🌊 Riparian Buffers Rebuffed - Bingen Sept '26 Round-up

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🕯️ Cabinet of Curiosities: Railroad Sign Rebellion

It's our Halloween month, so every issue opens with something from the Gorge's Cabinet of Curiosities. Today: a feud that played out in very public writing.

When the railroad arrived on the north bank, in the winter of 1907, the new depot sat right on the Bingen townsite, and the sign said Bingen. For about three months, you could buy a ticket to Bingen and ship your freight to Bingen.

A few months later, the sign changed to White Salmon. White Salmon was two miles away, up the bluff, and you couldn't even see it from the platform. The railroad's reasoning? White Salmon had about 800 people and a city government. Bingen had about a hundred.

Bingen did not take it quietly. Its protest said the railroad had "changed the name to that of a rival town, and from that day to this have refuse[d] to recognize Bingen."

For a while the railroad tried to split the difference. One end of the station said Bingen. The other end said White Salmon.

Bingen won once, in 1910, then lost in court, because it was the railroad's depot, and the railroad could call it whatever it pleased.

So Bingen kept at it, for more than twenty years. In 1930 the state finally recommended a hyphen. The Columbian's headline: "Bingen Wins 20 Year Fight for Recognition but White Salmon has Reason to Feel Downcast." Then the state supreme court made it stick.

To this day, it's the Bingen-White Salmon station.

Source: Rita Cipalla, "Bingen incorporates on April 18, 1924," HistoryLink.org Essay 23513, citing the Goldendale Sentinel (September 29, 1910) and The Columbian (November 14, 1930); start of service from the Spokesman-Review, December 15, 1907, as cited in Wikipedia's station article.

Bingen and White Salmon are still sorting out what belongs to whom. See the sewer line, below.

🏛 Bingen September 2026 Municipal Round-Up

Agencies Covered: Bingen City Council (meetings of September 1 and September 15, 2026).

The Bottom Line: Bingen is being told, for the second year running, that state science wants wider buffers along Dry Creek and Jewett Creek, and Council is again saying the town is too small to give up the land. Meanwhile a council seat opened, the mural fight turned into a mural collaboration, and the downtown flood ledger is nearly closed.

The Vibe: A long, frank workshop with the consultants, a meeting that started with the lights out, and a lot of loose ends from other years finally getting tied off.

🔎 What Changed

• Councilor Erika Ramsey resigned. Two residents have applied for her seat.
• The city read a statement into the record disputing that Big Fish Properties was unresponsive or in breach over the mural, two weeks after a staff memo said it was in breach.
• Carmen's Kitchen settled its flood claim and reopened. Chips set September 17 to reopen.
• The flashing-beacon crosswalk on SR-14 got its final $2,400 payment and is done, under budget.

⚠ What Escalated

• Consultants recommended creek buffers that, by the city's count, would leave 17 of 31 affected lots unbuildable if the homes on them were lost. Council members said they would not vote for them.
• A deed handing the Skyline Hospital sewer line to White Salmon was tabled because the paperwork does not properly describe what is being handed over.

🧭 What's Next

• September 30 to October 13, 2026: SEPA comment window on the draft Critical Areas Ordinance, per the schedule Administrator Krista Loney gave Council on September 15.
• October 1 to 23, 2026: application window for 2027 lodging tax grants, per Loney.
• October 6, 2026: Council's scheduled discussion of the full ordinance draft. The September 15 minutes are due for approval at the same meeting.
• November 3, 2026: first public hearing on the Critical Areas Ordinance. Adoption is targeted for the second December meeting, December 15.
• No date set: the council appointment. Loney said a second ad would run for about a month before Council chooses.

Bingen City Council

🏞 Dry Creek, round two

Bingen has had this fight before. In September 2025 residents filled a hearing to oppose wider buffers along Dry Creek and Jewett Creek, and on January 6 of this year Council adopted Ordinance 2026-01-781 keeping the old ones. The minutes from that night say the city would hold its numbers "until such time as Fish and Wildlife comes to Bingen and maps the trees."

Fish and Wildlife has not come. The periodic update the state requires has, and with it a consultant. On September 15, FacetNW's Dan Nickel and Douglas Yormick walked Council through their draft. Their method takes the state Department of Fish and Wildlife's guidance on how tall a mature tree can grow here, about 195 feet in Bingen by their reading, and sets the buffer where nearly all of a stream's natural functions are protected. By their presentation the draft raises fish-bearing stream buffers from 100 to 150 feet, other streams from 50 to 100 feet, and Dry Creek to 100 feet. Dry Creek's buffer today is 50 feet above Lincoln Street and 15 feet from Lincoln down to the railroad, Columbia Gorge News reports, and the agency's own recommendation for Jewett Creek is 194 feet.

The consultants were plain that this is a floor, not a wish list. State law requires every city, whatever its planning status, to protect critical areas and to use the best available science in doing it. A city can choose smaller buffers, one of the consultants said, but it takes on the risk of an appeal.

Loney had done her own homework. She brought Council a document listing every affected owner: 29 owners, 31 properties. If the structures on those lots burned down, she said, 17 lots would become "completely unbuildable and therefore valueless," and 11 or 12 more would lose 30 to 75 percent of their buildable ground. She had met with the consultants the week before. "The residents have spoken, the council has spoken, and our answer to fish and wildlife is no," she told Council.

Council members who spoke agreed. Councilor Craig Trummel questioned whether the two creeks meet the ordinance's definitions at all. "I'm very certain that those two are critical areas," one of the consultants answered: even piped or channelized, they still carry water that flowed there naturally. One speaker at the council table described going out to Dry Creek with a tape measure and finding 42 feet between the creek and the city lots on Walnut Street, and asked to be walked through what removing those houses would actually do for the creek. "I hear you saying they want to keep things consistent," the speaker said. "Well, that's not science. That's bureaucracy."

The consultants' answer was that the state looks at streams across Washington, not one street, and that the code already softens the blow three ways: an "interrupted buffer" that stops at an existing road or building, a reasonable-use exception for lots a buffer would otherwise swallow, and a variance. They urged a fourth: a rule letting a destroyed home be rebuilt on the same footprint. The pushback was that Bingen's 2025 middle housing rules mean nearly every small lot is now underdeveloped, so rebuilding what stands today is not the same as keeping a lot's value. Loney added that residents asked last fall not to be handed the cost of a variance, of mapping their own property, or of a hearing.

Councilor Eric Schroder moved to send the ordinance to the Building Committee. Trummel, who chairs that committee, said it handles city-owned property, not code, and the item stayed a workshop with no vote. Loney laid out the path from here: Council can put the current numbers back into the draft, run the environmental review with public comment from September 30 to October 13, hold a first hearing November 3, and adopt December 15. That would, as she put it, "take a chance on somebody appealing it."

Who could appeal came up too. Asked whether any resident could, the answer in the room was yes, if they could claim harm. The statute is narrower. Under RCW 36.70A.280, a petition to the Growth Management Hearings Board can come from the state, a planning city or county, someone certified by the governor, someone with standing under the state's administrative procedure law, or "a person who has participated orally or in writing before the county or city regarding the matter." Taking part in the city's own process is one of the ways in. Whether any particular person would qualify is a question for the board, and it can only come up once an ordinance is adopted.

🎨 The mural, revisited

On August 18, Loney brought Council a memo with photos, the breach-of-contract email and the signed agreement, outlining that Big Fish Properties, LLC was in breach of its contract for the city-funded mural on its building at 115 W. Steuben, where a door had been cut in. The minutes record Councilor Dale Grinstead-Mayle saying he "understands that they are in breach of contract." We covered that meeting in August and described it the same way.

On September 1 the city said otherwise. Grinstead-Mayle and Mayor Kelsey Ramsey had met on site with the property managers. Grinstead-Mayle said a Columbia Gorge News story had made Big Fish look uncooperative, and that he had written what the minutes call a retraction request, checked it with Big Fish and the Mayor, and sent it to the paper. He read it into the record. It says that, "though no solid plans were in place at the time," a future doorway was discussed with the previous mayor and all parties while the mural was being designed, that a flower was painted in "as a 'placeholder' for said doorway," that the artist confirms this, and that "Framing this as an adversarial or unresolved dispute misrepresents the nature of these ongoing conversations."

Nan Noteboom, the Columbia Gorge News reporter, was in the room and asked the obvious question: was her story wrong, or was what the city presented on August 18 wrong? The Mayor and Grinstead-Mayle said the phrase "a large portion of the mural" was inaccurate as a share of the whole image. Loney explained that Big Fish had not answered her emails because it had gone to Grinstead-Mayle directly. Asked whether the city knew about the earlier conversations between former Mayor Catherine Kiewit and artist Jessica Bork before the August 18 meeting, Grinstead-Mayle said the city knew about the doorway location and did not recall whether it came up that night.

On the facts, the two meetings are closer than they look. On August 18, Loney reported that Kiewit told her a door location "was never finalized or committed to"; on September 1, the city said a doorway was discussed with no solid plans and a flower painted as its placeholder. What changed is the conclusion: two weeks after Grinstead-Mayle said he understood Big Fish to be in breach, the city's statement said Big Fish "does not believe they are in breach of contract" and that the earlier characterization "does not reflect the current status of the matter." Columbia Gorge News ran a follow-up carrying the city's statement. Councilor Trummel closed the item by thanking city leadership for handling it "with kindness and mindfulness."

🪑 A seat opens

Mayor Ramsey announced on September 1 that Councilor Erika Ramsey has resigned. The minutes give no reason. The city said it would advertise the seat in Columbia Gorge News and around town, and by September 15 Loney had two applications: Sarah Mello, who was at the meeting, and Quinton Deo, who ran for this same seat, Position 5, last November. Loney said a second ad would run for about a month. Loney explained that Council picks by consensus and appoints by motion, and the appointee takes the oath at the following meeting, then has to run for the seat at the next election.

🚽 The sewer line nobody owned

In 1963, Bingen and what is now Skyline Hospital jointly paid to run a sewer line from the hospital down to Bingen. The hospital sat outside both Bingen and White Salmon back then. In February 2013, Council told the city attorney of the day to write the hospital a letter releasing it from the old agreement in exchange for easements. The letter turned up recently in old city files. It had never been sent.

Then in February of this year, as part of the larger sewer talks with White Salmon, White Salmon ran a dye test. The line joins the system above the point where Bingen's and White Salmon's sewers meet, which, Loney said, means White Salmon should be billing Skyline for sewer service. Bingen has been billing and collecting instead. The fix on the table was a deed handing the line to White Salmon as-is.

It did not pass. A speaker who described themself as a title professional said the instrument does not properly describe the easement being conveyed, and that it needs a real legal description and parcel information to be recorded. "It could be a big old nothing burger because no one's going to challenge it," the speaker said, but the city should not have to fix the same problem again in six years. Council tabled the deed until the city attorney weighs in.

🚱 The flood ledger, nearly closed

At the September 1 meeting, the flood update reported that Carmen's Kitchen had received another lost-wages check on August 24 for $21,098.50 and that its accountant was reviewing a settlement for lost business income. Chips' mitigation and reconstruction claims were settled, with the city's insurance pool, RMSA, waiting on paperwork for lost income and wages for July and August. For Multi-Use Ventures, RMSA was waiting on Tom Wooding's response to its offer for lost business income.

By September 15 the news was better. Carmen's Kitchen's claim is settled and it has reopened, on September 11 per the update, and Chips posted that it would reopen September 17. Mugs is the one still tangled: the insurer is waiting on settlement documents between the owner, Blaire Regan, and the former operators who defaulted on the Mugs loan, and that matter is in litigation. Five months after a contractor's auger hit the water main on April 15, two of downtown's restaurants are back or nearly so.

🚧 Loose ends and small print

The crosswalk is finished. Council approved a final $2,400 payment to Grade Werks Excavating on September 1 for the SR-14 flashing-beacon crossing, which came in under budget. On September 15 Loney reported that the duplicate signs Councilor Ryan O'Connor complained about were gone and that the state's final reimbursement check had been cut.

A check cancelled. Resolution 2026-009 cancels and reissues an uncashed check to United Fire. It is not the $621.50 check from August that was both cashed and rejected.

The Building Committee met. Its first meeting ran about 45 minutes. Council agreed to support a code change so the committee can add a member of the public (Schroder hopes for someone like a retired building inspector) and to spend up to $2,500 on chain-of-title reports to find easements on city property, with Depot Street, and the city's ownership down its middle, of particular interest.

Sixty trains a day. In council comments on September 1, Schroder said train traffic through town has grown from 40 to 60 trains a day, each sounding its horn eight times, every day of the year. That is the case for the Quiet Zone. Loney said on September 15 that its 65% design is expected in January.

A culvert WSDOT has known about since 2002. Loney told Council that a state study stamped by WSDOT's own engineer found the culvert under SR-14 at Walnut Street undersized back in 2002, and it has never made it onto a project list. After the roundabout ribbon cutting, where city officials walked a WSDOT regional director over to see it, the city got a thank-you and an apology for two years of unanswered emails. Walnut Street is also where Dry Creek runs through town, which is why the culvert keeps coming up next to the buffer fight.

The meeting in the dark. The September 1 meeting started during a power outage at City Hall. It was also Student Councilor Eda O'Connor's first meeting.

⚠️ Editor's Notebook: Broader Context

• Small town, same science. The state's buffer guidance is written for streams statewide. Bingen's argument, in Loney's words, is that in a town of less than one square mile "these little increases have a huge impact." Both things can be true. The law asks the city to include the best available science when it writes its rules; it does not set the buffer number for it.
• The rebuild rule matters most. The softener aimed most directly at the 17 lots is the one not yet in the code: a rule letting a destroyed home be rebuilt on its footprint. Whether that rule ends up in the final ordinance, and how generous it is, may matter more to those owners than the buffer number itself.
• Paper that sat for years. Two September items were documents nobody acted on: a 2013 release letter the city drafted and never sent, and a 2002 WSDOT study of the Walnut culvert that never reached a project list. With a small staff and a city attorney leaving at year's end, what the city knows lives in its files.

🛠 Jargon Buster

• Riparian buffer: the strip of land along a stream where building is limited, to keep shade, bank stability and clean water.
• Site potential tree height: how tall a mature tree can grow on a given site. The state uses it to size stream buffers.
• Type F / Type N streams: the state's water typing. F streams carry fish; N streams do not.
• Reasonable use exception: a provision letting an owner build something modest on a lot that a buffer would otherwise make unbuildable.
• Easement: a legal right to use someone else's land for a set purpose, like running a sewer pipe.

📋 How to Join & Learn More

• Bingen City Council meets the first and third Tuesday of each month at 6 p.m., at City Hall and on Zoom. Agendas, minutes and Zoom links are at the city's Agenda Center.
• Written comment on the Critical Areas Ordinance, or on anything else, can go to administrator@bingenwashington.org or (509) 493-2122.