A2 Hood River News,
Wednesday, February 18, 2015
G REATER G ORGE
www.hoodrivernews.com
Gorge Commission, Klickitat County sign pact
By NEITA CECIL
The Dalles Chronicle
In a historic agreement —
nearly 18 months in the mak-
ing — Klickitat County will de-
vote planning staff time to
help the Columbia River Gorge
Commission process land use
applications within its bor-
ders.
A Klickitat County planner
will spend at least one day a
week at the commission’s
White Salmon office to process
applications, and devote more
time to applications at the
county’s Goldendale planning
office, Klickitat County Com-
missioner Dave Sauter told the
commission at its meeting
Tuesday in The Dalles.
“We have seen the impact of
the (commission) staffing lev-
els as they exist now and their
ability to process the permits,”
Sauter said. There are actually
“significant impacts to eco-
nomic development” in the
county, he said.
“This doesn’t solve every-
thing, it is a first step,” he said.
To get a sense of how much
of a shift in thinking this is for
Klickitat County, Sauter
quipped that everybody would
know when the agreement had
been signed later that day by
the county due to the sight of
the “mushroom cloud over
Goldendale.”
Klickitat County has long
maintained the most resis-
tance of the six Gorge counties
to the scenic area land use reg-
ulations. It is the only county
to not adopt its own rules for
developments in the federally-
protected Gorge corridor. Con-
sequently, land use applica-
tions within the scenic area in
Klickitat County have been
handled by the Gorge Commis-
sion.
The commission started ex-
periencing deep staffing cuts
in 2009, eventually dropping
from 4.5 planners to 1.6, but the
recession also slowed applica-
tions to a trickle. Even so, by
2013, there was a year-long
backlog for getting permits.
The recession ended and the
applications started to flow
again, but staffing hasn’t in-
creased.
The wait time has crept up
to about 18 months, and the
amount of applications has
grown significantly, from
about 12 in the queue in Sep-
tember 2013, to 37 today, Gorge
Commission Executive Direc-
tor Darren Nichols said.
Gorge
Commissioner
Bowen Blair, an Oregon gover-
nor appointee from Portland,
Photo by Mark Gibson
COWS IN DALLESPORT express curiosity about the presence of a
photographer. The land on which they graze lies in Klickitat County
where officials have agreed to help process Columbia Gorge Na-
tional Scenic Area land-use applications in an historic agreement.
said of Klickitat County’s deci-
son, “I think it’s a real step for-
ward.” He hoped more
changes were coming.
At earlier meetings, Sauter
has cautioned hopeful Gorge
Commissioners to not expect
the next step to be Klickitat
County adopting its own land
use rules. He said that possibil-
ity was very much off the
table.
Sauter told the Chronicle he
expects up to half of Klickitat
planners’ time to be spent on
the permit backlog. He under-
stands there is some flexibility
on which permits will be tack-
led and in what order.
One concer n has been
whether the easiest ones
would be done first, or the old-
est ones. He understands it will
be a mix.
Commissioner Dan Erick-
sen, an Oregon governor ap-
pointee from The Dalles, and a
former Wasco County commis-
sioner, said he understood the
trials Sauter was going
through by shepherding a po-
litically divisive agreement
through.
Sauter acknowledged the
challenges he faced, saying,
“This is not without cost.”
Gorge Commissioner Carl
McNew, representing Klickitat
County, said the agreement
would not have happened with-
out Sauter. “I can’t thank you
enough. It’s a big deal.”
Then Commissioner Jim
Middaugh, a Multnomah
County appointee from Port-
land, lightened the mood by
saying that, as a liberal mem-
ber of the commission, “I’m
tempted to vote no to help you
out politically, but I’m going to
vote yes.”
The Gorge Commission first
approached Klickitat County
in September 2013, asking for
help to process land use appli-
cations. It asked for a full-time
county planner to work on per-
mits.
Negotiations hit some
snags. A June 2014 letter from
the Klickitat County planning
department said having one of
its staff work out of the com-
mission office — which is what
the just-signed agreement calls
for — would be “impractical.”
Sauter told the commission,
“Sometimes, in seemingly in-
tractable situations you can
see forward consensus.”
Another issue was the coun-
ty planner’s access to confiden-
tial information in the com-
mission office. The agreement
states the planner will keep
that information confidential.
Klickitat County felt that
was “kind of a given to us, but
they wanted some assurance,”
Sauter said.
Planners work with confi-
dential information all the
time, he said.
Sauter said the county at
this point expects its planner
to work up to half-time on the
backlog “until we get caught
up.”
Only once the work is start-
ed, however, will the needed re-
sources be known, he said. The
agreement calls for monthly
and quarterly updates on
progress.
Sauter said the county’s se-
nior planner was ready to start
working right away at the com-
mission office one day a week.
Columbia Gorge gluten free baker uses chemistry background
By AMBER MARRA
The Enterprise
Photo by Amber Marra
TERESA LANGEN has struggled with wheat intolerance for years
and is opening a bakery in Bingen that will provide gluten-free good-
ies to those with similar intolerances and allergies. Columbia Gorge
Gluten Free will offer wholesale and eventually retail orders of pies,
muffins, cookies, and more out of its new location, but Langen’s
gluten-free muffins are currently available at Doppio in Hood River.
At the age of 17, Teresa Lan-
gen received some devastating
news regarding her favorite
hobby.
The prognosis was wheat in-
tolerance. Langen, an avid
baker, tried to ignore the fa-
tigue and discomfort she expe-
rienced when she ingested
wheat for a few years, but fi-
nally came to terms with it
shortly after moving to the
area in 2000.
“At the time there wasn’t
much going on in the gluten-
free market and I’ve always
loved to bake, so I was really
sad because nothing bakes like
wheat bakes,” she said.
The denial of something she
loved so much led her to pur-
sue baking sans-wheat. Her
pies, muffins, breads, and
other tasty creations will soon
be available for wholesale at
the new Bingen location of Co-
lumbia Gorge Gluten Free.
“Wheat is very common for
people to be allergic to, so I
think it’s something that’s
here to stay and if you can
make things taste really good
people don’t mind buying it
and eating it instead of their
typical gluten-type products,”
Langen said.
Located in what was previ-
ously Big River Diner and Big
T’s, Columbia Gorge Gluten
Free is set for a soft opening in
March with wholesale and re-
tail online orders available at
www.columbiagorgeglutenfre
e.com beginning in April.
This isn’t Langen’s first
business venture. Her other
business, Bio-Creations, pro-
duces a line of soaps, candles,
and cosmetics and she works
with the company her hus-
band founded, EZkem, as well.
Through it all, Langen’s
background in chemistry and
biology has helped. Prior to
moving to the Gorge, jobs in
quality assurance in the food
industry paved the way for suc-
cessfully putting together
gluten-free goodies.
“Baking is a science. It all
has to do with chemistry and
the way foods interact with
each other and baking, proba-
bly more than other cooking, is
really affected by the way
things react, so understanding
chemical reactions and acids
and bases has helped me to un-
derstand baking and when
something doesn’t work out to
be able to analyze why,” Lan-
gen said.
That said, Langen recog-
nizes the challenge of her busi-
ness in that it lacks “the thing
that is best for baking, which is
BNSF plans to spend $189 million
on Washington railways this year
By SVERRE BAKKE
The Enterprise
BNSF Railway Company an-
nounced last Friday that it
plans to spend about $189 mil-
lion this year on capital im-
provements and system main-
tenance in Washington.
Right now, traveling mecha-
nized crews of 200 personnel
and equipment are replacing
rail and surfacing track on the
220-mile Columbia Gorge main
line between Bingen and
Wishram, on their way to
BNSF facilities in Pasco.
“These are high-production
crews that perform track sur-
facing to ensure a proper align-
ment, and to ensure the track
is raised to the proper level for
that geometry,” BNSF’s
spokesman, Gus Melonas, told
The Enterprise.
The Columbia Gorge main
line has been in operation
since 1908, and plays “a key
role in moving local, national,
and international freight,”
Melonas said. “A critical com-
ponent of that is a strong track
structure.”
This spring, tie crews will
make their way along the main
line, replacing ties and adding
ballast to hold the track in
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place. Finally, crews will come
in to perform undercutting
work to clear stray rock and
give the rail bed its proper trim
to enhance water drainage.
“We invest in this kind of
maintenance work to keep our
trains safe and running at the
optimum speeds set for us by
the federal government and by
BNSF to meet our engineering
standards,” Melonas noted.
BNSF has spent $500 million
in Washington in the past
three years to keep its more
than 2,000 miles of track here
in tip-top condition. But the
Columbia Gorge line is a point
of emphasis for the company.
“We’re investing in this line
to ensure the safe, reliable, and
efficient movement of freight
from A to Z that moves
through the corridor,” Mel-
onas said, and added, “We’re a
common carrier, so we don’t
control what we haul. But we
do control how we haul it.”
The company’s Columbia
River Gorge line runs directly
along the southern edges of
Klickitat and Skamania coun-
ties. The route is one of the
busiest in the Northwest; 35 to
40 trains a day carry all sorts of
cargo, from fuels like crude oil
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from North Dakota to coal
from Wyoming, to consumer
goods like lumber and vehi-
cles, to Washington agricultur-
al products. Amtrak also runs
two trains a day between Port-
land and Chicago.
“This year’s substantial in-
vestments in Washington are
a clear reflection of how im-
portant our operations in the
state are to our overall net-
work and our unwavering
commitment to always oper-
ate safely, for people and the
communities in which we op-
erate,” said Daryl Ness,
BNSF’s general manager of
operations, Northwest Divi-
sion.
“We know our customers
are competing in a fast-paced
global economy where a
smooth, efficient supply chain
can be the difference between
winning and losing in the
marketplace.”
Ness said this year’s
planned expansion and main-
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tenance projects will help
BNSF achieve the capacity
flexibility it needs to support
its customers’ growing de-
mands and connect their
products to the marketplace.
Moreover, the company is
trying to be conscientious
about rail safety in response
to growing public concern
about the wisdom of traffick-
ing crude oil and coal through
the Gorge and the communi-
ties that line BNSF’s main
track.
BNSF’s maintenance pro-
gram for Washington will in-
clude 1,011 miles of track sur-
facing and undercutting work,
and the replacement of nearly
50 miles of rail and about
203,000 ties, as well as signal
upgrades for federally man-
dated positive train control, a
system of functional require-
ments for monitoring and con-
trolling train movements as
an attempt to provide in-
creased safety.
to the
80’s
gluten,” leading her to use
white rice flour, potato flour,
and tapioca starch in every-
thing from her pie crusts to red
velvet muffins with cream
cheese icing.
While she recognizes that
finding gluten-free options on
restaurant menus and in gro-
cery stores has gotten easier
over the years, Langen said she
also knows how difficult it can
be to make gluten-free baked
goods at home.
“The difficult part is that
gluten-free baking requires
you to have a lot of ingredi-
ents. You don’t just buy a bag of
flour like you do when you’re
making regular muffins. You
have three or four different
flours that go into the mix, so
having the space to store every-
thing is difficult if you’re bak-
ing for yourself,” she said.
Sourcing as many of those
ingredients as possible from
the Gorge is important to Lan-
gen. Her chickens provide her
with eggs and orchards
throughout the Gorge will give
her the apples or other fruit
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that fill her tarts.
“My intent is to use as many
local ingredients as I can,
which is also getting easier.
You can get everything from
eggs to honey here. You can’t
get rice flour, but you can get
all the good stuff that goes in
the pie or muffin,” Langen
said.
Eventually, Langen would
like Columbia Gorge Gluten
Free to be certified by the U.S.
Department of Agriculture,
but that process takes time and
there is still a lot of work to be
done to her new facility, which
will be 100-percent gluten free
with no potential for contami-
nation since she will be the
only one baking there.
“I’m hoping to bring some
good alternatives to wheat in
the baking world and maybe
give more people a chance to
try it and see if they feel better
if they go on a wheat-free or
gluten-free diet,” she said.
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