Open Gorge: The Skamania Dispatch & Klickitattler

A reported verdict in the killing of Candice Malave Delena, and why the news was forced to travel by Facebook. Plus the Skamania County Board of Commissioners and Skamania PUD in September: a smaller timber check from DNR, a new PUD commissioner, and a board split over a 2% rate increase.

In This Episode

• The Delena verdict and the news desert
• DNR's lower 2026 timber forecast
• The Roadless Rule: a resident's plea and a board letter
• Five closed-door personnel sessions
• An outside review of the Sheriff's evidence room
• Road 90 plowing and Drano Lake traffic
• Dev Bell joins the PUD board
• 2% or zero: the PUD's 2027 rate choice
• The Carson water plant, Cape Horn's transformer and a leaky Underwood tank
• The PUD's wildfire shutoff policy

Resources & Links

• Read the full written Dispatch at SkamaniaDispatch.com
• Roadless Rule comments, open through October 6
• Skamania County commissioners' agendas, minutes and audio
• Skamania PUD agendas and minutes
• Skamania PUD Wildfire Mitigation Plan
• Skamania County Council on Domestic Violence, Sexual Assault and Crime Victims: 509-427-4210

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.

Sixty people came to a community center in Underwood to say what living inside the National Scenic Area actually costs them. Almost none of it ever becomes a court case. Meanwhile the Gorge Commission has been briefed on the 10-year rewrite of the Gorge Management Plan that could change that story, and the Forest Service says waiting until 2030 would be legal. Here is how the last rewrite worked, and where you get a say.

In This Episode

• A half-inch pipe, a livestock well, and the permit that costs the same as a carwash
• Why only four NSA application appeals in four years may not be the reassurance it sounds like
• Why "Gorge 2030" is not a process yet, and what the staff calendar actually recommends
• Section 6(g): the clock opened in October 2025 and does not close until 2030
• What provably changed the words of the 2020 plan
• The two hearings the law guarantees, and the sixty-day county clock the packet prints as ninety
• She Who Watches, and a request the Chair answered on the spot

Resources & Links

• Read the full written Dispatch at skamaniadispatch.com, where every fact in this episode is sourced and linked.
• Gorge Commission meetings, agendas and recordings: gorgecommission.org
• Written comment: [email protected]

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.

About 150 people, by Columbia Gorge News's count, came to a September 3 workshop to ask the Klickitat County Board of County Commissioners to pause data centers, and the Board took no action. We start on August 11, with the moratorium motion the Goldendale Sentinel reported and the county's own minutes did not, then follow the question through September 15. Plus the 2027 budget gap, and the levy limit running under both.

In This Episode

• August 11: the moratorium motion the Sentinel reported and the minutes left out
• September 3: a full room, no motions allowed, and three sentences of minutes
• Staff's best-case 90 days to an ordinance, with or without a pause
• Klickitat PUD's Dan Gunkel on siting, studies and who pays for upgrades
• September 8: "punt, punt, punt," and the case for an ordinance instead
• September 15: an October 1 draft target, and a dispute over how the request arrived
• The battery storage pause, extended a fourth time to March 4, 2027
• The 2027 budget opens $3,752,084 short in the general fund
• The levy limit under both, and what it did to the 2025 levy
• The RV park rewrite, and 500 to 2,000 workers over ten years
• On the calendar: September 22, 24 and 28, October 1 and 6, and March 4, 2027

Resources & Links

• Read the full written Dispatch at skamaniadispatch.com
• Klickitat County Board of County Commissioners: 115 West Court, Room #201, Goldendale, Washington; 509-773-4612; [email protected]; Zoom meeting ID 586 587 651
• The county's Data Center Information page: https://klickitatcounty.gov/1710/Data-Center-Information
• Goldendale Sentinel on August 11 (https://www.goldendalesentinel.com/news/animal-shelter-starts-agenda-at-county-meeting/article_c88e4126-3cbc-4f3a-8c6d-03fa459f0e96.html) and on the September 3 workshop (https://www.goldendalesentinel.com/news/residents-urge-county-to-slow-down-on-data-centers/article_488526ae-7f64-4bf2-80be-31240af19757.html)
• Columbia Gorge News on the September 3 workshop: https://www.columbiagorgenews.com/news/data-center-moratorium-fails-during-klickitat-county-commissioners-meeting-despite-public-support/article_cc7187c4-b33e-4b0f-ae77-663d836b7b85.html
• Gorge Country Media on the September 8 meeting: https://gorgenewscenter.com/2026/09/09/9-08-klickitat-county-commissioners-meeting/
• Our last Klickitat edition, "The County That Didn't Pause Data Centers": https://skamania-dispatch.ghost.io/the-county-that-didnt-pause-data-centers-klickitat-bocc-7-28-to-8-18/
• Open Gorge's Public Benefit Lab: https://www.opengorge.org/public-benefit-lab

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.

On August 18 the Skamania County Board of Commissioners adopted a moratorium on data center development, first by motion and then as Resolution 2026-22, both unanimous, after eight people at public comment asked for a pause. A week later, Public Works Director David Waymire told the Board the county had received zero applications for a data center. We walk through the two votes, what the Board heard before them, and what Washington law asks of a moratorium adopted before a hearing.

In This Episode

• The data-center moratorium: a motion and Resolution 2026-22 on August 18, both unanimous
• Eight voices for a pause at public comment, and a separate request about the Assessor's Office
• What state law requires after a moratorium adopted without a hearing: a public hearing within 60 days, and findings of fact
• Three fires on the Gifford Pinchot National Forest, and emergency management costs and the cities
• The Wind River Trust on stacking small things
• A five-year, $442,800 Motorola Flex subscription for the Sheriff's Office
• Two new Planning Commissioners, Paul Goins and Billy Wenz
• A failed striping machine, a boat-launch parking map, a new interim health officer and the stream-buffer case
• The Forest Service's roadless rule proposal, and its September 21, 2026 comment deadline
• From August 11: what the 2027 through 2029 labor agreements and the Northwestern Lake Park letter of understanding say
• On the calendar: October 17, 2026, the 60-day mark; county budget meetings at the end of September 2026; and January 1, 2027

Resources & Links

• Read the full written Dispatch at skamaniadispatch.com
• Skamania County Board of Commissioners agendas, minutes and meeting audio: https://www.skamaniacounty.gov/departments-offices/commissioners/agendas-minutes-meeting-audio
• Skamania County Commissioners' resolutions page: https://www.skamaniacounty.gov/departments-offices/commissioners/resolutions
• Resolution 2026-22, in the county's 2026 resolutions folder: https://www.skamaniacounty.gov/departments-offices/commissioners/resolutions/-folder-807
• RCW 36.70.795, on moratoria: https://app.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=36.70.795
• RCW 36.70A.390, the Growth Management Act's version: https://app.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=36.70A.390
• Columbia Gorge News on the moratorium vote: https://www.columbiagorgenews.com/free_news/skamania-county-board-of-commissioners-pass-data-center-moratorium/article_acfe853d-ed41-41f7-aac2-97fc73ec2c30.html
• Gifford Pinchot National Forest fire information: https://www.fs.usda.gov/r06/giffordpinchot/fire/info
• Wind River Trust: https://windriverwa.org/wind-river-trust
• Clark County Board of Health appoints Dr. Brianna da Silva Bhatia interim health officer: https://clark.wa.gov/public-health/board-health-appoints-dr-brianna-da-silva-bhatia-interim-health-officer
• Capital Press on the stream-buffer rule being put on hold: https://capitalpress.com/2026/09/04/judge-halts-washington-forest-buffer-rule-for-timberlands/
• Federal Register, the roadless rule proposal (comment deadline September 21, 2026): https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/08/20/2026-16965/special-areas-roadless-area-conservation
• Join a Board meeting (Tuesdays at 9:30 a.m.) on Zoom: https://us04web.zoom.us/j/6276698258, or by phone at 1 346 248 7799, meeting ID 627 669 8258
• This episode's written report was cross-checked against notes from Columbia Gorge Documenters, powered by Uplift Local, CC BY 4.0: https://upliftlocal.news/columbia-gorge/columbia-gorge-documenters/

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.

The Hood River-White Salmon Bridge Authority got its first real look at how the federal government scores its billion dollar grant application, and the news was mixed. Reviewers cut the project's benefit score nearly in half over a single assumption about earthquakes. Meanwhile a price fight over eighteen test piles sent the board behind closed doors, and one unpaid invoice has been sitting at Federal Highways for four hundred forty-eight days.

In This Episode

• Why "Recommended" is good news and also an argument
• The one assumption that cost the project half its benefit score
• What a forty-four mile detour has to do with a grant application
• Eighteen test piles, one closed session, and a contractor standoff
• The project is under budget and behind schedule at the same time
• A fight over what color the new bridge should be
• What Kiewit learned at Oregon City that changes the plan here

Resources & Links

• Read the full written Dispatch at skamaniadispatch.com
• Bridge Authority agendas, packets and meeting recordings: hrwsba.gov and hoodriverbridge.org
• Next board meeting: Monday, September 14, 2 to 4 p.m., White Salmon and Zoom. Public comment is taken at every regular meeting.
• Federal Highway Administration, Bridge Investment Program: fhwa.dot.gov/bridge/bip
• Government Accountability Office review of the grant program: files.gao.gov, report GAO-25-107227

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.

Goldendale's quietest month of the year still managed to leave the City Council with a question about its own rulebook that nobody at the table could answer. A resident asked for livestock to be banned from R-1 neighborhoods with no exceptions, and the discussion that followed turned on a 4-H permit the council believed sat outside its ordinance. It doesn't. We read the chapter.

In This Episode

• Why a $285,000 drop in Goldendale's retail sales tax probably isn't about the price of cereal in Hood River
• The 4-H livestock exception, and where it actually lives in the city code
• One thing in that same chapter that nobody at either meeting raised
• Two old fire command vehicles head to the Trout Lake and Wahkiacus fire districts
• The fire the city's own record never named, and why it won't be reimbursed for it
• Two weeks after the ADU code passed, the next housing fight opens on single-wide mobile homes
• What's next: a Tuesday council meeting, an October ordinance, and a November grant decision

Resources & Links

• Read the full written Dispatch at skamaniadispatch.com
• Goldendale Municipal Code chapter 6.08, livestock, fowl, wild animals and animal traps: https://ecode360.com/47077496#47077608
• RCW 82.08.0293, Washington's sales-tax exemption for food and food ingredients: https://app.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=82.08.0293
• Washington State Patrol, state fire mobilization for the Red Sky Fire: https://wsp.wa.gov/state-fire-mobilization-authorized-for-the-red-sky-fire/
• Washington State Patrol, state fire mobilization for the Lyle Hill 2 Fire: https://wsp.wa.gov/state-fire-mobilization-authorized-for-the-lyle-hill-2-fire/
• Transportation Improvement Board, 2026 Call for Projects: https://www.tib.wa.gov/tibinfo/NewsItem.cfm?stid=397
• Goldendale City Council agendas, packets, minutes and meeting video: https://www.ci.goldendale.wa.us/your-government/city-council/agendas-minutes

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.

Stevenson's county planner counted the city's apartment-zoned land and reported back that in his opinion Stevenson does not need more of it. The Planning Commission recommended a rezone anyway, then asked to be put to work on a comprehensive plan nobody at City Hall can explain. Ten days later the City Council ended a three-year sewer fight and handed most of its 2027 housing work to Skamania County.

In This Episode

• The Attwell Road rezone, and the build-out study that said the city has 132 parcels already zoned for apartments and 22 of them sitting empty
• Why the commission attached a design overlay the applicant never asked for
• The state-mandated planning update Stevenson is already inside, with a comment deadline of September 20 and a December 31 completion date
• What the new sewer ordinance actually means if you own a working septic system
• The 2027 work plan, and why four of its seven policy projects belong to the county
• A failed city administrator search, new settlement authority for the mayor, and engineering standards last revised in 1999
• The volunteer fire department's recruitment problem, and why the chief calls it demographic
• Stevenson's median home price against the 2020 housing study's own definition of attainable

Resources & Links

• Read the full written Dispatch at skamaniadispatch.com
• Comment on the critical areas ordinance before September 20: the draft, the science memo and the flood chapter are all on Skamania County's update page. Comments go to [email protected]
• Stevenson agendas, packets and meeting schedule, with meeting recordings at vimeo.com/cityofstevenson
• The city's proposed sewer ordinance page, where the signed and numbered version should appear
• The January 2020 Skamania County and City of Stevenson Housing Needs Analysis, the study the city's own follow-up work is marked "On Hold"
• Prior coverage: The Sewer Rewrite Gets Its Escape Hatch, Stevenson July '26 and Parking Reform Comes to Stevenson, June '26

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.

Bingen's city attorney is leaving at the end of the year for two judgeships, and nobody outside City Hall has reported it. The Bingen City Council also filed a breach-of-contract complaint over a door cut through a community mural, caught a state agency handing them another city's contract, and gave two flood-damaged businesses a two-word update. From the meetings of August 4 and August 18, 2026.

In This Episode:

• City Attorney Chris Lanz resigns effective the end of 2026, for a District Court judgeship in Skamania County and a Superior Court commissioner seat in Klickitat County.
• A $15,000 mural, a new door, and a city council that would rather not enforce its own contract.
• The downtown flood ledger: two claims settled, one in review, and "No update" for Chips and Mugs.
• The SR-14 flashing beacon comes in about $2,000 under budget, on an agreement WSDOT addressed to the wrong city.
• Ordinance 2026-08-788 amends the 2026 budget, with no dollar figure stated anywhere in the minutes.
• Eda O'Connor takes the student council seat; her father abstains.

Resources & Links:

• Read the full written Dispatch at skamaniadispatch.com
• Our July Bingen edition, on the flood the city could not discuss: https://skamania-dispatch.ghost.io/the-flood-bingen-cant-talk-about-bingen-july-26-round-up-2/
• Bingen agendas, minutes and Zoom links: bingenwashington.org/AgendaCenter
• Adopted city ordinances, including 2026-08-788: bingenwashington.org/174/Ordinances
• Columbia Gorge News on the breach of contract: columbiagorgenews.com
• WSDOT on the SR 14 Bingen Access Improvements ribbon-cutting: wsdot.wa.gov
• Comment to the City of Bingen: [email protected], or (509) 493-2122

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.

North Bonneville lost its only certified water and wastewater operator at the end of July, with what staff called less than twenty-four hours of notice. The mayor declared an emergency and signed a six-month contract that the City Council never got to vote on. Then the first bill arrived. This episode covers the North Bonneville City Council and the North Bonneville Planning Commission for August 2026.

In This Episode

• Why the emergency declaration left the council with exactly one lever, and why that lever still has not been pulled
• The two structural failures that will outlast the contract: a job that was never advertised, and a statewide mutual aid network the city does not belong to
• What the first invoice actually says, including a rate the council had wrong and a detail about who is running the plant that appears on no recording
• Three objections from Councilmember Jeff Blakeley, checked against the document
• The zoning rewrite, STEP housing, and a state deadline in December
• Two Planning Commission seats whose terms had already expired on paper
• City Planner Richard Hall on losing his own job to a county agreement
• Brown water, hydrants, and the city's fire insurance rating

Resources & Links

• Read the full written Dispatch at skamaniadispatch.com
• Prior coverage, the equipment fund and the county interlocal: An Empty Equipment Fund, Full of Questions
• Prior coverage, the voucher-review fight: Who Pays to Build Near a Wetland?
• North Bonneville council agendas, recordings and minutes: northbonneville.net
• North Bonneville periodic review documents: northbonneville.net/planning/periodic-review
• What STEP housing means, and the state mandates behind it: Skamania County's Critical Area Ordinance Update
• The statutory deadline: RCW 36.70A.130

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.

White Salmon spent August getting three big decisions ready and making none of them. The City Council pulled a dollar store moratorium off its own agenda before anyone spoke, the Tree Board decided what a mature oak is actually worth, and a storm ratification quietly revealed a funding hole close to a million dollars. We also went looking for where the city's borrowed ordinance language came from, and found Tulsa, Oklahoma.

In This Episode

• Why the Council pulled Ordinance 2026-1189 before it was ever presented, and what happened when it came back
• Where the phrase "small-box discount store" comes from, and why the fresh food rule sits in one White Salmon document and not the other
• There is no dollar store in White Salmon. The nearest one is in Bingen
• The Tree Board's case study: one oak, two very different price tags
• A preliminary storm estimate of nearly two million dollars against a grant of up to one million
• A three minute special meeting that opened without a quorum
• Why the Planning Commission told staff its own draft was confusingly worded

Resources & Links

• Read the full written Dispatch at skamaniadispatch.com
• Our July White Salmon round-up, which laid out the tree ordinance comparison: https://skamania-dispatch.ghost.io/balcony-solar-tree-credits-and-a-postponed-store-white-salmon-july-26-round-up/
• Our June White Salmon round-up, on the thirty percent rule and the Wyers Street appeal: https://skamania-dispatch.ghost.io/june-in-white-salmon-an-ev-mandate-a-denied-appeal-and-the-30-rule/
• White Salmon agendas, packets and meeting recordings: https://www.whitesalmonwa.gov/meetings
• White Salmon Municipal Code, Chapter 18.41, Heritage Trees: https://library.municode.com/wa/white_salmon/codes/code_of_ordinances?nodeId=TIT18EN_CH18.41HETR
• Columbia Gorge News on the postponement, and on the mayor's account of it: https://www.columbiagorgenews.com/news/business/center-market-in-white-salmon-is-separate-from-proposed-moratorium-code-changes/article_5c613efa-49da-4e2b-aaab-eb9ecbd12f7d.html

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.