Bridging a Great Divide: The Battle for the Columbia River Gorge

Chapter 3: Saving Steigerwald

44 Chapter 3 Saving Steigerwald Wilson and Susan Cady bought their property at the top of Belle Center Road in 1972. Their seven-and-a-half acres, just inside the Skamania County line, sit at an elevation of 1,200 feet, with unbroken forest above. Deer, bobcats, and birds of every description inhabit the secluded property . Most of it lies within the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area. That’s fine with the Cadys; they believe Congress intended for the Scenic Area to extend from rim to rim. Cady is a third-generation resident of the western gorge. His pioneer grandmother, Katy Gill, ran the Gill Seed Company. A great-aunt came out on the Oregon Trail. In the 1970s, before the campaign for federal protection of the gorge began, the forested slopes of eastern Clark County and western Skamania County were ripe for development. Several subdivisions were on the drawing boards. The Port of Camas-Washougal had big plans for the large wetland that bordered the Columbia River immediately to the east. And the port wasn’t the only interested party. Rudy Hegewald, owner of the Stevenson Co-Ply mill in Stevenson, enlisted Skamania County Prosecuting Attorney Bob Leick to help him get land along the Columbia River zoned for industrial development. Developers also had their eye on the forested slopes at Cape Horn, the unincorporated town of Carson, even the small community park at Home Valley. Most industrial schemes proposed for Skamania County failed to win financing. But residential development in the county was virtually unrestricted. “In Skamania County, you could build on any two-acre lot anywhere in the county,” Cady said. “There was so much development going on in this area that we went to the Skamania County Commission and asked for a moratorium on development. We didn’t move out here to be in town.” SAVING STEIGERWALD 45 Getting a building permit was a simple matter, Cady recalled. “In 1976, all you had to do was take a napkin into the planning office and show the dimensions of the house so they would know how much to charge you. There was no real building inspection in Skamania County except what was required by the state, for electrical and plumbing. Later, when the state Uniform Building Code came in, Skamania County put it on the ballot, as if it were optional: ‘Do you want a building code?’” County commissioners even had the chutzpah to demand money from the state to implement the building code. “When they found out the state wouldn’t pay, they wouldn’t hire a building inspector,” Cady said. Instead, commissioners gave the job to Bob Lee, the county forester. The county put out the welcome mat for homebuilders, surfacing the roads leading to new subdivisions with gravel and installing power lines from Belle Center Road. A federal grant helped pay for a new school to serve the county’s west end, where commissioners envisioned hundreds of new families with school-age kids. The Cadys, conservationists and amateur naturalists, had worked for federal protection of the Indian Heaven Wilderness in Southwest View of the Gorge looking east from Cape Horn Trail. Photo by Darryl Lloyd 46 THE VISION Washington, donating the steelhead for the barbecue when the wilderness area was established. They soon set about turning their own seven acres into a wildlife haven. They joined the Portland Audubon Society because there was no local Audubon chapter in Clark County at the time. In 1975, local naturalist Hazel Wolf founded one and Susan Cady was named vice chair. There was no shortage of issues facing the new chapter. At the top of the list was how to deal with the imminent threats facing Steigerwald Lake, the broad wetland bordering the Columbia River across the state highway from Washougal. Like most Columbia River lowlands, Steigerwald Lake once had ebbed and flowed with the tide and the natural course of the undammed river, absorbing rich nutrients and providing fertile habitat for waterfowl and wildlife. Gibbons Creek, which fed the wetlands, flowed from hills to the east and spread across the flood plain. Ranks of cottonwoods sprouted along a high dike on the shore of the Columbia, built to hold the river back after 1938, when Bonneville Dam was completed. The history of Steigerwald Lake is a history in microcosm of development along the lower Columbia beginning in the late nineteenth century. Livestock grazing...