⚖️ Data Center Rules Move to Legal Review - Klickitat BOCC 10/13-10/20

Enjoy the audio edition on Buzzsprout, or look for "Open Gorge" wherever you get your podcasts.

What’s that chirping coming from inside our halloween month cabinet of curiosities? A rather buggy tale of the years Klickitat County was invaded by crickets.

In 1864, a tiny black cricket, about the size and color of a housefly, came over the hills into the Klickitat valley. They traveled in bands, and they only went one way: straight. If a cricket hit a creek, it hopped right in. If it hit a wall, it tried to climb over, again and again, rather than go around.

And whatever crop was in the way, they ate. A green field in the morning, the 1904 county history says, would be "as bare as the streets" by evening.

The settlers fought back. They nailed boards around the bottoms of their fences, with a lip on top so the crickets fell back off. They dug trenches for them to tumble into, and built fires across their path.

It went on every year for six years. By March of 1870, the hills and valleys were almost black with crickets. Then, ten days later, a heavy snow fell. When it melted, the crickets were all dead, and they never gave serious trouble again.

Now... on to this month's business.

🏛 Klickitat County Commissioners Round-Up: October 13 to 20, 2026

Agencies Covered: Klickitat County Board of County Commissioners (October 13 and 20, 2026, and the October 15 budget workshop).

The Bottom Line: The Board heard long public comment asking for a data-center moratorium and adopted nothing, neither a moratorium nor the interim zoning it had backed in September. Both questions went to lawyers. Meanwhile an ADU ordinance the Board thought it had settled came back in the wrong version, and three budget decisions are still open.

The Vibe: Patient on the dais, impatient in the room. Commissioners kept putting legal review first. Residents kept asking for a pause first.

🔎 What Changed

• The Board extended Big Horn I wind farm's decommissioning guarantee to October 1, 2047, with the amount guaranteed rising from about $16.5 million to about $29.1 million over that time.
• The Board approved a $666,792 agreement with the White Salmon Valley Pool Metropolitan Park District and a $400,000 agreement with Klickitat Valley Health for an MRI expansion, both from the county's distressed-counties fund.
• Final approval for a lot-line adjustment and a four-lot short plat near White Salmon (Clark/Pimley).
• The burn ban in zones 1, 2 and 3 ended October 16.
• On October 20 staff said the posted data-center draft now carries an "X" in place of every distance. The one-mile and 500-foot figures in earlier drafts, staff said, never came from the Board.

⚠ What Escalated

• 26 people spoke on October 13 for a one-year pause, Columbia Gorge News counted, and a resident petition reached 1,024 signatures.

🧭 What's Next

• October 27, 2026: the corrected ADU ordinance returns; a short-term rental workshop in the morning; at 1:30 PM, hearings on Supplemental Budget 2026-3 and Six-Year road plan Amendment No. 1.
• November 3, 2026: general election. Bids open for the Bickleton Highway overlay, and the county has asked for a hearing that day to vacate a 1987 short plat (SP 87-04).
• November 4 and 17, 2026: comprehensive plan community meetings, at the Trout Lake Grange Hall and the Dallesport Community Center.
• November 10, 2026: the Board plans its annual Six-Year road plan hearings, 1:30 PM in Goldendale and 6 PM at the Pioneer Center in White Salmon.
• November 16, 2026: the Planning Commission spends its whole meeting on the solar and battery-storage ordinance.

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Klickitat County Board of County Commissioners

🖥 Data centers: the lawyers get the next turn

Our last edition reported that staff hoped to bring a revised draft ordinance back on October 13. They did.

The morning: draft 3.0. Economic Development Specialist Keaton Curtice walked the Board through "tentative version 3.0" of the permanent ordinance, with many of its numbers still blank. He was clear about what the county cannot do. "The county cannot set a limit on the amount of water used by an industrial data center," he said; that is the Department of Ecology's call. Power limits belong to the PUD and BPA. Nor, he said, can the county require local hiring or a community benefit agreement, though he said the department would welcome one.

What the draft does try to do:

• Limit data centers to the General Industrial and Industrial Park zones, which in practice means the old aluminum smelter site and the industrial land around Dallesport and Roosevelt.
• Leave the buffer from homes as a blank for the Board to fill.
• Require a visual impact study, the state's noise limits, plans for power and water use, and cooling that uses as little water as practicable. An earlier "closed loop" requirement was dropped as too vague.
• New in this version: ongoing monitoring of power, water and diesel-generator emissions.

The commissioners split on a basic question: should a data center be allowed outright in those zones, or only with a conditional use permit and a public hearing? One said, "I like clarity... if I were applying for a permit I'd like to know what was required of me." Another said conditional use would add "some safeguards," given the Board's choice not to adopt a moratorium. The Board agreed the draft should go to outside land-use counsel. Community Development Director Scott Edelman guessed "it may be a month to get it back."

The interim rules, on paper for the first time. The October 13 packet carried the interim zoning resolution the Board backed on September 29. As drafted, it would:

• define an "industrial data center" as one of 20 megawatts or more;
• allow one outright in the Industrial Park zone and as a conditional use in General Industrial, and bar it everywhere else;
• bar one within one mile of any residentially zoned parcel and within five miles of an incorporated city;
• require that all of its power come through Klickitat PUD;
• last six months, with a public hearing within 60 days, under the state's interim zoning law.

The afternoon: nothing adopted. The county's video of October 13 stops during the 1 PM public comment. Columbia Gorge News reported that 26 people spoke for a one-year moratorium, that the Board adopted neither a moratorium nor the interim rules, and that the interim resolution went to Prosecuting Attorney Rebecca Cranston for review. Near the end of public comment, Commissioner Todd Andrews asked his colleagues whether they would consider a moratorium, and neither made a motion, the paper also reported.

The public comment the video does carry was pointed. The conservation director of Friends of the Columbia Gorge, speaking with Columbia Riverkeeper, put it simply: "Don't rush this decision. Adopt a one-year moratorium and give the county time to get this right." A Lyle resident called the interim resolution "a slapdash, couple of page step." Jenn Sharp, who delivered the petition on behalf of a residents' work group, said she was "not seeing a timeline emerge from this process, which is very concerning," and told the Board the petition had 1,024 signatures. Roger Nichols asked whether a neighbor shouldn't have a takings claim too, "for taking away a neighbor's view, property values, and peace and quiet."

October 20: placeholders and lawyers. There was no data-center item on the agenda and no action. In his morning report, Edelman said he had sent the interim measures to legal counsel at the Board's direction. That afternoon he confirmed the review would weigh a moratorium, interim zoning and a moratorium limited to parts of the county. The permanent ordinance is on hold until that comes back.

He also said the newest draft would go online with every distance replaced by an "X" (the Goldendale Sentinel has the same). "There was no input from the board into either of those numbers, the mile or the 500 feet," he said. Choosing one is "ultimately not staff's role." It is the Planning Commission's recommendation and the Board's decision.

Commissioner Lori Zoller said the moratorium request "was a surprise and we hadn't vetted the paperwork," and that she had sent her own questions to the Prosecuting Attorney. She said the documents behind neighboring counties' moratoriums were "a little slim." A commissioner also said no county employee would sign a non-disclosure agreement with a data-center developer, and that the PUD has said the same; on September 22 the PUD's commissioners said they were advising the district to stop using them, the Washington State Standard reported.

Thirteen people spoke in the October 20 public comment, Gorge News Center counted. A Goldendale resident who has lived in the county three weeks asked the Board to restore cleanup money for "the life of the project" in the second draft, rather than only during decommissioning, and to have staff and the PUD explain how the ordinance fits the PUD's large-load policy. "I'm not asking you to assume data center project will fail," he said. "I'm asking you to make sure that the public is protected if one does." Mike Todd of Goldendale urged the Board to "slow roll" the process: "This is private equity versus a little person." Olga Hodges of Goldendale thanked staff for being so reachable and asked the Board to "err on the side of caution."

In September the Board's answer to "pause" was "interim zoning instead." In October it became "legal review first," for both the interim rules and the permanent ordinance. That puts legal review ahead of any rule, and it takes time: while the interim rules are under review, there are no interim rules in place. On October 13 Edelman described what the interim rules are for: "the purpose of the interim is protection."

🏘 ADUs: the wrong version in the packet

The October 20 consent agenda carried the ordinance adopting the ADU amendments the Board approved on September 29. The Board pulled it.

The packet version capped an ADU at 924 square feet, required a detached one to sit "completely within" 200 feet of the main house, and barred short-term rentals in both units. Commissioners said that is not what they agreed to. As our last edition reported, the Board kept the owner-occupancy rule and allowed one of the two homes to be a short-term rental. They also said they had agreed to a larger unit and to a detached ADU that only has to touch the 200-foot line. "That's not what we agreed to," one commissioner said.

Staff took the blame: the version the Prosecuting Attorney approved for the hearing had been saved as the newest one. "My fault 100%." The Board chose to wait a week rather than fix the text from the dais. "I'm not going to introduce new language to this ordinance," a commissioner said, "because we had a public hearing." Staff will hold pending ADU applications one more week, until October 27.

Planning Commissioner Matt Chiles of Centerville had come to object to the packet version in public comment. "As proposed, this ordinance will not increase the number of ADUs in this county," he said, and "the people who will suffer are the poor."

🧮 Budget: three questions held for the full Board

The Board's fourth 2027 budget workshop, on October 15, ran about two hours with Commissioner Zoller absent. The workshop has no agenda or minutes on the county's site; the figures below are as staff said them aloud.

• Landfill money balances. Staff raised the 2027 landfill revenue estimate from $8.4 million to $8.6 million, on a cost-of-living adjustment, and trimmed the requests to fit. The general fund's share dropped from $5 million to $4.7 million, Public Health's from $50,000 back to its usual $10,000, and the fence money for the old Horsethief landfill came out entirely.
• Reserve fund. Finance staff said about $8 million of the reserve fund is set aside for emergencies. The two commissioners present were open to moving the county's distressed-counties money into a fund of its own, and finance staff will bring back a resolution.
• Left out: the jail's body scanner, about $155,000, so the county doesn't undercut a grant it may apply for. "We're supportive of the concept," a commissioner said.
• Veterans: the Veterans Service Office goes to one full-time position split between two people, one in the west county and one in Goldendale, and the veterans levy rises from $75,000 to $90,000.

Three decisions were held for the full Board on October 20: the 4.4 percent cost-of-living raise, how many of 22 non-emergency vehicles to start leasing (staff proposed 13), and the 1 percent property tax increase, worth about $58,000 to the general fund and $56,000 to roads. The COLA drew the sharpest exchange. "That puts the regular employees over the last two years at 7.4, and it puts the unions at 11," one speaker said.

The October 20 agenda had a Budget Manager item at 10:45. The county's video of that meeting breaks at 10:33 and picks up at 1 PM, so there is no public record yet of what was decided. On October 15, staff said the budget document goes to the commissioners in the first week of November.

🌬 Wind: Big Horn gets longer, Tuolumne gets a haul route

• Big Horn I (Avangrid, 133 turbines, 199.5 megawatts, running since 2006) plans to replace the guts of every turbine's nacelle: main shafts, bearings, gearboxes. The towers and blades stay. Edelman's email in the packet says the work "will extend the life of the project by 20 years." The consent agenda amended the decommissioning guarantee to match: it now runs to October 1, 2047 and steps up from $16,452,454 to $29,083,664.
• Tuolumne Wind (136.6 megawatts) is replacing equipment too. Its road haul agreement routes trucks over Bickleton Highway, Fenton Lane and Hoctor Road, backed by a $3.5 million letter of credit and a new two-inch asphalt overlay on part of Fenton Lane. Public Works said the trucks can't use the damaged Beyerlin Bridge on Hoctor Road.

☀️ Solar: a smaller overlay zone moves forward

Edelman reported that the Planning Commission, on October 19, recommended a smaller solar energy overlay zone along Rock Creek, plus the former smelter site south of the highway, land just north of Hoctor Road and the area around the Rock Creek substation. Outside the zone, solar would not be allowed at all, "not a conditional use." The proposal goes through environmental review in November, with a Board public meeting targeted for December. (The Goldendale Sentinel described the proposed boundary before that meeting.)

🚧 Roads, money and the rest

• Burn ban: rescinded in zones 1–3 as of October 16, per the county. A commissioner relayed complaints that it came off too early; Public Works said the fire chiefs chose the date unanimously. "We don't make the call. We let the fire chiefs do that."
• Bear Creek Bridge No. 103 on Jennings Road is closed through November 6 for repairs, per the county.
• Road projects: the Bickleton Highway overlay (7.41 miles, estimated at $4.4 million to $7.3 million) is out to bid, and the Six-Year road plan amendment adds $7.5 million for it and Middle Road. Federal safety money covers curve warning signs on Bickleton Highway ($383,000) and a bridge rail on Pine Creek ($500,000). The Woodland Road bridge guardrail replacement went to Columbia River Contractors for $46,567.
• Airport hangar for Columbia Gorge Community College: Pay Estimate 5, $445,553.47, with the job about 36 percent done. Public Works said cost overruns and delays mean it will ask the county's economic development authority for $200,000 more.
• Opioid settlement money: a $128,522.74 agreement paying SWACH to run the county's opioid-abatement grants for another year. Applications for local grants of $1,000 to $115,000 are due October 30.
• Hiring freeze exceptions: two Senior Services jobs (an information and assistance coordinator whose holder retires in March, and a part-time volunteer coordinator through June) and a front-office assistant in the Prosecuting Attorney's office. Emergency management has picked a replacement for its departed manager.
• Election: Auditor Heather Jobe reminded voters that ballots are due by 8 PM on November 3, and asked anyone mailing to do it a week early.

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How to Join & Learn More

• The Board meets Tuesdays at 9:30 AM at the Klickitat County Services Building, 115 West Court, Room 201, Goldendale, and on Zoom (meeting ID 586 587 651). Agendas, packets and video are on the county's meeting portal.
• Regular meetings on the county calendar: October 27; November 3 and 10.
• Comment: bocc@klickitatcounty.org, or in person at the 1 PM public comment period.