144TH YEAR, NO. 26
WEEKEND EDITION // FRIDAY, AUGUST 5, 2016
ONE DOLLAR
COUNTRY MUSIC HITS THE
CLATSOP COUNTY FAIR
PAGE 3A
COAST RIVER BUSINESS
JOURNAL • INSIDE
Cancer
SPECIALTY CROPS
center
ARE SPECIAL GUESTS
gets
off the
ground
Patients can get
treatment locally
through partnership
By EDWARD STRATTON
The Daily Astorian
Danny Miller/The Daily Astorian
Volunteer server and Oregon Health & Science University graduate student Makena Whitaker, right, serves an appetizer to a table
of dinner attendees during the Crop-Up Dinner Series on Thursday at Oregon State University Seafood Lab in Astoria.
OSU crop-up dinner
showcases local grub
By EDWARD STRATTON
The Daily Astorian
or farmers like Anne and Lau-
rel Berblinger, much of the
challenge is getting Oregon’s
specialty crops into the hands of
consumers. The family grows about
300 varieties of vegetables, fruits
and herbs at Gales Meadow Farm in
Gales Creek near Tillamook .
“Once they try it, they like it,”
Anne Berblinger said, adding her
farm is starting an on-site tasting
event to initiate potential customers.
The Berblingers and other local
farmers got some help Thursday,
when Oregon State University and
the state Department of Agriculture
held a “crop-up” farmers market and
dinner at the university’s Seafood Lab
in Astoria, part of an effort to promote
Oregon’s bounty.
The “USDA is trying to get more
of these specialty crops out into the
public,” said Julia Turner, an interna-
tional trade manager with the Depart-
ment of Agriculture.
Turner said Oregon ranks fi fth in
specialty crop production, includ-
ing vegetables, fruits, tree nuts and
F
nursery crops. Along with Oregon
State, her department received a s pe-
cialty c rop b lock g rant from the U.S.
Department of Agriculture, which
they used to fund the crop-up din-
ners and markets for the next two
summers. The grant will also fund a
showcase of Oregon’s specialty crops
to foreign food writers at Feast, a culi-
nary event in Portland.
See CANCER CENTER, Page 8A
Danny Miller/The Daily Astorian
Food is prepared during the Crop Up Dinner Series on
Thursday at Oregon State University Seafood Lab in
Astoria.
Farm to fork
Diners at the event Thursday
feasted on an eight-course dinner
overseen by Jason Ball, a research
chef with the university, and Exec-
utive Chef Jeff Graham from Fort
George Brewery.
“The idea was that we work with
farms as local as possible, and we do
all the cooking,” Ball said, adding the
two chefs fi rst fi gured out what they
were getting, then designed the menu.
The dinner Thursday included
produce from several of the farms at
the pop-up market earlier, along with
local seafood. Dishes ranged from
confi t beet salad and raw sablefi sh
crudo to smoked salmon served with
See DINNER, Page 8A
Danny Miller/The Daily Astorian
Jason Ball, Oregon State University research chef,
works to prepare meals for the Crop Up Dinner Series
on Thursday at Oregon State University Seafood Lab .
By PARIS ACHEN
Capital Bureau
vital bed near the mouth of Cedar
River, racing to move them before
they smother and die in loose muck
churned up by the prolifi c shrimp.
See SHRIMP, Page 8A
See TAX PLAN, Page 8A
Willapa By growers
await permit to fi ght
for fi scal survival
By MATT WINTERS
EO Media Group
Damian Mulinix/For EO Media Group
Goose Point Farm Manager Francisco Meliton sinks to his knees in
a swath of tideland infested with burrowing shrimp near Tokeland.
ing shrimp for moles, and you have
some idea of the anxiety gripping
local oyster growers.
Last week, prominent Willapa
oysterman Dave Nisbet’s crew hur-
ried to evacuate oysters from a
Brown
endorses
Oregon
corporate
tax plan
SALEM — Gov. Kate Brown has
announced she is endorsing a controversial
corporate sales tax measure on November’s
ballot .
Initiative Petition 28, on track to be called
Measure 97 on the ballot, levies a 2.5 percent
tax on certain corpora-
tions’ Oregon gross
receipts exceeding $25
million.
“I have spent my
career fi ghting to
make Oregon a place
where everyone can
thrive, Brown said in
a statement Thursday.
“I support Measure
97 because there is a
Gov.
basic unfairness in our
Kate Brown
tax system that makes
working families pay an increasing share
for state and local services, including public
schools, senior services, and health care. By
some measures, Oregon is among the lowest
in corporate taxes, and Oregon ians expect
everyone to pay their fair share.”
Inedible shrimp take over key oyster bed
WILLAPA BAY, Wash. —
Imagine your once-profi table farm
is now covered with tens of thou-
sands of mole burrows, a desert of
holes and naked dirt. Now imag-
ine needing a government permit
to control this population explo-
sion — a permit issued and then
withdrawn last year, and now
once again creeping through the
bureaucracy.
Transfer this scenario to Wil-
lapa Bay and substitute burrow-
Gathering with partners, Columbia
Memorial Hospital offi cially broke ground
Thursday on the Knight Cancer Collabora-
tive, the hospital’s partnership with Oregon
Health & Science University to bring com-
prehensive cancer treatment to the North
Coast.
The 19,000 -square -foot cancer center,
built on the former John Warren Field, will
offer radiation therapy and imaging services,
saving many local cancer patients trips to
Longview, Washington, and the Portland
metro area for treatment.
In 2010, Columbia Memorial CEO Erik
Thorsen said, OHSU had no presence in
Clatsop County, and Columbia Memo-
rial and Dr. Sangkun “Sonny” Park’s offi ce
across Exchange Street were often compet-
ing rather than working with one another.
Thorsen credits former Mayor Willis Van
Dusen for creating the energy to put aside
differences and partner, a requirement of get-
ting the help of OHSU.
When he was thinking of establishing
a cancer center, Park said, he went around