Todd, thanks for coming down. I was in Montana and could not make it. I can report that Clark-Skamania Flyfishers has sent about 25 letters in opposition to this project and plans to provide oral testimony from about 8 members who know the river well.
This is a terrible project by a company that has just about destroyed the lower river over the years. After their pits were washed out in the 1996 flood, Storedahl sold the property to a out-of-state company who filed Chapter 11 so Storedahl walked away free. Their asphalt road is now in the river and at least 4 houses are threatened by slides. Before the flood, about 60 pairs of steelhead spawned below Daybreak. In 2002 the number was zero. It is so bad down there that an aerial photo of the Storedahl operation was on the cover of a Hydrology magazine a couple years ago.
To quote the editor emeritus of the local paper, The Columbian, "The county would be the only known place in the nation where a river is traded for a gravel mine. What kind of legacy is that?"