10A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • WEDNESDAY, JUNE 17, 2015
Salmon: New policy necessary to restore depleted runs
Continued from Page 1A
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reduce hatchery production of
Under the interim policy,
Chinook salmon at the three
gillnetters were given a mor-
hatcheries in the Willapa Bay
tality rate of 14 percent for
watershed by 36 percent to
naturally spawning Chinook,
curtail interference with natu-
meaning they could only hit
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grounds. By 2018, the bulk of
during the course of regular
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fore the policy took effect will
age was reached, commercial
have returned.
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In the past, they had been al-
processors argue that there are
lowed impacts of up to 40
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percent.
Of the thousands of hatchery
Instead, the new policy
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will allow 20 percent a year
there each year, some stray
through 2018, stepping down
and spawn on their own.
to 14 percent thereafter.
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Commission member Mi-
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randa Wecker had pushed for
hatchery-origin and are indis-
a 14 percent rate to be imple-
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mented beginning this year
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— a move that led gillnetters
but that doesn’t make them
and local seafood processors
“wild.”
KATIE WILSON — EO Media Group
to protest outside of a con-
“They may be deriva-
ference last month in Long A normally staid science conference in north Long Beach, Wash. was the scene of tives of hatchery products
Beach where she was sched- picketing last month to protest proposed cuts in Willapa Bay salmon gillnetting. Pacific from the past, but there are
uled to give a talk about her County commercial fishermen are angry at the prospect of losing more fishing opportu- ZLOGVSDZQLQJ¿VKLQWKHED\
nity in light of recent steps by Washington and Oregon to move them off the Columbia that contribute to the overall
time on the commission.
Fishermen said that imme- River’s mainstem.
run of the bay,” said Steve
diate 14 percent would be a
Thiesfeld, WDFW’s Region
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means less product coming vation groups that sued the gered Species Act listing is a ¿VK SURJUDP PDQDJHU ZKR
The 20 percent they’ll now across the dock and less need GHSDUWPHQW LQ WKH ¿UVW SODFH very real possibility if the de- led the development of the
receive through 2018 isn’t to hire as many people during to force it to develop a per- partment continues to fail to new policy and the various
much better, though, said the summer, he said.
manent salmon management meet its conservation goals. options presented to the com-
Dean Antich, general manag-
“In the big picture, we’re policy in Willapa Bay say the An ESA-listed salmon in the mission.
er of South Bend Products, a in the slow wind-down as op- new policy is necessary to re- bay could have a huge im-
NOAA has listed highly
salmon-processing facility in posed to the fast wind-down.” store depleted runs of wild, SDFWRQWKHVKHOO¿VKLQGXVWU\ domesticated hatchery stocks
South Bend. The policy pro-
But, he added, it’s still a natural-origin Chinook.
Wecker said in May.
before, he said.
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Wecker and others with
Under the new policy, in
From his perspective,
time in some areas, which
WDFW and the conser- WDFW have said an Endan- addition to limiting commer- there is no way to know what
NOAA, the federal agency
that typically manages marine
ESA species, would decide.
“But we know we’re not
in a better place in terms of
the health of those stocks,” he
said. “In fact, we’re in a worse
place.”
“Roll the dice and take
your chances? That’s not
where we want to be,” Thies-
feld added. “We’d rather be
proactive, that’s what I heard
the commission say, try to
head it off before they even
have to ask the question.”
WDFW will also look
at introducing new types of
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the bay. As has been the case
on the Columbia River, this
could mean looking at other
styles of gear such as beach
and purse seines that may
have been used in the past.
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that improves survival rates
for natural-origin salmon and
steelhead, Theisfeld said.
On the Columbia Riv-
er, following the passage of
Measure 81 by former Or-
egon Gov. John Kitzhaber,
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and Washington have tested
seines on the river’s main-
stem for several years. The
resulting mortality numbers,
however, have remained high,
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WDFW and the Oregon De-
partment of Fish and Wildlife.
Food carts: ‘My greatest hope is that this becomes a destination point’
this becomes a destination
point,” Executive Director Jim
patch to the north of it. Mc- Knight said, adding one food
Grath added that the grassy cart could lead to others.
patch would require a zoning
He said the Port needs to
change.
look at issues of parking and
Estrada attended the meet- the potential impact on adja-
ing and handed out samples of cent restaurants. Estrada said
her clam chowder to commis- she will not be serving coffee
sioners and the audience. She like Journey’s End Espresso
explained her hope to serve and is a totally different con-
passengers from the Astoria cept than the Bridgewater Bis-
Riverfront Trolley and cruise tro.
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Commissioner
Stephen
other visitors to the waterfront. Fulton said he has seen 25 food
The boat is self-contained carts in a pod in Portland, add-
and requires no utilities, Estra- ing the Port needs to look at a
da said, and is kept on a trail- long-term plan for the siting of
er so she can take it to other such mobile food venues.
events. She seeks a month-to-
Permit and Project Manager
month lease to try the concept. Robert Evert reported on Rip-
“My greatest hope is that ley’s effort to start a food cart
Continued from Page 1A
Daily Astorian file
Teresa Estrada stands next to a 28-foot-long gillnetter she
is converting to a food cart for selling chowder.
serving aviators, U.S. Coast
Guardsmen and employees of
Lektro and other companies at
the Astoria Regional Airport.
But Warrenton’s zoning
does not allow for any mobile
food carts on industrial land,
he said, so the Port is speak-
ing with the city of Warrenton
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the city is growing and inter-
preting their ordinances more
strictly, adding Life Flight’s
temporary headquarters is a
nonconforming use only al-
lowed for a year.
Ripley’s position, Evert
said, is that his operation is no
different from the cafe former-
ly located in the Port’s airport
terminal building. Commis-
sioner John Raichl added there
used to be a food cart serving
burgers at the airport more
than a decade ago.
In other news:
• The Port Commission
adopted a 2015-16 budget of
$16,189,603. It includes approx-
imately $6.3 million for capital
outlays, including a $5 million,
state and federally funded airport
overlay project; $4.4 million for
materials and services; $2.9 mil-
lion for personnel services; and
$1.5 million for debt service. It
also approved of taxing property
in Clatsop county at 12.56 cents
per $1,000 of assessed value and
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Bank as the Port’s depository.
• Knight said a member of
the Port’s ad hoc Pier 3 boat-
yard committee will report
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mission’s July 21 meeting. The
committee has been discussing
changes to the hours, fees, op-
erations and possibly the long-
term location of the boatyard.
Indictments: County could get more
than $300,000 from grant program
Continued from Page 1A
in 2013. The grant program
takes savings from prison
costs and gives the money
back to each county for other
uses such as drug treatment,
transitional leave and work
release.
“The theory is, let’s send
the money that would other-
wise be used to lock people
up, and let’s give (the mon-
ey) back to the counties so
each county can best decide
how to spend it,” Marquis
said.
The funding for the
grant program is expected
to be between $25 million
and $40 million statewide,
depending on what is ap-
proved by the Legislature
this session.
The money is split up
based on how many felons
are on probation in each
county. Based on the fig-
ures, Clatsop County could
receive more than $300,000
over two years.
Marquis suggests the
available money go toward
the Sheriff’s Office Commu-
nity Corrections (Probation)
Division. The county has not
yet decided who will receive
the funding.
Considering all the state
data, Marquis wants residents
to realize the county is not
crawling with criminals and the
vast majority of locals and vis-
itors are not breaking any laws.
The data helps with track-
ing and forecasting trends
around the state.
“The one takeaway from
this is there is an actual mea-
surable way to look at what
is the profile of Clatsop
County compared to other
similar counties in Oregon,”
Marquis said.
Farmers: Growers are ‘in a state of shock’
Continued from Page 1A
defended the spraying and
acknowledged breaking ranks
would affect other growers,
but stated it was respecting
consumer wishes.
“Our priority is to main-
tain our longstanding re-
lationship with these cus-
tomers,” according to a
company statement.
Two days later, the Wil-
lapa-Grays Harbor Oyster
Growers Association told
DOE it was giving up the
permit. “We felt at the time,
it was the best decision we
could make. Things were
just spiraling out of con-
trol,” Sheldon said. “We felt
like we had to take a hit and
step back.”
Since then, the associa-
tion has hired a public rela-
tions firm to help it respond
to criticism.
“What really got us was
the social media,” said Wil-
lapa Bay shellfish grower
Ken Wiegardt, a fifth-gener-
ation farmer.
Sheldon said growers are
“in a state of shock” over the
events. He said he had actu-
ally hoped growers would be
perceived as being respon-
sive to environmental con-
cerns by using imidacloprid.
Imidacloprid was to re-
place carbaryl, an older in-
secticide, the use of which
has resulted in lawsuits and
increasing regulations and
that the Willapa Bay and
Grays Harbor shellfish in-
dustry agreed to phase out
more than a decade ago.
Imidacloprid is widely
used on land crops. The U.S.
Environmental Protection
Agency and Washington
State Department of Agri-
culture approved using it
specifically in the bay and
harbor.
Shellfish growers were to
apply 1/16th as much imida-
cloprid per acre as they did
carbaryl, which was used
between 1963 and 2013.
Imidacloprid wasn’t go-
ing to be as lethal to burrow-
ing shrimp, but growers said
they would be more precise
about when and where they
sprayed.
The U.S. Fish and Wild-
life Service and National
Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration recommend-
ed DOE deny the permit, ar-
guing that field trials in the
bay had not yet conclusively
determined that imidaclo-
prid would not be detrimen-
tal.
Nevertheless, DOE con-
cluded there would be no
significant
unavoidable
adverse impacts, includ-
ing to bees that pollinate
the peninsula’s cranberry
bogs, among other plants.
As a condition to issuing
the permit, DOE demanded
monitoring of the pesticide’s
effects.
With no current permit to
spray for burrowing shrimp,
it’s unclear what’s next for
shellfish growers.
Washington State Uni-
versity research scientist
Kim Patten has spent more
than a decade studying how
to control burrowing shrimp
and hasn’t found a practical
alternative to pesticides.
Going back to carbaryl
isn’t an option. The EPA
no longer registers it as an
aquatic pesticide, and DOE
has closed off any chance
growers could revive their
old permit to use it, DOE
spokesman Chase Gallagh-
er said.
Growers will miss at
least one year of spraying,
but they can’t let the matter
drop for long, Sheldon said.
“This is not an abandon-
ment of this (spraying) pro-
gram,” he said. “We’re go-
ing to try to do a better job
of getting the truth out.”
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