Friends of the Gorge attorney says it’s been 20 years since there was a valid mining permit for the property
By Doug Flanagan, Camas-Washougal Post-Record
Published: October 19, 2024, 6:10am
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A truck prepares to leave the Zimmerly gravel pit near Washougal in 2018. (The Columbian files)
WASHOUGAL — A year after being denied, Ridgefield resident Judith Zimmerly is once again attempting to get permits to resume gravel mining on her property known as the Washougal Pit.
The property is in the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area, east of Washougal. In a 72-page ruling release in July 2023, Hearings Examiner Joe Turner wrote the previous land-use application was incomplete under National Scenic Area rules, that the proposal to operate a mining “haul road” in a residential area is prohibited by National Scenic Area zoning, and that the project could not proceed without an environmental impact statement.
Clark County held a September conference to discuss Zimmerly’s new pre-application.
“Of course, we’ll look at it in more detail once you come in for the formal review, but I didn’t see too many differences from the original application,” Clark County Planner Richard Daviau told Zimmerly attorney Jamie Howsley during the conference.
Nathan Baker, an attorney for the Friends of the Columbia Gorge, said the pre-application is the first step in “the latest manifestation of Zimmerly’s ongoing attempts to legally resume mining on the property.”
Zimmerly acquired a land-use permit from the Columbia River Gorge Commission in 1993 and mined the site for four years before stopping in the winter of 1996-97. Severe winter storms in Clark County caused landslides and other damage, including “catastrophic” offsite discharge of sediment-laden mining runoff from the Zimmerly property onto adjacent properties and into Steigerwald Lake National Wildlife Refuge and Gibbons Creek. Nearly a mile of river salmon habitat was destroyed, Baker said.
As a result, the Washington State Department of Ecology fined Zimmerly almost $200,000.
“It’s been at least 20 years since the last valid permit they had for mining expired,” Baker said.
Daviau said during the conference that the pre-application is the first step in a three-step process, followed by the conditional-use permit, the preliminary site plan, and the Gorge Commission review; and then the final site plan and final engineering review.
According to county records, the project is still in the pre-review stage, with no further dates assigned.
The environmental impact statement is one of the main factors that will slow the process, Baker said.
“That was one of the reasons why the hearing examiner denied the last application — he found an EIS was required,” he said.
Baker describer the project as a “microcosm” of different resource impacts and conflicts between competing interests.
“All found in one project at one site,” Baker said. “With all the impacts to water resources, noise impacts, dust impacts, traffic impacts, scenic resource impacts … a national wildlife refuge and located inside of a National Scenic Area, there are just so many potential impacts to protected resources and sensitive resources.”
Baker said Zimmerly will also have to include a reclamation plan for restoring the site once the mining is completed.
“It would not be required anywhere else in Clark County, but because this site is inside of the National Scenic Area, there are unique rules for reclamation and reclamation plans,” Baker said.
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