12A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, MARCH 3, 2015
Cutter: Astoria designated ‘Coast Guard City’ in 2010
Continued from Page 1A
including but not limited to: mission
needs, distance to primary operating
area, work-life, logistics support,
current and future infrastructure
costs, and environmental impacts,”
Saylor said in an email.
The Coast Guard’s Sector Colum-
bia River headquarters and Air Sta-
tion Astoria are based at the Astoria
Regional Airport in Warrenton. Asto-
ria is also host to the guard’s 210-foot
medium endurance cutters Steadfast
and Alert, and the 180-foot buoy ten-
der Fir, but does not have one of the
Island-class patrol boats.
The Island-class Orcas is home-
ported in Coos Bay and the Cutty-
hunk is at Port Angeles, Wash.
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ly that while the new Sentinel-class
cutters are meant to replace the Is-
land-class patrol boats, they may not
be assigned to the same ports.
Landing one or both of the new
cutters would expand the Coast
Guard’s footprint in Astoria, where
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Astoria was designated a “Coast
Guard City” in 2010, one of only
16 in the United States. Newport re-
ceived the designation in 2005.
The Coast Guard is planning for
58 Sentinel-class cutters. Twelve cut-
ters have been delivered so far and
assigned to Miami and Key West,
Fla. Other future home ports, accord-
ing to the guard, could be San Juan,
Puerto Rico; Cape May, N.J.; Pas-
cagoula, Miss.; Ketchikan, Alaska;
Honolulu, Hawaii; Portland, Maine;
Atlantic Beach, N.C.; and San Pedro,
Calif.
WANT TO COMMENT?
U.S. Coast Guard photo
The Sentinel-class Fast Response Cutter (FRC) is a new Coast Guard patrol boat that is capable of de-
ploying independently to conduct missions that include port, waterways and coastal security; fishery
patrols; search and rescue; and national defense. Named after Coast Guard enlisted heroes, the FRCs are
replacing the aging Island-class 110-foot patrol boats.
Public comments about the Coast Guard’s potential homeporting
of two fast response cutters in Astoria or Newport can be sent to:
Diana Soriano, USCG Civil Engineering Unit Oakland, 1301 Clay
St., Suite 700N, Oakland, Calif., 94612; or diana.soriano@uscg.
mil; or fax at 510-637-5726.
The deadline to comment is March 30.
Ports: ‘It’s a complicated choreography’
Continued from Page 1A
It will take at least a month
for the 73 terminal operators
and shipping lines that be-
long to the PMA and 13,600
longshoremen to review and
ratify the contract, said Steve
Getzug, a PMA spokesman.
Meanwhile, longshoremen
resumed a normal work pace
with the Saturday night shift,
Feb. 21, beginning the task
of clearing tens of thousands
of containers plugging dock-
yards at the ports, Getzug
said.
“It’s a complicated chore-
ography,” he said of moving
the loaded and empty con-
tainers, clearing paths to get
to ships.
As of Feb. 23, 22 ships
were being worked at dock-
side at Los Angeles and Long
Beach, Getzug said. Thir-
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in those harbors waiting to get
in and two dozen more were
on their way, he said.
He didn’t have numbers
for other ports but said Los
Angeles and Long Beach
would have the most ships
and containers since they are
the largest ports.
The only problem was at
Oakland, where a disagree-
ment over work breaks held
up operations until Sunday
night, he said.
West Coast port statistics, 2013
Locations by region
Washington
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
Bellingham
Anacortes
Port Angeles
Everett
Seattle
Tacoma
Olympia
Aberdeen/Grays Harbor
Oregon
9. Astoria
10. Longview
11. Rainier
12. Kalama
13. St. Helens
14. Vancouver
15. Portland
16. N. Bend/Coos Bay
3
8
WASHINGTON
Grand totals
TEUs*
Tonnage (U.S. tons)
Registered workers
Total wages paid
15.6 million
340.4 million
13,733
$1.37 billion
Washington:
2.5 million or 16.3%
TEUs * by
region
OREGON
N. CALIFORNIA
18
22 20 21
23 19
26 24
25
N. California
17. Eureka
18. W. Sacramento
19. Stockton
20. Port Chicago
21. Benicia
22. Crockett
23. Richmond
24. Oakland
25. Redwood City
26. San Francisco
4
5
6
7
10
9 12
11 14
13
15
16
17
1
2
Oregon/Columbia
River: 155,230
or 1%
Northern
California:
1.8 million
or 11.5%
Southern California:
11.1 million
or 71.2%
S. CALIFORNIA
S. California
27. Port Hueneme
28. Los Angeles
29. Long Beach
30. San Diego
Tide gate: County
commissioners plan
to pass an emergency
declaration
Board of Commissioners is
planning to pass an emergen-
“I’m not worried. We cy declaration Wednesday to
KDYH ¿YH GD\V´ %DUHQGVH possibly be eligible for fed-
said about the water that rose eral funding for a permanent
one foot per day.
tide gate replacement.
The tide gate likely broke
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off from six decades of wear its underwater dive team to
and tear, Rhone said. He es- the site Sunday to investigate
timates the tide gate is about the damaged gate. The Clat-
65 years old. It controls the sop County Public Works
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and Emergency Manage-
“They worked all yester- ment departments offered
day and late at night to effect backup support to the drain-
a temporary solution and as age improvement company,
a result, it averted disaster,” if needed.
Rohne said. “The water was
“The people in Brown-
getting to a point where it smead who pulled this off
was going to ruin people’s have never done this before,
homes.”
but displayed intelligence
The Clatsop County and resolve,” Rohne said.
Continued from Page 1A
27 28
29
*Twenty-foot equivalent container units
Source: Pacific Maritime Association
30
Alan Kenaga/Capital Press
Shipper leaves Portland
Another issue is the loss of
Hanjin Shipping at the Port of
Portland Monday. Earlier in
February, Hanjin announced
it would end service at the
port because it was taking too
long for its ships to be unload-
ed and loaded.
Hanjin carries 78 percent
of the cargo out of Portland,
and two smaller shipping
lines don’t have the capaci-
ty to pick up the slack, said
Steve Johnson, port spokes-
man. Port managers are
working to get Hanjin back
or attract other shipping
lines, he said.
Otherwise, ag exporters
will have to truck or send by
rail their cargo to other ports
at $600 to $1,000 more per
container, he said.
While agricultural export-
ers are pleased ports are oper-
ating again, they already have
lost an estimated $1.75 billion
worth of sales per month for
two to three months, said
Peter Friedmann, executive
director of the Agriculture
Transportation Coalition.
And losses will continue
for the several months it takes
ports to get back to normal, he
said.
Containers of apples, hay,
frozen potato products, meats
and other goods are stacked
up and waiting for the 15-day
ocean crossing to Asia.
The number of containers
on a ship varies from 5,000 to
18,000 but the average on the
West Coast is 7,500 to 8,000,
Friedmann said. The normal
turn-around time to unload
and load a ship varies from
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the size of the ship and how
much is being unloaded and
loaded, he said.
Shelly Boshart Davis,
vice president of internation-
al sales at Bossco Trading, a
rye grass straw exporter in
JOSHUA BESSEX — The Daily Astorian
Hazel Barendse, looks out from her deck at the wa-
ter line of the flooding on her property Monday. A
broken tide gate near her house has caused wa-
ter levels to rise about one foot per day. The broken
gate was spotted Sunday by the Clatsop No. 1 Drain-
age Improvement Co.
JOSHUA BESSEX — The Daily Astorian
AP Photo/Nick Ut
A dock worker arrives at the Port of Los Angeles Feb. 23. Nearly all West Coast seaports
began the week with dockworkers hustling to load and unload cargo ships that were
held up amid a months-long labor-management dispute.
Tangent, said her compa-
ny has had 140 containers
of straw, worth $500,000
to $700,000, at the ports of
Portland, Tacoma and Seat-
tle since Jan. 15.
“We need to get contain-
ers moving,” she said. “We
will be OK if we can, but we
can’t do another six months of
this.”
Three more months to get
ports back to normal may
push some exporters to bank-
ruptcy, she said.
Changing the law?
It remains to be seen
whether the new port con-
tract will embolden export-
ers and members of Con-
gress to try to change federal
labor law to prevent future
disruptions.
“...(I)t is appropriate to
evaluate all options that
would end the economic
threat posed by such disputes
in the future,” Rep. Dan Ne-
whouse, R-Wash., said in a
statement.
Chris Schlect, president
of the Northwest Horticultur-
al Council in Yakima, Wash.,
said often interest in changing
the laws wanes once disputes
are resolved.
But, he said, this crisis was
big enough that people may
be more willing to look at it,
and more will be interested
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because comments could no
longer derail it.
Schlect said he has not
heard of anyone going bank-
rupt because of the port
slowdown but wouldn’t be
surprised if some tree fruit
growers do because of many
factors that have made it a
poor year. A record large har-
vest, lower prices and factors
such as the Russian boycott
of European Union and U.S.
fruit have combined with the
port slowdown to hurt the in-
dustry.
European apples have been
displacing Washington apples
in Asian markets because of
the slowdown, and it will take
“a lot of brand building to get
ourselves back into the mar-
ketplace and top in minds of
consumers,” said Todd Fry-
hover, president of the Wash-
ington Apple Commission in
Wenatchee.
Friedmann said the coalition
is “totally for” changing labor
law to prevent future disrup-
tions and will continue to push
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tion and the ILWU to improve
West Coast port productivity.
“U.S. agriculture can re-
cover but only with a collec-
tive effort,” he said. The PMA
and union need to improve the
pace of terminal operations,
automation and eliminate out-
dated labor and management
practices, he said.
Crews pull out the door of the broken tide gate. A
metal sheet will be placed over the broken tide gate
to try and prevent more flooding.
Charged: Arraignment
hearing set for March 13
Continued from Page 1A
murder, conspiracy, robbery
I, assault I and theft. Both
suspects appeared in front
of Judge Paula Brownhill in
Clatsop County Circuit Court
on Monday. Security was set
at $250,000 for each man,
which means they would have
to post $25,000 to be released
from jail, according to the
Clastop County District At-
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Brownhill appointed each
man an attorney and set the next
arraignment hearing for March
13 to present the outcome of the
interim grand jury proceeding.
Seaside detectives believe
the “two men have been in-
volved in additional criminal
activity and possibly other as-
saults,” the release states.
“We have yet to receive
any tip information, but over
the course of the weeklong
investigation, many people
were interviewed and we be-
lieve that there may be ad-
ditional victims unrelated to
the current charges that were
previously unwilling to report
or have not yet reported the
circumstances to the police,”
said Seaside Police Detective
Sgt. Jason Goodding.
The investigation is ongo-
ing so he could not provide
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information related to Burn-
ham and Fitch or believed
criminal activity should con-
tact Goodding or Detective
Gary Welborn. An anony-
mous tipline also can be used
to provide information by
calling 503-738-0222.