Ilwaco students
take to the trails
Astoria Chiefs win
championship
NORTH COAST • 3A
SPORTS • 4A
WEDNESDAY, MAY 27, 2015
142nd YEAR, No. 236
ONE DOLLAR
Pay as
you go
As fuel ef¿ciency
rises, state rolls out
funding method to
replace gas tax
By KATHY ANEY
EO Media Group
CAN BEACH BALLS BANISH SEA LIONS?
Port plies other tactic to avert
pinnipeds from favorite posts
‘They’re
only a buck
apiece. So
for $20, I
can get a
couple docks
covered.’
By EDWARD STRATTON
The Daily Astorian
B
each balls are fun for seals,
but apparently scary for sea
lions.
Visitors lined up Sunday along
the Port of Astoria’s East End Moor-
ing Basin causeway to watch the sea
lions on the docks below. Among
them moved Jim Knight, the Port’s
executive director, clutching a string
of twine attached to a small, multi-
colored beach ball, the latest and
possibly weirdest weapon used to
evict the stubborn pinnipeds.
Knight scaled the barriers set
up on P Dock, followed by Robert
Evert, his permit and project manag-
er, and Bill MacDonald, a Cannery
Lofts resident who had suggested the
beach balls.
“The idea is to just tie up some of
these cheap things along the docks,”
MacDonald explained, comparing
the practice to putting milk jugs on
fences to keep deer out.
Unlike seals, who like to play
with beach balls, MacDonald said he
discovered that sea lions are fright-
ened of the inÀatable toys.
Sea lions scattered Sunday at
the sight of the beach balls, wheth-
er tossed off the causeway or carried
out onto the docks by MacDonald
and Port staff.
“They’re only a buck apiece,”
Knight said. “So for $20, I can get a
couple docks covered.”
The Port has tried several meth-
ods to evict the sea lions, from the
brightly colored surveying tape and
pennants lining a couple of the docks
near the basin’s breakwater to lightly
electri¿ed mats being designed by
Smith-Root Fisheries Technology
and the chicken wire fencing erected
at the foot of P Dock.
JOSHUA BESSEX — The Daily Astorian
Jose Delgado, with the Port of
Astoria, strings beach balls along
the docks of the East End Mooring
Basin Tuesday. The Port of Astoria
is attempting to use the beach
balls as a sea lion deterrent.
— Jim Knight
Port of Astoria’s executive director
JOSHUA BESSEX — The Daily Astorian
A sea lion passes a trio of beach balls along the East End Mooring Basin.
Knight said the 3-foot ¿berglass
whale, used as an advertisement and
parade gimmick by Island Mariner,
which runs whale-watching trips out
of Bellingham, Wash., will arrive
around June 12, the weekend after
the “The Goonies” 30th anniversary
extravaganza.
In the meantime, Island Mariner
owner Terry Buzzard is making the
whale remote-controlled.
“It accidentally was used in Bell-
ingham,” Buzzard said of the whale’s
effectiveness. “We were playing
with it, and it seemed to scare the sea
lions away. They left, but we don’t
have any reason why. That’s why I
told Jim, ‘I’m not making any prom-
ises.’”
Mixed welcome
JOSHUA BESSEX — The Daily Astorian
Jose Delgado, left, and Robert Evert, right, with the Port of Astoria,
string beach balls along the docks of the East End Mooring Basin
to deter sea lions.
By Tuesday evening, beach balls
bobbed in the moorages up and down
the ¿nger piers of P Dock, almost en-
tirely emptied of sea lions except for
one or two stragglers.
Willy coming after Goonies
If beach balls are not a quirky
enough sea lion deterrent, a fake, ¿-
berglass orca will soon join the party
at the basin.
Sea lions at the basin continue
drawing visitors, despite creative at-
tempts by the Port to remove them
from the docks and possible retalia-
tion by people not so enamored with
the ¿sh-eating pinnipeds. The sea lion
population has boomed since their
protection under the Marine Mammal
Protection Act started in 1972.
See SEA LIONS, Page 10A
Hybrid and pickup owners drive the
same highways andbyways, but they
don’t pay equally for repair and main-
tenance of Oregon’s roads.
When you compare a 2014 Toy-
ota Prius and a 2014 Ford F-150 over
12,962 miles — the average driven
by an Oregon driver each year — the
F-150 pays $216.03 in Oregon fuel tax
to the Prius’ $77.77.
Rising fuel ef¿ciency means fewer
dollars for road work. Fourteen years
ago, Oregon’s Department of Transpor-
tation started looking for another way to
fund road repairs.
“We have to modernize our funding
model just as we’ve modernized our
modes of transportation,” said Oregon
Department of Transportation spokes-
woman Michelle Godfrey.
OReGO, a pay-per-mile program,
is being road tested to possibly replace
the fuel tax. Up to 5,000 volunteers will
transmit mileage and fuel data from
See OReGO, Page 7A
Bee¿ng
up IT
State techies want
$16.9 million to
boost cybersecurity
By HILLARY BORRUD
Capital Bureau
SALEM — Oregon’s adminis-
trative agency wants lawmakers to
spend roughly $16.9 million over the
next two years to upgrade computer
systems and hire 24 new information
technology employees.
Of¿cials at the Department of
Administrative Services want to im-
prove management of major IT proj-
ects and state cybersecurity, after sev-
eral high-pro¿le project failures and
data breaches.
Gov. Kate Brown announced ear-
lier this year that hackers accessed
metadata about the movement of in-
formation across the state computer
network, and attackers also broke into
databases at the Secretary of State’s
Of¿ce and the Oregon Employment
Department in 2014.
The Department of Administrative
Services, where the state data center
and chief information of¿ce are locat-
ed, presented two separate requests
See CYBERSECURITY, Page 7A
LNG protest draws hundreds to Capitol
By TRACY LOEW
The Statesman Journal
SALEM — Hundreds of
people rallied at the Oregon
Capitol Tuesday, calling on
Gov. Kate Brown to block
two proposed liTue¿ed natu-
ral gas, or LNG, export termi-
nals in the state.
“This is an assault not just
on the environment, but an as-
sault on democracy,” speaker
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told the
crowd. “It just is a bad deal all
around.”
Kennedy is president of
the Waterkeeper Alliance,
a national coalition of local
groups advocating for clean
water.
American company Ore-
gon LNG is trying to build an
LNG terminal in Warrenton,
on the North Coast near where
the Columbia River enters the
3aci¿c. A new pipeline would
connect the terminal with one
in Woodland, Wash.
Meanwhile,
Canadian
company Veresen Inc. wants
to build an export terminal in
Coos Bay, on Oregon’s south
coast. The Jordan Cove En-
ergy Project would receive
natural gas through a new,
232-mile-long pipeline.
Opponents say that 157
miles of the Coos Bay pipe-
line would cross private
property, affecting about 700
landowners whose property
could be taken by eminent
domain.
It also would cross 400
bodies of water, many con-
taining threatened or endan-
gered species.
Kennedy said LNG ex-
ports also will raise natural
gas prices in the U.S. and will
encourage more jobs to move
overseas.
And the Jordan Cove facil-
ity would become the state’s
largest source of carbon pollu-
tion after the Boardman coal
plant shuts down in 2020, he
said. The hydraulic fracturing,
or “fracking,” used to extract
the gas also raises environ-
mental concerns.
“Leave the natural gas in
the ground so that we and the
planet can survive,” former
Secretary of State Bill Brad-
bury told the crowd to cheers.
See PROTEST, Page 7A
Photo courtesy of Mary Ekorn-Jackson
Hundreds gathered Tuesday at the Oregon Capitol to
protest two proposed liquefied natural gas export termi-
nals in Warrenton and Coos Bay. A local contingent was
among the protesters.