Cornelison spends second life protecting Gorge, looks to hand off baton

Peter Cornelison often recharged his battery for Friends of the Columbia Gorge by doing what drove his passion, enjoying the outdoors, kayaking and bonding with friends on the Columbia River.

Editors note - Peter Cornelison, 70, is stepping down from his position at Friends of the Columbia River Gorge. The Organization is now currently looking to fill his shoes as a conservation organizer for its Hood River office. To learn more about the position click here and read below about the man currently holding the position. The deadline to apply is Dec. 3.

By Tom Peterson

Peter Cornelison was not always the Hood River Field Rep. for Friends of the Columbia Gorge.
The 70-year-old came from Ohio to attend the University of Oregon in 1972. And he had a chance to visit the Columbia Gorge in 1976.
It made a lasting impression.
Enough to sell a family business and move here in 2000.
And enough to stand up and protect it.
“The Gorge is a magnificent place unlike any other in the world,” he said earlier this week. “And it has been my privilege to do what I can to steward it during my brief time here.

I have always felt like I was standing on the shoulders of others. Oregon is a special place because there has always been a special attitude here. Starting with the pioneers that chose to come here to farm rather than get rich quick in California - to Oswald West who created public beaches to Tom Mcall who created our land-use system to keep much of the state’s beauty intact and productive for farming. And Nancy Russell who dedicated the last part of her life to creating the Columbia Gorge Scenic Area and preserving this magnificent resource.”

A hike along the Cape Horn Trail never fails for a photo. Cornelison led this group and many others exploring the ‘wonderland’ that is the Columbia River Gorge.

Russell became widely recognized as one of the principal figures responsible for the passage of the 1986 federal legislation protecting the Columbia River Gorge as a National Scenic Area. She then dedicated the next 20 years of her life to ensuring that the Columbia Gorge would in fact remain a place apart, an unspoiled treasure for generations to come.

During the last days of her life in 2008, Russell called Cornelison to her bedside.

“She asked, with a steely gaze and a firm voice, if I would dedicate myself to preserving the Gorge,” Cornelison said. “ Of course, over-awed, I said yes and have continued to fulfill that promise.”

After 18 years, Cornelison will be stepping down to enjoy more of what drove his work as a protector of the Scenic Area. He and his wife Jill Kieffer kayak, hike and windsurf whenever they get the chance.

“It’s my church,” he said.

In the beginning

“Both of my parents were conservation-minded,” Cornelison said. “ I went into business after college and helped my dad form a small company that we ran for 15 years - but all that time - I was volunteering in various conservation movements and founded one of them, a land trust that created an 8-mile rail trail between communities in Northeastern Ohio.”

The family business, named Condar, produced a temperature gauge for wood-burning stoves, and Cornelison eventually became the president before selling the business and moving to Oregon. 

That thread of community service has led Cornelison down a path of natural resource conservation and building coalitions to fight for sound land-use decisions and ward off threats to the environment. 

After moving to Hood River, he worked and volunteered for the conservation group Thrive.

“We worked to prevent a destination resort on the other north side of Mount Hood,” he said. “Mount Hood Meadows had a long history of trying to develop a destination resort there. on the north side of Mt. Hood. It would have affected watersheds, and I was working against that.” 

“I knew about Friends,” he said. “and I volunteered for them, but I had not done much.”

But his friend Joanie Thompson would change all that. She was in the position that Cornelison has now, and she pushed him to interview for the job.

He was hired in 2003 by Michael Lang and Kevin Gorman.

The Thin Green Line

“The people piece is more important,” Cornelison said of building broad coalitions and taking on major corporations such as Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF) Railroad through litigation. “The relationship piece with people is such an important piece. You have to be willing to listen and work together with others - to create coalitions - that is where you make real change.”

Using this strategy, Friends of the Columbia Gorge was able to take on coal and volatile crude oil threats in recent years, some of which later burned down a portion of Mosier.

Cornelison led many activist rallies, such as this one, which was protesting a coal terminal.

“The Idea came across - all the conservation groups came together to develop the thin green line,” he said, noting  Sightline Institute in Seattle came up with the term. “We were basically successful in pooling our resources and knocking out all the coal terminals and oil terminals in Vancouver…  It was a full-on fight.”

“The coal dust was several inches thick in places,” he said of the property next to the Columbia River where coal dust had blown from rail cars. “They ended up paying a fine and establishing money to set aside some conservation area. There are massive amounts of cleanup. They had to use a giant vacuum truck to suck all the coal dust they could find along the river.”
And crude oil was being shipped in tankers that were outdated and unsafe, Cornelison said. And some crude was coming from Canada’s tar sands - a crude oil that is a mixture of sand, clay, water, and bitumen - the binding agent in asphalt. It is sticky and impossible to remove if spilled in an estuary.  

Cornelison led this delegation to Olympia to fight the expansion of oil terminals in the Pacific Northwest which would have meant heavy oil tanker traffic along rail lines through the Gorge.

“There is a number of problems with that. The fact that this oil is as explosive as gasoline and the railroad cars were weak and not designed to carry hazardous material. It’s not adequate to transport highly dangerous cargo. We saw what can happen in Mosier in 2016. 

A train was hauling oil from Eastport, Idaho, and was headed for Tacoma, Washington when it derailed in Mosier in July of 2016.

It was carrying Bakken crude oil, a type of oil known to be highly volatile. Fourteen tankers derailed, and several caught fire, shutting down traffic on Interstate 84 and burning portions of the town's infrastructure.

Looking to the Future and Climate Change

“We’ve got to stay hopeful about the future,” he said. “We can’t lose hope and positive momentum. Every fraction of a degree matters and we have to keep working for de carbonization.”

Cornelison said the Build Back Better act being considered in the US Senate has $555 billion for wind and solar. 

That gave him hope. 

“It’s Incumbent on all of us to do everything we can. We have to maintain that hope - otherwise it’s just depression and a downward spiral.”

This also gives him hope. 

“I absolutely love hiking in the Gorge and local mountains,” he said. “This is the best place I have ever lived with so many lovely areas. It’s kind of like the Gorge has so many microclimates and areas that can be explored. It is a wonderland.”

“Hood River is my home, and I can't imagine living anywhere else,” he said. “I now look forward to handing off the baton to not only a new conservation organizer in the Gorge, but to several new, younger staff members who have joined us recently, helping point the way toward the future. I will continue to help protect the Gorge as a volunteer and fulfill my promise to Nancy: to be a friend to the Columbia Gorge.”