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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (June 24, 2016)
143RD YEAR, NO. 252 ONE DOLLAR WEEKEND EDITION // FRIDAY, JUNE 24, 2016 PROPERTY LINES INSIDE Tourist No. 2 is on its way home soon Homecoming a yearlong effort for The Astoria Ferry nonprofi t By ERICK BENGEL The Daily Astorian The long-awaited return of Astoria’s last living ferry, the Tourist No. 2, is within reach. Board members of The Astoria Ferry, a nonprofi t working to bring the ferry home from Washington state, recently gave the ferry’s owner, Capt. Christian Lint, a $15,015 deposit. The board plans to purchase the ferry on contract. Lint skippered the ferry from Bremer- ton to Northlake Shipyard in Seattle to Tourist No 2. was docked in Bremerton, Wash., but may be on its way back to Astoria soon. get it pressure-washed below the water- line and undergo minor repairs. “The transit was fabulous, and all the operations — all generators, everything on the boat — functioned very good,” he said. Submitted Photo via Facebook See FERRY, Page 3A THE OL’ BUOY AND CHAIN Hazed birds fl ock to bridge Cormorants leave East Sand Island nests after Corps’ culling campaign By KATIE FRANKOWICZ For The Daily Astorian Photos by Danny Miller/The Daily Astorian Emergency crews work to untangle a buoy cable tangled in the propeller of the Maltese-flagged bulk carrier Clymene on Thursday in the Columbia River. Crews freed the propeller from the buoy around 8 p.m. Thursday. Bulk carrier’s anchor snagged a buoy Thursday The Daily Astorian T he Clymene’s propeller has been freed from a buoy on the Columbia River. The Maltese-fl agged bulk carrier got its propeller tangled in the mooring cable of a navigational buoy Thurs- day afternoon while dragging anchor. The ship’s owners contracted with a dive company, which freed the vessel from the buoy chain by 8 p.m. Thursday. Petty Offi cer 3rd Class Jonathan Klingenberg from the U.S. Coast Guard said the Clymene will dock in Astoria for assessment by a private marine inspections’ company. He said there has been no pollution or blockage of the Colum- bia shipping channel. The Astoria Bridge is experienc- ing a housing boom. As many as 11,000 cormo- rants are roosting there at night, and observers have counted around 600 nests there within the p ast few weeks. L ast year, there were only 400. This surge in the bridge’s cormo- rant population comes a month after roughly 17,000 double-crested cor- morants, for reasons still unknown, abandoned their nests and eggs on East Sand Island, located at the mouth of the Columbia River near Chinook, Washington. “The bottom line is we believe most of the cormorants have remained in the estuary and the increased number of nests on the Astoria-Megler Bridge seems to indicate that,” said Diana Fred- lund, a spokes woman for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which manages East Sand Island and the massive cormorant colony that used to nest there seasonally. “But our observers are in the process of counting all the birds and nests in the estuary right now,” Fredlund added. “They can’t say definitively that they are from East Sand Island, but it seems likely.” See BIRDS, Page 8A Critics of dam removal target city manager Claim he should have disclosed engineering assessment By DERRICK DePLEDGE The Daily Astorian WARRENTON — Critics of a plan to remove the Eighth Street Dam have targeted City Manager Kurt Fritsch, claiming he should have disclosed engi- neering reviews that described potential fl ooding risks. The Skipanon Water Control District, which owns the dam, has sought to remove the out- dated structure on the Skipanon River as unsafe and ineffective at fl ood control. An engineer- ing plan adopted by the water district concludes that remov- ing the dam will improve fi sh passage and water quality and will not increase fl ood risk. A technical review prepared by a city consultant, however, ques- tioned whether the water dis- trict’s engineering fi rm properly defi ned the fl ood plain, and crit- ics believe Fritsch should have informed the City Commission. One approach circulating privately, according to sources familiar with the discussions, is for the City Commission to place Fritsch on administrative leave pending an independent investigation. Commission- ers have discussed evaluat- Alex Pajunas/The Daily Astorian Warrenton City Manager Kurt Fritsch has been targeted by critics who oppose removing the Eighth Street Dam. ing Fritsch’s job performance, possibly as soon as a meeting Tuesday. The city manager has requested that any evaluation be conducted in public. The City Commission com- pleted an evaluation of Fritsch earlier this year and gave him a raise, but, behind the scenes, sources say opponents of removing the Eighth Street Dam have been reaching out to commissioners with serious concerns about his conduct on the issue. Mayor Mark Kujala could not be reached for comment about Fritsch’s performance. Fritsch believes he has done nothing wrong. “No, I did not withhold information, because it wasn’t information for the City Commission,” he said, explaining that land use issues fi rst go before the Planning Commission. 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