isn't to keep people away, it's to figure out where on earth to put the cars and how we can all continue to grow and keep Stevenson and Skimani County in general a destination that people keep coming back to again and again. So what's next? The big one is that stored all comment deadline, July 30th. The Title III funding workshop got pulled from the July 21st agenda because the numbers weren't ready, so watch for that to come back. National night out is August 4th, the county fair is in August, and that scenic area energy agreement should come back to the board before September. So that's your July. Quiet on top, very busy underneath. And for the full written version, with all the names spelled right and the links you need, head over to Schemania Dispatch.com. You've been listening to a production of opengorge.org, home of the Schemania Dispatch and the Click a Tattler. 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 schemania dispatch.com to sign up for our newsletters. You can also find us on Facebook at facebook.comslash opengorge. Join the conversation and share your thoughts on today's episode. Thanks for tuning in, and we'll talk to you next time.