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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (March 13, 2015)
3C THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, MARCH 13, 2015 NOT JUST A SIMULATION CCC can now train students on anything from a tugboat to an LNG carrier By EDWARD STRATTON The Daily Astorian Students at Clatsop Com- munity College, Oregon’s RI¿FLDOPDULWLPHFROOHJHFDQ now train on any type of ves- sel, from a tug boat to a liq- XH¿HG QDWXUDO JDV WUDLQHU LQ a calm, sunny San Francisco Bay to gale-force winds in the Atlantic Ocean. The college recently added a simulator for the Electron- ic Chart Display Information System (ECDIS), quickly becoming a standard naviga- tional system on oceangoing boats and a requirement by 2016 for anyone wanting to stand watch at sea. “It’s basically taking all the information from the sensors on the vessel and in- tegrates it into one system,” said Bill Ham, a marine sci- ence instructor at CCC for 17 years and a former U.S. Coast Guardsman of 30 years. CCC’s simulator, created by Dutch simulator company VSTEP, looks like a gaming machine with three monitors, a visual reference out the window of a pilothouse, nav- igational charts, GPS, radar, a Fathometer and other naviga- tional sensors. Ham selects the type of vessel he wants to captain, the weather he wants to operate in and where he wants to start. In a few short minutes, he’s in the pilothouse of a Coast Guard cutter, pulling away from the dock in the Inner Oakland Harbor. The college has a student and instructor simulator. In- structors can program in ves- sels on a course for students to avoid, and they can control their own vessels to work with students, such as a tug push- ing or pulling a cargo ship. Ham and other instruc- tors already use the ECDIS simulator to augment radar plotting and bridge resource management courses. The col- lege is getting approval from WKH&RDVW*XDUGIRUDVSHFL¿F ECDIS electronic navigation course, which Ham said should be ready by spring term. The college acquired the JOSHUA BESSEX — The Daily Astorian Bill Ham, a maritime sciences instructor, shows the Electronic Chart Display and Information System (ECDIS) computer-based navigation system simulator at the Clatsop Community College. Technology TODAY’S CUTTING-EDGE IDEAS ARE AT WORK IN OUR COMMUNITY ECDIS system for more than $50,000 using its Credential, Acceleration and Support for Employment (CASE) grant, funded by the U.S. Depart- ment of Labor and part of the Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Ca- reer Training initiative. JOSHUA BESSEX — The Daily Astorian Bill Ham sits behind the instructor’s desk. The control panel of the ECDIS simulator at Clatsop Com- munity College allows students to control the simulated vessels using information from the digital navigational tools. JOSHUA BESSEX — The Daily Astorian One acre for terns is latest U.S. Army Corps plan Engineers wrestle with how to protect birds and the salmon they eat By KATIE WILSON EO Media Group CHINOOK, Wash. — After years of managing a growing Caspian tern col- ony on East Sand Island — the largest such colony in the world in terms of nesting pairs — the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has published draft plans to further reduce nesting hab- itat available to the birds. This is not as simple as it sounds. “Neither the ... objec- tives for juvenile salmon survival nor the purpose and need of the Caspian Tern Plan have been met,” states a draft of the Envi- ronmental Assessment, that went out for public com- ment March 3. The Corps is proposing two options: doing nothing and continuing current man- agement; or reducing current FREE PUBLISHED THE FIRST FRIDAY OF EACH MONTH January 2015 DAMIAN MULINIX —EO Media Group Caspian terns are elegant fliers and adept fishermen. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has endeavored for several years to encourage fewer of them to nest within the main migratory route for Columbia River salmon, which they eat by the million. nesting habitat on East Sand Island to 1 acre and then dis- suading and hazing birds to keep them from nesting in even closer quarters. The comment period ends Tuesday, a day after the end of another public comment period for another salmon-eating bird colony that nests seasonally on the ess in the Chronicling the Joy of Busin n Columbia-Pacific Regio island: the double-crest- ed cormorants. The Corps plans to reduce the number of those birds by shoot- ing adults and preventing thousands of eggs from hatching through a process called egg oiling. Caspian terns have con- tinued to eat large numbers of endangered or threat- striverbusinessjournal crbizjournal.com • facebook.com/coa Volume 10 • Issue 1 stry spo allenges Inside: Indu copes with ch Shellfish farm an conditions oce nging s optimistic despite cha tlight: Taylor remain ened young salmon while the Corps’ reduction of the terns’ nesting habitat over the years has failed to en- courage them to move else- where — in many cases, to islands the Corps had pre- pared for them. Instead, the birds have squeezed closer together. “Management of Cas- pian terns in the Columbia River estuary is intrinsical- ly challenging because of the need to satisfy compet- ing interests; the well-be- ing of the Caspian tern col- ony ... and the (Endangered Species Act)-listed salmo- nids on which they prey,” the EA states. But the birds are also a global conservation con- cern. The worldwide pop- ulation is likely no more than 100,000 pairs. These colonies are small and scat- tered and many are in de- cline over what used to be their range, according to the Corps. “Because of habitat modification and water management, colonies have been virtually eliminated from the interior states of the west,” the EA states Moving the habitat Last month, the Corps finished several man-made islands for the Caspian terns at Don Edwards Na- tional Wildlife Refuge in California. According to the Corps, these islands could be available as al- ternative nesting habitat as early as next year. In total, the Corps has Available at a newsstand near you NEWS County makes a splash PacifIc in the pot biz page 10 NEWS Seaside Muffler and Off-Road 21 revs up its reputation page BOAT OF THE MONTH The Sadie out of South Bend, Wash. page 24 constructed 10 acres of new habitat for the terns in the last six years. Since 2006, the Corps and its contractors have reduced the terns’ nesting habitat from about 6.5 acres to 1.5 acres, accommodat- ing approximately 6,269 breeding pairs, the smallest colony size recorded at the island since 2008. The terns first inhabit- ed the island in the 1980s, nesting on dredge spoils left there by the Corps, but vegetation took over and the birds moved to Rice Is- land, a dredge disposal site located farther upriver. The Corps determined that the birds were eating too many juvenile salmon and steelhead there. Under orders from NOAA to miti- gate for impacts on salmo- nids caused by the dams, the Corps lured the terns back to East Sand Island in 1999 and 2000. The birds have more or less flourished — although there have been hang-ups. In 2011, the balance of na- ture zealously reasserted it- self when eagles and gulls destroyed all 5,000 of that year’s nests and nearly dec- imated the colony. crbizjou rn a l.com