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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 27, 2016)
ONE DEAD IN STANDOFF ARRESTS PAGE 3A SEASIDE TUMBLES; LADY FISH FLY SPORTS • 7A 143rd YEAR, No. 145 WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 27, 2016 ONE DOLLAR Oregon LNG may seek state permits again Department of State Lands hears concerns from energy company’s foes By ERICK BENGEL The Daily Astorian Within the next few weeks, Oregon LNG may submit new permit applications to the Department of State Lands to build a liTue¿ ed natural gas terminal and pipeline on Warrenton’s Skipanon Peninsula, Bill Ryan, the department’s assistant director, said Tuesday evening at a public meeting in Astoria. The update came during the department’s informal 4andA style outreach event held at the Judge Guy Boyington Building, where dozens of Oregon LNG’s opponents — most wearing red shirts and other antiLNG symbols — gathered before Ryan, Chris Castelli, a senior policy adviser, and Sabrina Owings, the department’s administrative rules coordinator. The main purpose of the meeting was to follow up on a public hearing the department held a month ago regarding the rulemaking surrounding historically ¿ lled lands, waterway leasing, navigational access maintenance dredging and ocean renewable energy. But the perennial matter of Oregon LNG’s ongoing efforts to erect an LNG facility on the North Coast — and how the Department of State Lands intersects with the process — dominated the discussion. The energy company originally submitted state land use applica tions for the terminal and pipeline in 2013 that were deemed incomplete. The department found fault with the company’s plans for mitigating the See LNG, Page 10A PUTTING PIER 2 TO THE TEST Crabbers boiling over pay Centuryold Port pilings get thorough state examination Jessie’s Ilwaco Fish fails to make full payments Joshua Bessex/The Daily Astorian Crabbing boats unload on the west side of Pier 2 Tuesday. The Port of Astoria is asking the state for just over $1.5 million to overhaul Pier 2’s western dock and replace 35,000 square feet of failing dock. By EDWARD STRATTON The Daily Astorian G ene Leon and Erick Cain, part of a bridge inspection team with the Oregon Department of Trans portation, bobbed up and down Tuesday on the incoming tide in a dingy below the western edge of the Port of Astoria’s Pier 2. The two men slowly followed their colleagues in the cavernous underside of the pier, marked by the glow of their LED headlamps and the cracks of their hammers banging on each of the thousands of pilings . The Port, which makes the majority of its money on century old piers, signed up for a state bridge inspection last summer to help understand the maintenance needs of Pier 2, built in 1915. The bridge inspection crew returned this week and are slowly making their way around the entire pier as high and low tides allow. See PIER 2, Page 10A Photos by Joshua Bessex/The Daily Astorian ABOVE: Erick Cain, front, and Gene Leon, both with the state Department of Transportation bridge inspection team, check beams for rot and breaks underneath Pier 2 Tuesday. BELOW: Erick Cain, right, and Gene Leon, both with the Oregon Department of Transportation bridge inspection team, paddle in a small boat while checking beams for rot and breaks underneath Pier 2 on Tuesday. By CYNTHIA WASHICKO EO Media Group ILWACO, Wash. — Crab ¿ shermen selling their catch to Jessie’s Ilwaco Fish Co . say they have been given only a portion of the money owed to them for the second year in a row — leaving some more than a $100,000 short. Now a number of ¿ shermen are reportedly leaving Jessie’s to sell their catch elsewhere. The reason for the stall in payment has been an issue with the line of credit coming to Jessie’s owner Don Alber, according to ¿ shermen who had been in contact with Alber. Alber has not responded to multiple attempts to reach him by phone. Alber runs San Franciscobased Alber Seafoods, and bought Jessie’s Ilwaco Fish Company in late 2013. Some locals faced the same issue with Jessie’s last season, when the company initially paid a fraction of what it owed ¿ shermen before paying the full amount weeks later. Even after the payment problems last season, Al Malchow, who has been selling to Jessie’s for six years, said he decided to sell to the company again because he assumed the backlash against the processing company last season would keep Jessie’s on time for payments. “I honestly thought they would never do that again,” Malchow said. “They lost a few boats and people weren’t happy, I ¿ gured they would get a clue.” Malchow said the ¿ shing company owes him about $127,000. As of Thursday, he received only $35,000 or about 27.5 percent of the total bill. Brian Cutting got a call on his boat letting him know that he wouldn’t be seeing the full amount Jessie’s owed him, said his wife, Kim. The couple received about 25 percent of the more than $100,000 the processing company owed them Cutting is one of multiple ¿ shermen taking their business elsewhere. The couple’s three boats — including a brand new one launched in 2015 — were scheduled to go crabbing last week, and Cutting said they would take their catch to Ilwaco Landing, a crab buyer that competes with Jessie’s. See JESSIE’S, Page 5A Ilwaco cemetery slides: Graves all accounted for Repairs could be expensive By NATALIE ST. JOHN EO Media Group ILWACO, Wash. — On Monday morning, funeral home owner Ron Hylton shook his head as he stared down into the enormous hole where the “Fourth Addition” section of the Ilwaco Cemetery used to be. A few inches from his feet, the ragged edge of the cemetery lawn slumped over the edge of a sheer dropoff. Yards below, a headstone rested in a ¿ eld of mud that was the color and consistency of butterscotch pudding. “We can’t leave this. We’re gonna have to ¿ x it somehow,” said Hylton, who is one of the ¿ ve members of the allvol unteer board that manages the cemetery. Hylton said he and the other cemetery caretakers are actively working to address the damage caused by a landslide Thursday. However, he cautioned that ¿ xing the cemetery could be a slow, complicated and expensive project. “Everyone is accounted for.” “What did we have? Six inches of rain in two days? It just went down,” Hylton observed as he surveyed the pile of mud and rubble. About a year ago, caretakers noticed that the ground on this section of the cemetery had started to sag, but they did not realize the change was a sign of serious trouble. “We’re not geologists. I don’t think anybody could have ever imagined something like this,” Hylton said. “Did we have an inkling that this was gonna happen? No.” As recordsetting amounts of rain fell on Thursday, , the saturated clay soil along the southern edge of the Ilwaco Cemetery suddenly See CEMETERY, Page 5A Natalie St. John/EO Media Group Record-setting rains on Thursday caused a landslide at the Ilwaco Cemetery. Though the damage looks dramatic, the slide only uprooted one casket.
