[Skamania] 🧁 A Spider Called Sparkle Muffin - Skamania BOCC, PUD, & Weed Board 7/28 - 8/4

Skamania County's PUD just froze new commercial water hookups in Underwood, and its own paperwork gives three different answers about when they start again. Meanwhile the county divided a federal pot that came up seventy-four thousand dollars short, found out its entire emergency stockpile is unusable, and heard that the timber money holding up the budget runs out after twenty thirty.

In This Episode

• Resolution 2905 and what a water moratorium actually does
• Why agriculture, not houses, are the reason for it
• Title III: seven agencies, one pot, and the averaging trick that decided it
• The PUD's empty chair, six applicants, and a ninety-day clock
• The Grange restoration, a ten-year lease, and a rumor the commissioners knocked down
• The county's entire COVID stockpile, and why the state says it cannot be used
• Weeds on the county's own roadside, and a cost-share program nobody has ever used

Resources & Links

• Read the full written Dispatch at skamaniadispatch.com
• Say Hello to Sparklemuffin
• Comment on the Columbia River transmission line before August 26: comments.efsec.wa.gov
• Project documents: efsec.wa.gov, Cascade Renewable Transmission
• Skamania County PUD, Underwood water questions: (509) 427-5126 or info@skamaniapud.com
• Skamania County agendas, minutes and audio: skamaniacounty.org
• High Lava Fire closures: Gifford Pinchot National Forest, fs.usda.gov
• Our earlier explainer: Cascade Renewable Transmission, an underwater power line with a long road ahead

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Transcript

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Hey there, and welcome back to the Open Gorge Podcast with another Scamania dispatch update. Today we're covering Scamania County's various meetings from July 28th through August 4th. There are three County Commission meetings, a PUD meeting and the Weed Board. Let's start with water. On August 4th, the Scamania PUD adopted resolution 2905. It puts a moratorium on new non-residential water connections in Underwood. So if you want to hook up a business, a winery, a tasting room, or anything that isn't a house, unfortunately you can't right now. New homes are still being reviewed on a case-by-case basis. And here's why. The State Department of Health looked at Underwood's water system plan and found the system is what they call overconnected. More connections than the documented storage and pumping capacity can support on the hottest day of summer. Two projects are set to fix it. First, the Huber Reservoir, a new 250,000 gallon tank, nearly finished, and it'll be online within two or three weeks. So, second, the Gallaghan Booster Pump Station, and that one matters a lot. Built in 1978, it pumps every drop of underwoods drinking water more than 900 vertical feet up the bluff. Replacing it is funded, about $2.4 million in federal money, but it's still in the design and permitting process. Construction isn't planned until 2028 and 2029. So here's the part we really want to make clear. Three different documents give three different answers about when the moratorium ends. The July minutes say it lasts until the source project is done. The resolution says until system capacity supports new growth. And the FAQ that went in the mail to underwood property owners says connections resume when both projects are complete. Those all sound like a little bit of different things, so maybe it's a good opportunity for us to ask, especially as the reservoir is a couple weeks away. And the pump station is years away. So if the FAQ is the real answer, we're talking about roughly three more years. To their credit, the commissioners pushed on this as well, and once said, quote, the word moratorium is just a terrible word, unquote. He asked staff to check in every six months and tell people if the timeline slips. Staff agreed. It's something that I know as underwood residents, we'll all have to keep an eye on ourselves as well. So here's one more thing. Somebody asked whether a customer could just pay to speed it up, and the answer is no. The money is already there, and what's missing is the design and the construction phase. So why non-residential specifically? Staff were direct. Vineyards and other agricultural use use much more water than a typical house. Hudward homes already average 283 gallons a day and peak at over 800 in high summer. And the board that made this decision had an empty chair. Commissioner Liz Green unfortunately passed away on July 10th. She was 64 and served 12 years, president of the State PUD Association. The memorial service happened this past Saturday, August 15th at Grace Baptist Church in White Salmon. I hope all of her friends and family are getting the support they need at this difficult time. So six people have applied for the open seat. One commissioner made the case for moving fast and tied it right to the vote that had just been taken. He said that we just did that with only two people, and it'd be better clearly if there were three. There's a special meeting at this past week at one o'clock. There was a special meeting this past week in Carson to review candidate qualifications. Moving over to County Commissioners, on July 28th, they held a public hearing on Title III money. If you've been following this podcast for a while, you know that's federal timber dollars, and it can only pay for emergency services, search and rescue, wildfire planning, and related expenses. So available $218,955 and requested $293,000. So they were about $74,000 short for those of you counting. Nobody testified, and then they did something worth praising. They divided up in public. Again, if you know me, you know I love getting to watch some of this process happen out in the open just because I think it teaches people all of the work that each of our commissioners put into each decision that happens at the county. So each commissioner filled in his own column of numbers, then the clerk averaged the three, and the average became the award. So a little bit of that process and how the sausage is made up front. Scamania County EMS got about 70,000, the Sheriff's Office just under 70,000, North Country EMS about 60,000. The Underwood Conservation District got $8,700, down from $34,000 ask. Both fire districts got a few thousand each, which only happened because of the averaging since at least one commissioner wanted them at zero. He pointed at the treasurer's report and said fire district one is sitting on $800,000. Another argued you can't cut the conservation district to nothing in a fire year. The average settled it. I know it's actually not quite a common known fact, but the conservation district is one of the institutions that will come around and help to tour your property and to give advice on firewise recommendations, which are very helpful both before, during, and after a difficult fire season. So also from the county, DNR reported about $5 million in timber under contract through 2029. After the year 2030, nobody at the table could really say what the situation is going to be. And DNR told the commissioners one of the next spring sales is named Sparkle Muffin. After a spider, I did not make that up. There is a specific little type of jumping spider. It's actually called sometimes a peacock spider. And I guess sparkle muffin is a pretty accurate name. We'll link to it in the show notes. It's a pretty fitting moniker. The commissioners also approved three-year labor contracts for two public works units and a matching pay package for non-represented staff covering 2027 through 2029. And Superior Court Judge Randall Krog was recognized for 25 years of service to the county. A quick fire note: the high lava fire is burning northwest of Stabler. It started July 23rd from lightning. By August 8th, it was around 1,500 acres, and the closure up there is going to run through October 31st. It includes trails that a forest use success crew had just spent the summer reopening. So because of the smoke, national night out was also canceled. Which points to something else. Washington's Department of Health told the county to get rid of its entire COVID era protective equipment stockpile. Not because it's gone, but because the county can't prove how it was stored. There's a 40-foot container holding about 117,000 N95 masks bought in 2020 out of the back of box trucks. One bright spot, the county can hand out expired N95s for smoke events, and anybody who wants them can have them. You can just go ahead and get in touch with them and they will happily donate some to you. So now the weed board, and this one is about fairness. Board members spent a long stretch on Tansy Ragwart along Bell Center Road on the West End. It's interesting because I just went to the Skamania County Fair this past weekend, and I learned a lot about Tansy Ragwort, among other things that is extremely poisonous to livestock. You can imagine why we would want to try and pull that out as much as we could. The county has one weed sprayer for the whole county, and it didn't reach West End before the plants had bloomed. So one board member had stopped and talked to a woman who was pulling those weeds by hand near a mailbox and put it this way. So eight days later, the weed program coordinator carried that exact complaint to the county commissioners. And that's pretty fast turnaround, so we'll be watching whether next spring spray schedule actually moves ahead as planned. The board also found out that its own help program isn't helping as intended. The cost share program reimburses half of an herbicide cost capped at $50 a year on a small parcel, and nobody's ever used it. Landowners told the staff that $50 really just wasn't that much, and that discussion is on the September 8th agenda. Two more from the county, and then what's next? First, the Grange. A nonprofit called Grace, T-R-A-C-E, is trying to restore the old Grange building at the fairgrounds. Six months in, they've raised $15,000, warmed a board, and had an engineer confirm the building can actually be saved. Full restoration might run up to a million dollars for a haul that groups could actually afford. The problem is actually the lease. They've got six months and they're gonna need 10 years because that's what grants require. And the county unfortunately just can't hand that over. Under county code, any lease longer than six months has to go out for a bid, and somebody could outbid them even by a dollar. They also came in worried about a rumor that the grange and the corner of the fairgrounds will be sold to developers. The commissioner shot that rumor down. Moving the county shops would cost $40 to $50 million, and need acreage that the county doesn't own. One commissioner said, quote, I'm pretty confident I'll never see it moved in my lifetime, unquote. Second, a public comment worth hearing. On August 11th, Stevenson resident Mary Repar asked the commissioners to take position on the Columbia River transmission line, the 400 kilovolt cable that is proposed for the riverbed that you might be following if you listen to our FSEC episodes. She said a hearing back in November wasn't noticed in the county's paper of record, and she tied it to the Golden Deal Pump Storage proposal. Her closing line, the river has given enough, it's time for us to give back to her. If you want to weigh in yourself, the state's comment period closes on August 26th, coming up soon, at comments.fsec, that's E F-S-E-C.wa.gov. So what's next? September 8th, the weed board and that cost share program, and then we'll of course be following up on some of the PUD meetings that happened this last week very shortly. You can find the full written version with every figure and every source over at as always schemania dispatch.com. You've been listening to a production of opengorge.org, home of the Schemania Dispatch and the Click of 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, or on your favorite spider name. Thanks for tuning in, and we'll talk to you next time.