Open Gorge: The Skamania Dispatch & Klickitattler

The federal signature the Columbia River Gorge Commission has waited on since January finally landed, and it arrived as a footnote in a scheduling discussion. Post-fire rebuilding rules take effect around October 1, which matters to every household still rebuilding after the Rowena and Burdoin fires. We also get into a vineyard warning about prescribed fire, and a real argument inside the Commission about whether it has been doing half its job.

In This Episode

• The Secretary of Agriculture's concurrence, and the three things that change for people rebuilding
• Why no appeals hearing is scheduled, and why nobody can tell you what appeals are coming
• Prescribed fire, smoke taint, and roughly 110 Gorge vineyards
• "One of the two purposes of the Act": Commissioner Fowler on what the Commission has not been doing
• The Commission starts approving AI-written meeting summaries as its public record
• A first-ever annual report, a trial newsletter, and a 40th birthday planned on a flat budget

Resources & Links

• Read the full written Dispatch at skamaniadispatch.com
• Gorge Commission meetings, agendas and recordings: gorgecommission.org
• The Commission's index of decided appeals: gorgecommission.org/appeals
• Our January explainer on what the disaster-recovery amendment actually changed: https://skamania-dispatch.ghost.io/gorge-commission-passes-disaster-recovery-amendment-what-changed-what-didnt-and-what-comes-next-1-13-26/
• Our July edition, where the Commission adopted these rules: https://skamania-dispatch.ghost.io/turning-40-on-a-tight-budget-gorge-commission-6-18-7-14/
• Next Commission meeting: Tuesday, September 8, 8:30 a.m., by Zoom. The registration link lives inside the posted agenda.

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.

Public Utility District No. 1 of Skamania County runs three separate systems, and this year they went in opposite directions. Underwood closed to new commercial water while Carson sits six hundred hookups under its ceiling. We walk through what your PUD actually decides, what gets decided for it somewhere else, and what both mean for your bill and your property.

In This Episode

• Why your base charge is a bigger share of your bill than you think, and why that is happening at every utility, not just this one
• The man with three electric meters on one property, and why the board could not help him
• Underwood's moratorium: it is a pumping problem, not a water rights problem
• Carson has room. Underwood does not. What that means if you are planning to build
• A federal judge in Portland, a spill order, and the wholesale rate increase headed your way
• Where to actually get help with a heating bill, and why you should call in the fall
• Data centers, the one percent levy cap, and how "data center money" really works
• Trees are the number one cause of your outages, and what the district spends to stop it
• Remembering late Commissioner Liz Green, and the nomination of Dev Bell to the empty seat

Resources & Links

• Read the full written Dispatch at skamaniadispatch.com
• Our coverage of the August 4 moratorium decision: https://skamania-dispatch.ghost.io/a-spider-called-sparkle-muffin-skamania-bocc-pud-weed-board-7-28-8-4/
• The Levy Scissors, our explainer on the one percent cap: https://skamania-dispatch.ghost.io/levy-scissors/
• Klickitat County's parallel data center debate: https://skamania-dispatch.ghost.io/the-county-that-didnt-pause-data-centers-klickitat-bocc-7-28-to-8-18/
• Energy assistance, Washington Gorge Action Programs: https://www.wagap.org/newsfeed/energy-assistance Skamania County appointments, (509) 493-2662 extension 315
• State Auditor's CETA compliance report for Skamania PUD, Report No. 1038885: https://portal.sao.wa.gov/ReportSearch/Home/ViewReportFile?arn=1038885&isFinding=false&sp=false
• PUD agendas, packets and minutes: skamaniapud.com

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.

Three Washington counties hit pause on data centers this month. The Klickitat County Board of County Commissioners took up a moratorium request of its own... and chose a different tool entirely. We get into why that decision is harder than it looks, and what the county's own tax math has to do with it.

In This Episode

• Commissioner Todd Andrews asks for a data center moratorium, and the Board goes another way
• Why saying "no" can seem expensive for a rural county, and why saying "yes" doesn't always fix it either
• The county's land use map still dates to 1979, and a rezone that quietly corrected a 47-year0old error
• A mental health program that is built, funded, and cannot open
• Public health loses about three hundred and eighty thousand dollars in expected state money
• People move barricades and drive across closed bridges, and the liability lands on the county
• The August primary, certified

Resources & Links

• Read the full written Dispatch at SkamaniaDispatch.com
• Our property tax explainer, for the one percent lid behind all of this: https://skamania-dispatch.ghost.io/splitting-the-dinner-check-a-property-tax-explainer/
• Last month on this beat, when the county mapped out how a data center would get approved: https://skamania-dispatch.ghost.io/data-centers-come-knocking-kl/
• Klickitat County agendas, packets and meeting recordings: https://www.klickitatcounty.gov
• Elections and ballot information: https://www.klickitatcounty.gov/1136/ElectionsVoter-Registration

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.

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 [email protected]
• 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

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 City Council spent thirty minutes in July listening to its own residents and legally could not answer a single question. Four downtown businesses have been closed since a contractor struck a water main in April, one of them is now closed for good, and the city says it cannot lend a dollar to fix it. We walk through both July meetings, plus a rail Quiet Zone that just slipped by a year.

In This Episode

• Why the city attorney told a packed room "there will be no response, and that goes for everybody here"
• The constitutional rule that makes a city loan illegal, and why "just help them" has no legal form
• The contractor the city would not name, which the newspaper had already printed
• The city's July 20 press release, the July 6 estimates, and the resident who called it a lie
• Mugs Coffee is not reopening
• The BNSF Quiet Zone diagnostic visit finally happens, and the timeline slips to two summers out
• Bingen writes its first fence rules
• Both Public Works employees retire within a day of each other
• The public comment box that quietly went nowhere for eight months

Resources & Links

• Read the full written Dispatch at SkamaniaDispatch.com
• Bingen agendas, minutes and meeting recordings: bingenwashington.org/AgendaCenter
• Next meeting: Tuesday, August 4, 2026, 6:00 p.m., in person and by Zoom
• Our prior Bingen coverage: https://skamania-dispatch.ghost.io/a-green-light-for-the-quiet-zone-bingen-june-26-round-up/ and https://skamania-dispatch.ghost.io/water-main-breaks-red-rag-clog-mystery-in-bingen-april-26/
• Columbia Gorge News reporting cited in this episode: Sean Avery on the July 7 meeting, and Nan Noteboom on the July 21 meeting, at columbiagorgenews.com

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 City Council spent both July meetings fighting over one sentence in its new backyard-homes rule: whether somebody has to actually live on the property. It passed anyway. Also this month, a five-year airport engineering deal, an award-winning sewage plant, and a resident who asked the mayor point blank whether the city plans to sell its water to a data center.

In This Episode

• Goldendale adopts an accessory dwelling unit code, and why the objection that opened the hearing turned out to rest on a misreading
• The owner-occupancy clause, and the police chief's question that actually changed the ordinance
• A wider runway that starts with a culvert, and a three hundred sixty thousand dollar plan trimmed to seventy-one
• "Are we going to sell our water to the data center?"
• Six years running for the wastewater treatment plant
• Sidewalks, outdoor dining, and who actually gets blocked
• Community Days, a ceremonial key, and a centennial nobody can confirm

Resources & Links

• Read the full written Dispatch at skamaniadispatch.com
• City of Goldendale agendas, packets and minutes
• City of Goldendale City Council
• Prior coverage: Smoke, Weeds and Fireworks, Goldendale's June round-up
• Prior coverage: Data Centers Come Knocking, Klickitat County

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 North Bonneville City Council filled its last empty seat in a single evening, then spent the rest of the month finding problems. A typo in a five year old planning document nearly sank a grant application. The city's equipment fund turned out to be spent by January. And a long awaited Bradford Island discussion happened with the Army Corps in the room and unable to answer questions.

In This Episode

• Norm Woods interviewed, appointed, and sworn in on the same night
• A Capital Facilities Plan correction and a grant deadline
• Why Chambers says the equipment fund is at ninety nine percent
• Bradford Island, the Restoration Advisory Board, and a transmission line under the river
• The city's contract planner asks about his own job
• Moss, moles, and squirrels
• What's next: the August fourth zoning hearing

Resources & Links

• Read the full written Dispatch at skamaniadispatch.com
• North Bonneville agendas, minutes, and recordings: northbonneville.net
• Zoning periodic review documents: northbonneville.net/planning/periodic-review
• Background on the transmission project: our special report on Cascade Renewable Transmission

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's biggest land-use hearing of the summer was over in minutes, before it ever opened. Sixty-nine people had already written in about a proposed convenience store across from Rheingarten Park, staff had recommended denial, and then the applicant asked to postpone. In this episode: the White Salmon City Council, the Planning Commission, the Tree Board, the Community Development Committee, and City Lab, the city's climate board, which we are covering for the first time.

In This Episode

• Two street grant applications, and the three hundred sixty thousand dollars of city money riding on them
• Why the city's own main street is the most expensive place in town to close
• A tree ordinance that charges four hundred dollars for a tree, and the housing question hiding inside it
• The twenty-inch water main, and the leak nobody knew about until they went to pull the old pipe
• Balcony solar, and why it died in Olympia
• Childcare, asked for again, at two levels of government

Resources & Links

• Read the full written Dispatch at skamaniadispatch.com
• White Salmon agendas, packets and recordings: whitesalmonwa.gov/meetings
• Written comment to Council: [email protected], by noon the Wednesday of the meeting
• Our June round-up, including the thirty percent short-term rental rule: https://skamania-dispatch.ghost.io/june-in-white-salmon-an-ev-mandate-a-denied-appeal-and-the-30-rule/
• Our coverage of childcare at the county level: https://skamania-dispatch.ghost.io/childcare-as-economic-infrastructure-klickitat-bocc-4-21-4-28/
• Meeting notes for the Tree Board, the Community Development Committee and City Lab come 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.

Stevenson's Planning Commission spent an evening on half an acre, and ended up asking a question the city cannot currently answer. Meanwhile the City Council's long sewer rewrite finally got the escape hatch septic owners have been asking for since spring. This episode covers the Stevenson Planning Commission and the Stevenson City Council for July 2026.

In This Episode

• The rezone on Southwest Attwell Road, and why one written comment put the whole argument in five words
• Why the commission refused to decide, and the two questions it sent staff away with
• A new appeal route for homeowners whose septic fails and who cannot afford to connect
• New engineering standards, and the clause that got pulled for another look
• A new Planning Commission chair
• One July council meeting we cannot report on, and why

Resources & Links

• Read the full written Dispatch at skamaniadispatch.com
• Stevenson agendas, packets and meeting video: ci.stevenson.wa.us/meetings
• Prior coverage: June 2026 and May 2026
• Next up: Planning Commission, Monday August 10. City Council, Thursday August 20.

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.

Klickitat County's third and last candidate forum before the August 4 primary (vote by tonight!) happened July 21 in Goldendale, and the questions were the bluntest of the three. Three sheriff candidates were asked when they last worked patrol in Washington, and one answered "never." Klickitat County Commissioner Lori Zoller was asked to defend the Board of County Commissioners' takeover of the county jail. We also walk the final Public Disclosure Commission filings for both county races, and the Federal Election Commission reports for the open 4th District congressional seat.

In This Episode

• Klickitat County Sheriff: Bruce, Warren and Matulovich on patrol currency, the sheriff's posse, and what "constitutional sheriff" means after Bob Songer
• County Commissioner District 2: Kallinen, Zoller and Klejeski, and the jail question nobody wanted to read out loud
• Why we are not printing the jail settlement's dollar figures, and what a typed record does confirm
• Retiring Sheriff Bob Songer is funding candidates in both county races
• The 4th District open seat, where outside groups have outspent every county candidate combined, several times over
• Why Klickitat and Skamania readers are voting in different congressional races

Resources & Links

• Read the full written Dispatch at skamaniadispatch.com
• Our earlier coverage of the July 9 and July 14 forums: https://skamania-dispatch.ghost.io/your-klickitat-2026-primary-ballot-preview-7-9-7-14-candidate-forums/
• Nathan Wilson, "Meet the three candidates for Klickitat County sheriff," Columbia Gorge News, July 21, 2026: https://www.columbiagorgenews.com/news/meet-the-three-candidates-for-klickitat-county-sheriff/article_2ff1d474-c44f-487b-b2b6-59faa63e30f2.html
• Nathan Wilson, "Tony Warren's tenure at the Bingen-White Salmon Police Department," Columbia Gorge News, July 28, 2026: https://www.columbiagorgenews.com/news/tony-warrens-tenure-at-the-bingen-white-salmon-police-department/article_3aadf406-29b9-49d2-ba26-7659a4898eb3.html
• Klickitat County Elections and ballot drop-box locations: klickitatcounty.gov
• Look up any candidate's donors yourself at the Public Disclosure Commission: pdc.wa.gov
• Federal filings for the congressional races: fec.gov

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.