GORGE DEBATE WEIGHS CLEAN AIR~ JOBS Columbian; Vancouver; Apr 14,1999; ERIK ROBINSON, Columbian staff writer;

Abstract:

"In my mind, there's no place in the world as beautiful as the Columbia River Gorge, " said [STEVENSON - Greg]

Green, who now serves as air quality manager for the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality.

 The Gorge's 7-year-old management plan calls for no degradation of visibility Also, the plan says the area should be studied to see whether the Gorge should be designated as a Class I airshed. The area currently is classified as a Class 2 airshed, which is not as restrictive.

 Representatives of ports and counties within the Gorge object to a tougher air pollution standard, saying it will drive away businesses at a time when many counties are hurting from downturns in the timber industry.

Full Text:

Copyright Columbian Publishing Company Apr 14, 1999

STEVENSON - Greg Green has traveled the world over during a 20-year career with the U.S. Air Force, but nothing beats the natural wonder he found within a short drive of Portland.

 "In my mind, there's no place in the world as beautiful as the Columbia River Gorge," said Green, who now serves as air quality manager for the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality.

 Keeping it that way is the trick.

 On a clear spring day, 75 people made their way to Skamania Lodge Tuesday to get a handle on an emerging dilemma: how to attract family wage jobs while at the same time ensuring clean air that attracted people here in the first place.

 The commission made no decision Tuesday.

 The Gorge's 7-year-old management plan calls for no degradation of visibility. Also, the plan says the area should be studied to see whether the Gorge should be designated as a Class 1 airshed. The area currently is classified as a Class 2 airshed, which is not as restrictive.

 Representatives of ports and counties within the Gorge object to a tougher air pollution standard, saying it will drive away businesses at a time when many counties are hurting from downturns in the timber industry.

 Others contend air pollutants will gradually degrade the Gorge's marketable and aesthetic value as a national treasure that needs to be preserved.

 "Weakening anything in the management plan right now is a bad idea," said Michael Lang, conservation director of Portland-based Friends of the Columbia Gorge.

 Lang cited a recent U.S. Forest Service study of area lichens, which indicated a level of airborne metallic pollutants equaling the level of some cities. Because of their sensitivity to pollutants, lichens serve as a kind of bio-monitor for scientists.

 But Lang said it doesn't take a scientist to see that something's amiss he's noticed the haze with his own eyes.

 "It's not good," he said.

 Business boosters point out that the Gorge has always been more of a blue-collar natural wonder, where chiseled rimrock canyons coincide with railroad tracks, two major highways and barges plying the Columbia.

 Dana Peck, director of the Klickitat County Resource Development agency in Goldendale, contends regulatory agencies are nonetheless treating the Gorge as a pristine airshed.

 "We're being compared to Mount Denali and Crater Lake," Peck said.

 Rather than put up with a rigorous federal and state air permitting process, which is intended to preserve the Gorge's scenic qualities, Peck said many businesses are simply going elsewhere.

 Peck and other members of the Columbian Gorge Economic Development Association have asked the commission to delete from the Gorge's management plan any references to achieving a Class I airshed.

 "An artificial standard is being created by the Gorge Commission which is different than the national standards adopted by the U.S. Congress," Peck said.

 When Congress passed the Clean Air Act in 1977, it designated all parks and wilderness areas larger than 5,000 acres as mandatory Class I areas. All other national monuments and scenic areas were designated as Class 2.

 In the case of the Gorge, it already gets a form of spillover protection because of the proximity of two Class I airsheds: Mount Hood and Mount Adams.

 Like a sponge, the Gorge absorbs air pollutants funneled through its high, steep canyons from east and west.

 "If it adversely affects visibility in the Gorge, there's likely to be an impact in Mount Hood as well," said Brian Finneran, senior environmental specialist with the Oregon DEQ.

 So if a company wanted to build or expand a plant in Vancouver, the state Department of Ecology probably would expect an analysis of potential air emissions and state-of-the-art pollution controls not necessarily to protect the Gorge, but to protect the Class 1 airsheds of Hood and Adams.

 Dave L'Hommedieu, a retired Forest Service timber sale planner who lives in Stevenson, said new lodges, restaurants and other tourist-related businesses have helped offset some of the area!s lost timber jobs.

 Visibility is important, he said, but not at the expense of scaring away all new businesses.

 "We cannot crank it down so bad that no one looks at coming here forjobs," he said.

 Standing in the hall of the Skamania Lodge convention center perhaps the most high-profile new business to come into Skamania County since the federal forest crisis a decade ago Peck was unconvinced that tourism is the answer.

 "Would you rather have your job," he asked a reporter, "or would you rather change bed sheets here?"
 

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