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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
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now train on any type of ves-
sel, from a tug boat to a liq-
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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
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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-
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oce
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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
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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.
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