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.
See MANAGER, Page 8A
July 2-3
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