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Climate Changes

One of the things I’ve always enjoyed about the Gorge is the seasons. We have them; unlike some of the other places I’ve lived, where either summer or winter or some particular sort of weather predominates. In the Gorge, we have summer, fall, winter, spring. Four beautiful stages of the year, as I’ve told friends in other places more than once.

Thanks for making a liar of me, weather. It’s hit 50 degrees or warmer for the past several days here in The Dalles. It’s been pleasant, but disconcerting. You shouldn’t be able to stroll around without a coat in January.

This comes on the heels of the notice that scientists are saying 2007 could be the warmest year ever recorded.

Yes, that’s anecdotal evidence, but still a close-to-home example of global warming. It’s also part of larger pattern, what with recent repeat floods in our backyard, and endangered polar bears up north. And then there’s this: that every year since 1992 has made the list of the 20 warmest years on record... [more]

Property Rights Blog

We’ve posted a number of land-use articles and rants here on New West Columbia Gorge. How we use our land and water, how we elucidate property rights — all these things together form, after all, one of the most vital stories in Oregon and the West. Perhaps this coverage has driven some gentle readers to conclude that we are pro-planning and pro-government. For the sake of balance — and not a little amusement — we present the Antiplanner, “dedicated to the sunset of government planning.” It is a new blog, and promises to be... interesting. (“Insert crazy scheme here”!)

Land, Homes and the Changing Economy

How many farmers would get out of the business if a better offer came along?

A bushel-full of them.

Counting the latest Measure 37 claims, greater than a fifth of Hood River Valley’s farmland could be developed into housing projects and golf courses, according to a brief from Oregon Public Broadcasting.

That’s among the latest and most pointed land-use stories making the rounds. As I’ve reported previously, the Hood River Valley farmers are subject to increasing pressures and decreasing profits, which make potentially lucrative Measure 37 claims, for many, keenly desired.

To its credit, the Hood River News has awakened to this unfolding drama in its backyard and has been reporting an ongoing series on Measure 37 in recent weeks. The latest installment is a defense by valley orchardists who are filing claims — and want to tell the “other side” of Measure 37... [more]

Climbers Missing on Mount Hood

It’s strange what fascination the mountains hold for humans.

Nearly two weeks ago, three climbers climbed Mount Hood. We all know their names and details by now, how they appeared to have summitted, but suffered some injury, and been slammed by the ferocious storm that roared through the Northwest. It looks increasingly like none of them made it safely through that.

We all know, too, about the media eruption that followed the lost climbers. The grim-faced television reporters, with their breathless nightly news accounts. The extra-bold headlines.

Climbers should carry insurance, say many in the letters to newspapers, on the street, and in the Internet fora. Maybe they should be hit with a rescue bill, too — well, you know, if they’re found. On Metafilter, the popular talk-about-everything site, the climbers-must-pay thread has drawn 200 comments, more than any other recent topic. And at least one national TV program went out of its way to highlight the cost of the search — as if to say, “See what these bozos are costing us?”

There’s no word on how much the average viewer has cost the mountain climbing community, though. You know, Mr. and Mrs. Public? The ones with the high-fat diets and coach-loafing lifestyle, who vastly outnumber climbers and cost them higher taxes and health care prices? How many mountain searches would it cost to treat one uninsured person with chronic heart disease?... [more]

Gorge Media

Q-104 FM, one of the only Columbia Gorge radio stations not owned by our Congressional rep, Greg Walden of Hood River, is leaving, after 38 years in The Dalles.

A Dallas, Texas., based investment group bought Q-104 and will use its broadcast license to power up a new, 100,000-watt channel in Seattle, reports The Dalles Chronicle.

While none of the Gorge stations boast much in the way of independent reporting — or journalistic ambitions generally — it’s never a great day when we lose a local outlet. And, of course, a local business.

The station’s last local broadcast will be March 30. [more]

Measure 37 and More

A note to our more sensitive readers: This article contains mildly opinionated statements, and an exclamation point. I made up one word, too.

This week includes a deadline for Measure 37 development claims in Oregon (not the deadline, but a significant one, in that hereafter claimants must have a use for their land that central-planning types have actually turned down, and not just pie-in-the-sky statements on their claim forms), and hundreds of landowners, big and small, have rushed to demand the right to pole-vault over Oregon's hurdleanimous land-use laws.

The Oregonian’s Laura Oppenheimer wrote a worthwhile overview of the land rush.

One interesting quote is from state Rep. Bill Garrard, R-Klamath Falls, who supports Measure 37 and says that many Oregonians have “a lot of misunderstanding” about the law. (It’s simple enough in concept: People should be able to use their land however they want, the heck with the neighbors and with land-use laws enacted since they bought the land.)

Says Garrard, “I feel it is the Legislature's responsibility to do something about it."

Well, sha-freakin’-zam!... [more]

Adventure Evening

Local publisher and adventurer Dave Waag will be presenting a film about a team of friends, skiers, who made an expedition to the remote Altai Mountains in China.

The one-hour film, Journey to the Source: The Search for Skiing’s Ancient Roots, will play Dec. 8 at 7 p.m. at Dog River Coffee, in Hood River.

Waag is probably best known as publisher of Off Piste, the back country ski magazine. He was one of the three members of the Altai expedition; it was a six-week outing in the spring of 2005.

The Altai comprise a range of mountains between China, Mongolia and Russia. Besides remote and much un-schussed terrain, the mountains are home to a hardy, semi-nomadic people for whom skiing is a way of life. Some people believe that skiing began in this region of Central Asia, and later migrated to Scandinavia, later to emerge in Alpine Europe and the United States.

Waag recently consented to answer a few questions in advance of the film:

New West: How did the Altai expedition come about?... [more]

Highway 35 Washout

We could get our mountain back within a couple weeks.

That’s the word from Oregon transportation officials about the reopening of Highway 35 south of Hood River.

Steven Harry, a PR rep for the Oregon Department of Transportation, has sent out a press release saying that crews are working quickly. He writes, “Barring unforeseen conditions or bad weather, the highway is expected to reopen by Dec. 15.”

The highway was cut — and Mount Hood Meadows ski area cut off — November 6 and 7, you’ll recall, when continuing rains sent huge landslides and overflowing streams across it. A million cubic yards of soil, trees and boulders sluiced down Mount Hood’s flanks. The overflowing White River dug a new channel along, under and over Highway 35; that, and overflows and undercuts along the Hood River, Clark and Newton Creeks washed out a total of 2.5 miles of road.

ODOT says it will hold two public meeting to discuss the wash-out, the repairs and the ultimate rebuilding, or fate, of Highway 35. This, as an Oregonian article points out, is an open question. How many times should we build a highway in an active flood and slide zone?... [more]

Free Enterprise in the Gorge

In the long-running battle between the owners of the Viewpoint Inn and, oh, seemingly every official in the Gorge, we have a winner: the Inn is open for business.

A Multnomah County hearing officer approved a conditional-use permit for the historic Corbett inn earlier this month. Owners Geoff “Buff Daddy” Thompson and partner Angelo Simione say they’re taking summer wedding reservations, and could have the restaurant portion of the inn open in several weeks.

The saga of the Viewpoint Inn... [more]

ELECTIONS 2006

The West-wide property rights campaign to force governments to back off from limiting development on private property came to a showdown Tuesday, and supporters won big — in Arizona.

The regulatory takings campaign stalled in every other state, though, being either stricken by courts or rejected by voters in five states. Voters in Washington, California and Idaho said no to the idea in balloting Tuesday.

In the campaign around the West, regulatory takings was tarted up with emotional arguments against eminent domain, funded by wealthy activists, and hawked with the fervor of true believers. The supporters, from the Ayn Rand school of libertarian thought, had an impressively bold idea: Strike at the heart of government’s ability to tell people what to do by making it waive its property regulations. The result would have — could be? — a fundamental reshaping of the American scene, starting in the West, with its penchent for property rights and wide-open ballot initiative systems.

In other words, reconfigure American political thought by taking a populist-sounding idea straight to the voters.

The voters, it turns out, mostly said no thanks... [more]

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