{"id":797727,"date":"2022-09-13T15:15:13","date_gmt":"2022-09-13T15:15:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/grist.org\/?p=588213"},"modified":"2022-09-13T15:15:13","modified_gmt":"2022-09-13T15:15:13","slug":"neighbors-and-a-conservation-group-win-key-battle-over-illegal-mine-in-national-scenic-area","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2022\/09\/13\/neighbors-and-a-conservation-group-win-key-battle-over-illegal-mine-in-national-scenic-area\/","title":{"rendered":"Neighbors and a conservation group win key battle over illegal mine in national scenic area"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
The magnificent Columbia River Gorge is one of North America’s great natural wonders<\/a>. Dividing Washington from Oregon, the Gorge begins where the Columbia and Deschutes rivers meet in the Cascade Mountains, creating a massive, 80-mile-long sapphire body of water, surrounded by the highest concentration of waterfalls in the world. The ecosystems here encompass everything from grasslands to rainforests, and are home to 25 endangered<\/a> or threatened types of animals and plants. Two million tourists a year come to admire the Gorge\u2019s incredible scenery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Geologically and aesthetically, the Columbia Gorge is magnificent,” says Chris Collins, a program lead with the non-profit Lower Columbia Estuary Partnership<\/a>, which helps protect the lower Gorge. “The Columbia is one of the largest rivers in the country, and this is the path it uses to travel through the Cascade mountains. It’s incredibly dramatic.” He also highlights its critical nature from a conservation perspective: “Every single salmon in eastern Oregon, eastern Washington, and Idaho passes through the Gorge<\/a> down to the ocean and back up again to spawn,” he says. “There are nine federally listed fish species that use the Gorge. That’s a lot of endangered fish.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n But despite the unique and fragile nature of the region, the Nutter Corporation, a mining and road-building company reopened a long-abandoned mine<\/a> on land owned by the Zimmerly family in 2017. The property is perched on the western edge of the federally-protected Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area<\/a>, and their gravel mining operation launched without the required land use permits from Clark County. The mine created environmental hazards, as dirt carried by the trucks contaminated drainage ditches that flow into nearby salmon habitats, and impacted local families with the noise and traffic. For over two years, the mine continued to operate in violation of the National Scenic Area rules, until a group of concerned residents and the Friends of the Columbia Gorge<\/a>, a Portland-based conservation group, succeeded in holding the operators accountable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When Rachel Grice and her family moved to the Columbia Gorge area in January of 2018, they believed they were buying a home in a peaceful and safe community, where her four children could grow up surrounded by the region’s natural beauty. But as soon as they unpacked their moving boxes, massive, double-loaded mining trucks began barrelling down their small rural street. Grice soon learned that in late 2017, the long-dormant gravel operations had restarted, without obtaining any of the multiple permits required by Clark County.<\/p>\n\n\n\nAn illegal mine and a company with a history of environmental abuses<\/h2>\n\n\n\n