community news
february1
2018
9
VFW Post 1440 Seeks Names for
McCormick Park Veterans Memorial Expansion
The St. Helens Oregon Veterans of Foreign
Wars (VFW) Post 1440 is seeking the names of all war-
casualty veterans that have resided or were born in Co-
lumbia County. The McCormick Park Veterans Memo-
rial will soon be expanded to include a new monument
that will honor those by name who were lost in the Viet-
nam, Gulf, and all conflicts in the Middle East through
the present. The VFW Post 1440 is seeking names for
this expansion and the existing monument by May 31,
2018. Any names discovered after the deadline may
still be included after the new monument’s installation.
To be eligible for inclusion, the veteran must
have either died during conflict or passed away after
returning home due to a war injury. They also must
have resided or been born in Columbia County. If you
or someone you know has a friend or relative who may
be eligible for inclusion, please leave a message at the
VFW Post 1440 telephone message center at (503)
278-8473. You can also email the VFW Post 1440 at
vfwpost1440@protonmail.com.
This project is made possible by the financial
support of VFW Post 1440, the City of St. Helens, and
private donations.
About the Expansion Project
The existing McCormick Park Veterans Memo-
rial located in St. Helens pays tribute to the servicemen
by naming those that were killed in World War I, World
War II, and Korea. Since its original dedication cere-
mony on November 11, 2010, there have been several
increasingly popular countywide Veterans Day events
held at the memorial. Often attracting state senators
and house representatives to be guest speakers, the
events have outgrown the space available for attend-
ees. In April 2017 the City of St. Helens was awarded
a $46,770 grant from the Oregon Parks & Recreation
Veterans & War Memorials Grant Program to support
the expansion project. The VFW Post 1440 is also
contributing at least $40,000 to support the project.
In addition to honoring Columbia County veterans
who have lost their lives in more recent conflicts, the
expansion will open up the memorial to accommo-
date several hundred spectators and provide adequate
room for guest speakers. The expansion project is ex-
pected to be completed by Veterans Day 2018.
About the Original
McCormick Park Veterans Monument
The VFW Post 1440 hand-built the first St.
Helens Veterans Memorial which was originally lo-
cated along Highway 30 at Columbia Boulevard. It
included wooden plaques with hand carved names of
Columbia County war casualties from World War I,
World War II, and Korea. The original wooden plaques
and a 105 Howitzer Cannon were dedicated in 1958.
When the Oregon Department of Transportation wid-
ened Highway 30 certain items from this memorial
were moved to McCormick Park but not the original
wooden plaques.
Members of the VFW Post 1440 were very
interested in finding or recreating the lost plaques. A
local engineering firm, Lower Columbia Engineering,
volunteered to design and build new monuments that
would be more durable replicas of the original wooden
plaques.
Considerable donations and public and private
in kind contributions helped fund the project. Similar
to the original project Lower Columbia Engineering is
playing an instrumental role in the design and construc-
tion management for the current expansion project.
To inquire about inclusion in the McCormick
Park Veterans Memorial Expansion please leave a mes-
sage at the VFW Post 1440 telephone message center
at (503) 278-8473. You can also email the VFW Post
1440 at vfwpost1440@protonmail.com.
For further information regarding the Mc-
Cormick Park Veterans Memorial Expansion Project
please contact City of St. Helens Associate Planner
Jenny Dimsho at jdimsho@ci.st-helens.or.us or (503)
366-8207.
Oregon’s Valuable Dungeness Crab Fishery Gets Underway
And they’re off! Oregon’s most
valuable commercial fishery for the
state’s official crustacean, Dungeness
crab, got underway north of Cape Blan-
co on January 22.
This year’s opening was delayed
from its target start date of December 1
because testing of crabs on some parts of
the Pacific coast showed crabs were low
in meat yield. In partnership with the Or-
egon Dungeness Crab Commission and
the commercial crab industry, ODFW
collects and quality tests crabs out of the
six major crabbing ports before the sea-
son begins. The season can be delayed
if the meat yield doesn’t meet a certain
standard, which means that consumers
get a high quality product with plenty of
meat. (The goal is 23 or 25 percent meat
recovery depending on the area, or 9-10
oz. of crab meat for a crab weighing 2.5
pounds.) Failure to achieve a negotiated
opening price and intense coastal storms
also delayed the opening a few days af-
ter January 15.
Dungeness crab have been har-
vested commercially along the Pacific
coast since the late 1800s. Current reg-
ulations allow only male crabs larger
than 6 ¼ inches across the back of the
shell to be taken. This protects the fe-
male and undersized male crabs which
constitute the breeding population and
produce the next generation of crab to
be harvested in about four years, en-
suring the sustainability of the overall
stock and the industry.
This regulatory approach is
working. Preliminary results from a
National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration (NOAA) study show
that the population of legal-size males
appears to be stable to increasing on
the West Coast. Harvest rates are also
stable to increasing. Last season’s ex-
vessel value (or average price) set a
record of $62.7 million, with landings
totaling 20 million pounds, 22 percent
above the 10-year average.
Vessels returning to Newport
had the most pounds of crab landed last
year, followed by Astoria and Coos Bay.
Poppino Painting
503-429-7101
Tim Poppino
19025 Woods Road
Vernonia, OR 97064
Licensed
Bonded
Insured
CCM#90548
A little over 300 fishing boats bring crab
into Oregon each season. The industry
is an important economic driver in Or-
egon’s coastal towns.
Commercial crabbing starts in
the winter, when crabs are hard-shelled
and full of meat. State natural resource
agencies in Oregon, Washington and
California cooperate as part of what is
continued on page 15
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A crabbing boat gets ready to head out from the Coos Bay/Charleston port
on Monday, January 22, 2018. Photo by Tim Novotny.
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