[Klickitat] 🌊 Riparian Buffers Rebuffed - Bingen Sept '26 Round-up

For the second year running, Bingen's City Council heard that state science calls for wider buffers along Dry Creek and Jewett Creek, and said no again. Plus a council resignation, a mural dispute that turned into a collaboration, and a 1963 sewer line that turned out to belong to White Salmon.

In This Episode

• Cabinet of curiosities: the depot sign
• The Critical Areas Ordinance workshop and the creek buffers
• Who can appeal, and how
• The mural, revisited
• A council seat opens, and two applicants
• The Skyline Hospital sewer line
• The flood ledger, nearly closed
• The crosswalk, sixty trains a day, and a culvert from 2002

Resources & Links

• Read the full written Dispatch at skamaniadispatch.com
• The depot story, from HistoryLink: https://www.historylink.org/File/23513
• Our January round-up on the 2026 buffer decision: https://skamania-dispatch.ghost.io/a-student-speaks-councils-decide-klickitat-city-govts-round-up-jan-26/
• Our August Bingen round-up: https://skamania-dispatch.ghost.io/a-door-through-the-mural-bingen-august-26-round-up/
• Bingen agendas, minutes and Zoom links: https://www.bingenwashington.org/AgendaCenter
• RCW 36.70A.280, who can petition the Growth Management Hearings Board: https://app.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=36.70A.280

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Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:01

Hey there, and welcome back to Open Gorge. I'm glad you're here. It's our Halloween month, so before we get to the meetings, a Bingeon story about a railroad sign that got everybody all riled up from our cabinet of curiosities. When the railroad arrived on the North Bank in the winter of 1907, the new depot sat right on the Binjen Townsite. And the sign said Bijin, and for about three months you could buy a ticket to Bijin or ship your freight to Binjen. A few months later, the sign was changed to White Salmon. White Salmon was two miles away, up the bluff, and you couldn't even see it from the platform. The railroad's reasoning? White Salmon had about 800 people in a city government, and Benjen had about a hundred. As you can imagine, Benjen did not take it quietly. Its protests said the railroad had, quote, changed the name to that of a rival town, and from that day to this have refused to recognize Benjen, unquote. For a while, the railroad tried to split the difference. One end of the station said Benjen, and the other end said White Salmon. Benjen won just once in 1910 and then lost in court because it was the railroad's depot, and the railroad apparently could call it whatever it pleased. So Benjen kept at it for more than 20 years. In 1930, the state finally recommended a hyphen. The Columbians' headline, Benjin wins 20-year fight for recognition, but white salmon has reason to feel downcast. Then the state Supreme Court finally made it stick. I can't believe it made it all the way to the state Supreme Court. But we're still very proud to be able to have our own Bingin station, where you actually can take the Amtrak all the way out to places like Whitefish, Montana or to Chicago. And with that naming convention finally settled, we can move on to September's business, our Bingeon Roundup for September 2026. Bingeon City Council met twice in September, on the 1st and on the 15th, and the big one was the 15th, a long workshop on creeks. Here's the background. Last fall, residents lined up to oppose wider buffers along Dry Creek and Jewitt Creek. In January, Council kept the old ones, 50 feet on Dry Creek above Lincoln Street and 100 on Jewett. Now the state's periodic update has brought a consultant, Facet Northwest Dan Nickel, and Douglas Yormick, walk council through a draft built on fish and wildlife guidance, how tall a mature tree can grow here, about 195 feet by their reading. By their presentation, fish bearing streams would go from about 100 feet to 150. Other streams 50 to 100, and Dry Creek to 100. The consultant said that's as small as the science allows. State law says every city has to protect critical areas and has to use the best available science doing it. A city can go smaller, but it takes on the risk of an appeal. City administrator Christa Loney came ready. She counted 29 owners and 31 properties. If the houses on those lots burned down, she said, 17 of them would become, quote, completely unbuildable and therefore valueless, unquote. Her message to the state, quote, the residents have spoken, the council has spoken, and our answer to fish and wildlife is no, unquote. Council members who spoke agreed. Councilor Craig Tremmell questioned whether the creeks even fit the ordinance's definitions. One of the consultants said they're, quote, very certain they do. Another voice at the table had taken a tape measure out to Dry Creek, 42 feet from the creek to the lots on Walnut Street. The speaker's verdict on the state's push for consistency, quote, that's not science, that's bureaucracy, unquote. The consultants pointed to three things already in the code that might soften the blow. A buffer stops in an existing rotor building, a reasonable use exception, and a variance. They urged a fourth, a rule letting a destroyed home be rebuilt on the same footprint. For those 17 lots, that rule may matter more than the buffer number. The pushback from the table was about housing. Bingin adopted middle housing rules in 2025, so a small old house on a small lot could someday be a duplex or a triplex. Rebuilding what stands today, the argument went, isn't the same as keeping what a lot is worth. And Loni reminded council that residents asked last fall to not be stuck paying for a variance, for mapping their own land, or for a hearing. No vote. It was a workshop. Loney laid out a path. Put the current numbers back in, open public comment from September 30th to October 13th, hold a first hearing November 3rd, and adopt December 15th. One more thing on this. Someone asked whether any resident could appeal, and the answer in the room was yes. The law, though, is a little narrower. Among the people who can bring a petition is someone who took part in the city's process, in person or in writing. So if this matters to you, the comment window and that November hearing are where you can get on the record. And these are really the tough questions that we see play out across places like the gorge, where ecosystems lie inside of people's neighborhoods. And these are the kinds of updates that I really like to see happen, especially in these public conversations and in our community governments. It's really important that, especially as our climate changes, as ecosystems change, and all of us have to adapt, human, plant, and animal alike, it relies on us to be creative and collaborative to figure out how all of us, people and nature, are going to live together and share a bright future. Moving to the mural. In August, a staff memo said Big Fish Properties was in breach of its mural contract after a door was cut into the mural on its building. On September 1st, the city read a statement saying the door had been discussed with the former mayor with no solid plans and a flower painted as a placeholder. The statement says Big Fish does not believe they are in breach. Councilor Dale Grinstead Mail had sent it to the Columbia Gorge News as a retraction request, and reporter Nan Notebloom was in the room asking which version was wrong. The facts in the two meetings aren't far apart, and the conclusion just moved. Next, a seat will open. Councillor Erica Ramsey resigned. By the 15th, there were two applicants, Sarah Mello and Quentin Deo, who ran for the same seat last November. Council picks by consensus and the appointee has to run it for the next election. Then, a pipe with a past. In 1963, Bingen and what's now Skyline Hospital paid together for a sewer line. In 2013, Council asked for a letter releasing the hospital in exchange for easements. That letter turned up recently in the files, never sent. And this February, a white salmon die test showed the line joins above where the two cities' sewers meet. Salone said, White salmon should be billing Skyline. Bingeon has been. A deed handing the line to White Salmon got tabled because it doesn't properly describe what it is actually handing over. So more than a century after our disputed depot sign, Bingein and White Salmon are still sorting out what belongs to whom. Then the flood. Muggs is still tangled up in litigation over its old loan. Quick hits, the new building committee held its first meeting, and Council backed opening it to a member of the public, plus up to $2,500 to research the easements on city property, with Depot Street first in line. The Flashing Beacon Crosswalk on Highway 14 got its final payment, $2,400, and came in under budget. Counselor Eric Schroeder noted that the trains through town have gone from 40 a day to 60 a day. That's a 50% increase, each blowing its horn eight times. That's the best case we have for that quiet zone they're working on, with its 65% design expected in January. And Loney says, the Washington State Department of Transportation has known since 2002 that the culvert under Highway 14 at Walnut is too small. After she showed it to a regional director, she got a thank you and an apology for two years without an answer. So what's next? Comment on that Creek ordinance from September 30th to October 13th, lodging tax grant applications October 1st to the 23rd, and Council takes up the full ordinance draft October 6th. The first public hearing is November 3rd. Yes, that is also Election Day. All the details, the links, and those laws we cite are in the written edition at SchemaniaDispatch.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. We'll talk to you next time.