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Home / Washington Business - September/October 2005 / Community Profile - Lewiston-Clarkston: Two Towns Separated by a Common River |
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Community Profile - Lewiston-Clarkston: Two Towns Separated by a Common River |
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Written On: September/October 2005 |
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Written By: by Charles Henry Thomas |
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Two hundred years ago, the Corps of Discovery camped near the confluence of the Clearwater and Snake rivers. Little did they know that this stopping place on their journey from St. Louis to Astoria would one day house two cities bearing their names — Lewiston, Idaho and Clarkston, Wash.
As Captains Meriwether Lewis and William Clark floated down the Clearwater River, the sight of the Snake River was welcome. The merging of the two rivers provided faster water to speed their way to the Pacific Ocean. Remember, it was October 1805, the low water time of year, when the tired and hungry Corps passed through this area.
The river system has always been the key to this thriving metropolitan area which 50,000 people call home. For example, in 1928, Potlatch launched its first log drives down the North Fork of the Clearwater River. Millions of logs were dumped in the river each spring during high water and floated to Lewiston where Potlatch had built a sawmill the year before. Potlatch, a company whose history links back to Frederick Weyerhaeuser, purchased 667,000 acres of Idaho forest lands — many of which were along the remote North Fork of the Clearwater.
Those whitewater log drives were unique. Logs were stored upstream and then sent downriver in the spring. The floating camp was called a wanigan and loggers with spiked boots danced between logs on the river unplugging jams. That all ended in 1971 with the completion of Dworshak Dam, a storage reservoir located at Orofino near the mouth of the North Fork.
Ironically, it is the downstream dams that are the economic lifeblood of the twin cities today. While Potlatch’s forest products complex is the primary employer, it is the Columbia River-Snake River water transportation network that is key to the area’s economy. Lewiston and Clarkston now have thriving ports thanks to the four lower Snake River dams and four lower Columbia River dams.
When Lower Granite Dam — the last of the four — was completed in 1975, slack water reached Lewiston-Clarkston. That opened the ports to tug and barge traffic and allowed shippers to send grain, wood chips, lumber, paper and other bulk products to Portland where these could be transferred to ocean-going ships or, in the case of wood chips, be offloaded to one of the many pulp and paper operations along the Columbia. Oil, gasoline and other bulk products were pushed upstream to ease cost-of-living burdens in communities that now had access to the sea.
In fact, Lewiston became Idaho’s only port with international water access and today grain trucks from Montana weave their way along U.S. 12 from Lolo, the point in Montana where the Corps of Discovery found its route over the rugged Bitterroot Mountains, to Lewiston — some 200 miles.
Officials at the Port of Clarkston point out that nearly 1,600 jobs are tied to river traffic in the twin cities, generating $35.6 million for the economy. They also point out barging saves more than $38 million a year in transportation costs because a barge carries the same grain as 37.5 railroad hoppers and 150 semi-trucks with 25-ton capacities. And a tug can push up to four barges at once.
With gas and diesel headed for $3 a gallon, barging products consumes half the fuel of rail and one-tenth that of trucks. Officials point this out because of the persistent move by some environmental groups and a few in Congress, like Congressman Jim McDermott, D-Wash., who lobby hard for removal of the four lower Snake River dams. In fact, do a Google© search on your Web browser and you’ll find dozens of sites devoted to breaching the dams.
These people claim dam removal is necessary to reclaim salmon and steelhead runs. Port officials beg to differ. They believe runs can be restored with the dams in place by investing in new ways to enhance those runs. But not one of the dam removal proponents talks about the fact that those four dams combined have two dozen generators — any one of which at peak capacity can light and power a city the size of Seattle.
Lewiston-Clarkston has another distinction. They are called the "Banana Belt" of the Inland Empire. Both cities sit in a canyon, 738 feet above sea level. The rim of the canyon is 2,000 feet higher. In the winter when snow sweeps across the Palouse, the weather in the valley floor allows golfers to play year-round. The reservoirs also provided year-round boating and fishing opportunities.
And, the ability to store water behind the dams opened up a whole new irrigated agriculture industry from Clarkston to Pasco. Apples, wheat, wine grapes and alfalfa are among the many crops.
Lewiston and Clarkston are not without their differences. For example, Idaho is a right-to-work state which prevents unions from forcing workers to join. It also follows the federal minimum wage which is $5.15 per hour compared to Washington with the nation's highest at $7.36.
Workers' comp and unemployment insurance are cheaper in Idaho and its sales tax is lower. But Idaho has an income tax where Washington has gross receipts or B&O tax.
For AWB members in border communities like Clarkston, the costs of doing business in Washington are increasingly worrisome. As the Washington Alliance for a Competitive Economy Across State Lines report points out, Washington ranks as the eighth most expensive state for costs of operating a business, while Idaho ranks 46th and Oregon 30th. Those figures came from the Milken Institute’s Cost of Doing Business Index, which ranks costs on five measures — wages, taxes, electricity, industrial rent and office rent.
Business leaders in Clarkston fear a flight of business across the Snake River unless Washington's Legislature acts to lower costs. A good start would be equalizing the minimum wage by exempting border counties.
Visiting the area, you can see the results created by the differing business climates. The largest shopping mall is in Lewiston, as are the largest auto dealerships and most of the area’s industry. And, judging from the license plates in company parking lots, many Clarkston residents work in Lewiston, but very few Lewiston residents work in Clarkston.
The local newspaper is written, edited and published in Lewiston. Inside a mid-August issue it had a page or more of help-wanted classified ads, all but a couple of the ads for jobs on the Idaho side of the Snake River.
Lewiston and Clarkston share a common history. Clarkston, like Vancouver, is influenced as much by what happens across the river as what happens in Olympia. But our state elected officials will only exacerbate the problems if they push for removal of the Snake River dams and continue to increase business costs through higher taxes, wage requirements and regulations.
So while Lewiston and Clarkston share so much in common, they could end up far apart economically — and that would not be good news for Washington.
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