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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, AUGUST 5, 2016
Dinner: Event will return next year
Continued from Page 1A
local potatoes and sour cream
and barbecue carrots. Ball said
part of the purpose was to vary
preparation,
incorporating
baked, smoked, grilled, pick-
led and conit dishes. For des-
sert was a mixed berry custard
cup with hazelnuts — Oregon
leads the production of these
nuts — along with marionber-
ries, boysenberries and black
raspberries.
Get cooking
Graphic courtesy of Columbia Memorial Hospital
Patients at the Knight Cancer Collaborative will receive
infusion chemotherapy on the second floor, with views
of the Columbia River.
Cancer center:
Construction is
estimated to cost
$16.5 million
Continued from Page 1A
to centers in the region.
“Nobody took any consid-
eration of building a cancer
center here” in Astoria, he
said, until Mark O’Halloran,
director of clinical outreach
at OHSU, offered to come
out.
“It’s hard to believe that
in 2010 we started with a
two-day (-a-week) clinic,”
Thorsen said, about the hospi-
tal’s partnership with OHSU,
that serves an estimated 300
patients per month.
John Warren Field had
been coveted by the hospital
for decades, he said, but the
stars aligned in the last several
years.
The hospital paid for the
construction of the Astoria
Sports Complex and CMH
Field. In exchange, the Astoria
School District vacated John
Warren Field. The sports com-
plex also helped the city of
Astoria cap and decommission
a long-unused landill with a
multisport turf ield.
Timing is everything
World events also aligned
to provide historically low
interest rates that saved the
hospital an estimated $1.8 mil-
lion over the 30-year life of the
$18.8 million worth of bonds
to inance the cancer center
and a renovation of the emer-
gency department.
The hospital sold the
bonds to investors June 22,
one day before the British
voted to leave the European
Union and a day after Federal
Reserve Chairwoman Janet
Yellen gave a monetary policy
speech to Congress stressing a
slower recovery and a cautious
approach to changing mone-
tary policy.
When the hospital irst
started discussing the bond
in October, he said, the esti-
mated municipal market data
for 30-year bond was 3.04 per-
cent. By the time the hospi-
tal sold the bonds to investors
in June, the interest rate had
dipped to 2.19 percent, saving
the hospital millions.
Thorsen said the exact
effect of the Brexit vote is
uncertain, but certainly con-
tributed to the historically
low interest rates at the time
of the bond sale. He said the
hospital was also helped by
high investor demand for
tax-exempt revenue bonds,
issued by the Hospital Facil-
ities Authority of the city of
Astoria to help nonproits
get inancing. The hospital’s
bonds have different matur-
ities, with nearly $7.5 million
due in 25 years, $2.1 million
in 26 years and the inal $9.2
million in 30 years.
Of the total bonds, $13 mil-
lion will go toward the con-
struction of the cancer cen-
ter, estimated to cost $16.5
million. The hospital is also
looking at a $5 million to $7
million renovation of its emer-
gency department.
Along with the bonds, the
hospital has raised more than
$2 million of a $3 million
goal, with signiicant contri-
butions from a host of locally
prominent families, including
the Armingtons, Nygaards,
Rubidouxs, Teevins, Lums,
Pohlads, Leinassars, Van Dus-
ens, Parks, Phillips, Autios,
Henningsgaards,
Waisan-
ens, Hellbergs, Englunds,
Schnitzers, Allens, Johnsons,
Ficks and others.
Tax plan: ‘If passed, this tax
increase would greatly raise
the cost of living in Oregon’
Continued from Page 1A
The tax would pour an
estimated $3 billion a year
into state coffers but slow job
growth and bump up con-
sumer prices, according to
the nonpartisan Legislative
Revenue Ofice.
“Our state cannot move
forward and meet Oregon’s
growing needs over the next
decade without a stable rev-
enue base,” Brown said
Thursday. “Measure 97 is an
important step forward, and I
will make sure the funds the
measure yields go towards
schools, health care, and
seniors, as the voters expect.
“State leaders before me
have repeatedly tried and
failed to solve the problem
of adequate and stable fund-
ing for schools and other
state services. Every solution
has had strengths and weak-
nesses in terms of fairness
and economic impact. None
has succeeded in bringing the
business community, indi-
vidual and family taxpayers,
service providers, and advo-
cates together.”
Bud Pierce, Brown’s
Republican challenger in
November’s
governor’s
race, said he was disap-
pointed that Brown is sup-
porting what would be the
largest sales tax increase in
Oregon’s history.
“If passed, this tax
increase would greatly raise
the cost of living in Ore-
gon,” Pierce said in a state-
ment. “Everyone, including
low-income families would
be paying on average more
than $1,800 (sic) per family
more for goods and services.
A tax increase like this will
not help anyone. It will hurt
low-income families in Ore-
gon the most.”
The Legislative Revenue
Ofice estimated that the tax
would cause price increases
that would cost a family
earning median income more
than $600 more per year in
the form of increased prices
on daily needs, such as food,
fuel and electricity.
Brown said that state lead-
ers have repeatedly failed to
come up with another solu-
tion to Oregon’s unstable
funding system for schools
and other state services.
“Every solution has had
strengths and weaknesses in
terms of fairness and eco-
nomic impact,” she said.
Ginger Edwards, who
founded R-evolution Gardens
eight years ago in the Nehalem
Valley at the southern tip of Clat-
sop County, said the key to mar-
keting specialty crops is in show-
ing people how to use them.
“It’s just a few skills that
are missing” from previous
generations, she said. “We’ve
been really invested in getting
people back into the kitchen
and cooking again.”
Edwards gets most of her
business from farmers mar-
kets and community-sup-
ported agriculture, a farmer’s
Danny Miller/The Daily Astorian
Laurel Berblinger, center, sells garlic to a customer at the
Gales Meadow Farm stand at the Crop Up Dinner Series
on Thursday. More photos online at DailyAstorian.com
choice delivery of vegetables
to enrolled members weekly.
She also works with the Rine-
hart Clinic in Wheeler, provid-
ing low-income patients with
cooking skills and local pro-
duce. Along with running her
farm, Edwards is the execu-
tive director of North Fork 53,
a farm-to-table bed and break-
fast teaching people how to
cook, can and otherwise pre-
serve their produce to last
through the winter.
Fish in school
More than 300 specialty
crop producers this year have
reached Oregon’s students
through the state Depart-
ment of Agriculture’s Farm to
School program.
Chief among those was
Bornstein Seafoods, a proces-
sor based in Bellingham, Wash-
ington, with a plant in Astoria.
The company on Thursday won
the Oregon State Schools Pro-
ducer of the Year Award.
Christa Svensson, an export
and marketing manager at
Bornstein, said that when the
company’s efforts to get sea-
food into schools started, the
average amount spent per stu-
dent was $1 per lunch, about
one-ifth of it going to milk,
and with no state support. In
2011, the state passed a law
providing state money for
schools to buy food from Ore-
gon producers.
This past school year, Born-
stein Seafoods provided seafood
to six school districts, including
Seaside. Svensson said the com-
pany hopes to expand the pro-
gram to six more school districts
in the coming year.
Turner said the crop-up
market and dinner will return
next year, hopefully in con-
junction with the River Peo-
ple Farmers Market, which
offers local produce from 3 to
7 p.m. Thursdays at 12th and
Exchange streets.
Shrimp: Nisbet employs 95 Paciic County workers
Continued from Page 1A
“We’ve got a bed up there
at Cedar River, actually at this
time it’s our best fattening
bed,” said Nisbet, 65. “There’s
a lot of infestation all around
that bed in the Tokeland area
… So we’re abandoning.
We’re in the process of mov-
ing all the oysters off the bed.
It’s 80 acres, so it’s a big bed
and it’s going to be a big hit.”
Collectively known as bur-
rowing shrimp, the bay har-
bors two native species —
ghost shrimp and blue mud
shrimp. Although they’ve been
trying to expand their range for
decades, they are especially
proliic this year, thriving in
unusually warm 70-degree bay
water. The shrimp aren’t edible
by humans. In contrast, oys-
ters generate an annual total
of about $35 million for the
Paciic County economy.
Nisbet employs 95 Paciic
County workers, who are paid
$2.7 million a year. These
workers put 100 kids in schools
in the South Bend, Naselle and
Raymond districts. Loss of the
Cedar River bed will cost his
farm hundreds of thousands of
dollars this year alone, resulting
in Nisbet’s business shrinking.
Scene of the disaster
Traveling by boat across the
Bay Center Channel of Wil-
lapa Bay, headed north from
Nisbet’s Goose Point Oysters,
farm manager Francisco Meli-
ton pilots his skiff slowly. The
way can be tricky, especially
when the tide is out. The route
is shallow in parts and he lets
off the throttle. After a few min-
utes the boat speeds up again
and the houses that line the
sea wall in Tokeland come into
view as the boat approaches the
port. At its entry, located on top
of a navigational beacon, a pair
of gulls have made a nest with
babies inside. Meliton makes
bird calls as he approaches, the
adult birds chirping back.
As the boat pulls up to the
shore of an expansive oys-
ter bed, Goose Point biolo-
gist Brian Kingzett warns that
when walking on the tidal lats
it’s best not to plant your heels
when you walk, in order to
avoid having your leg swal-
lowed by the mud in the areas
infested by burrowing shrimp.
The mud on the eastern side
still has a fair amount of eel-
grass, which creates a support
system of roots under the sur-
face that allows oysters to sit
above the mud during high
tide. However, the western
portion of this particular plot
looks more like the surface of
the moon, porous and devoid
of eelgrass, leaving oysters to
sink in to the mud and die.
Meliton has to make his
rounds, inspecting the stock
throughout this bed. As he
ventures into the shrimp-in-
fested area he goes from slid-
ing his feet along the surface
to sinking up to his knees, as if
he were caught in quick sand.
Meliton comes back with a
handful of seven or eight
shrimp, with their oversized,
mutant-looking claws sticking
out in front of their tiny bodies.
You wouldn’t think that
something so small could do
so much damage. But look-
Damian Mulinix/For EO Media Group
Burrowing shrimp continue to plague the oyster beds of
Willapa Bay, as each hole that riddles the quick sand-like
ground represents at least one of the creatures.
ing at the land where he found
them — riddled with thou-
sands of holes, no eelgrass or
living oysters to be seen — it
is very obvious that these tiny
menaces are continuing to
gain a claw-hold on the oyster
mecca that is Willapa Bay.
How we got here
Last year, oyster and clam
growers in Willapa Bay and
Grays Harbor planned to spray
up to 2,000 acres of tidelands
with imidacloprid, a neon-
icotinoid pesticide, to con-
trol the shrimp. The Washing-
ton Department of Ecology
issued a permit April 16, 2015,
but Puget Sound-based Tay-
lor Shellish Farms said May 1
it would not spray its Willapa
Bay beds following a negative
reaction to spraying, largely
generated by Seattle Times
columnist Danny Westneat.
Two days later, the Wil-
lapa-Grays Harbor Oyster
Growers Association told DOE
it was suspending the permit.
Later, growers learned DOE
considered the action to be an
outright surrender and cancel-
lation of the permit, meaning
the process had to start from
scratch this year, with a goal
of obtaining a new permit for
shrimp control in 2017.
The alternative oyster
growers eventually proposed is
Imidacloprid. It is widely used
on land crops, including Wash-
ington hops. The U.S. Envi-
ronmental Protection Agency
and Washington State Depart-
ment of Agriculture approved
using it speciically in the bay
and harbor, even though it is
controversial in other settings,
being sometimes blamed for
honeybee die-offs.
“The sad thing about this
is that I don’t think the public
really understands that it was
designed for aquatic use and is
so benign that a good applica-
tion doesn’t even kill them, it
just puts them to sleep,” Nis-
bet said regarding Imidacloprid.
After the shrimp are anesthe-
tized, they stop iltering the sur-
rounding sediment. Tidal action
collapses their burrows on them
and the chemical disappears.
Going back to carbaryl isn’t
an option. The EPA no longer
registers it as an aquatic pesti-
cide, and DOE has closed off
any chance growers could revive
their permit, DOE spokesman
Chase Gallagher said.
A shrinking farm
Fattening beds like those off
Cedar River are in short sup-
ply around Willapa Bay. Usu-
ally in places with lots of ocean
tidal inluence and other spe-
cial characteristics, they bathe
oysters in nutrients, allowing
them to plump up and become
delicious.
It has now been at least
three years since there was
any type of shrimp control on
Nisbet’s Cedar River fattening
bed, and shrimp are popping up
everywhere like dandelions in
a neglected yard.
The oysters are being
moved to less nutritious beds
Nisbet owns elsewhere in the
bay. (Washington is somewhat
unique in conferring private
ownership rights on tidelands
that are periodically underwater.)
Unless DOE re-grants the
permit for Imidacloprid so it
can be applied with hand-held
spray wands in time for next
year, “Those 80 acres will be
a dead loss, there’s nothing we
can do with it,” Nisbet said.
Ecological impacts
Beyond damage to their
own business, Nisbet and
Moncy said they fear con-
sequences of out-of-control
shrimp populations on the
ecology of the bay.
Most Willapa oystermen
raise oysters in a way that
somewhat mimics the natural
oyster beds that were found
here when people irst arrived.
Moncy said the explosion
in shrimp numbers resem-
bles the former takeover of the
bay by invasive spartina grass,
except that the shrimp are
unnoticed from shore.
The continuing loss of oys-
ter lands will result in a bio-
logically poorer place, Moncy
said. The public doesn’t “real-
ize the devastation that’s hap-
pening out there on such a
large scale,” she said.
Like spartina, which was
eventually eliminated thanks
to a concerted chemical con-
trol program, Moncy said the
shrimp can be kept within rea-
sonable bounds if farmers and
agencies cooperate. There is
no intention to try to eradicate
the shrimp.
“This is a short-term issue
that we actually have a solu-
tion for, and as oyster farm-
ers we’re never going to stop
looking for other alterna-
tives and other solutions for
this issue, because this is our
home,” she said.
— Damian Mulinix and
Don Jenkins contributed to
this story.
S a ve
the date!
T h e Cla tsop Coun ty
H istorica l Society, w ith th e
gen erous spon sorsh ip
of City L um ber Com pa n y
is proud to presen t a
specia l tour of the
“O ther” Fla vel Ho u se,
the Ca p t. Geo rg e
Co n ra d Fla vel ho m e
a t 627 15th S treet o n
R egatta Sunday
AU G U ST 14
10AM -4 PM
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st h e h ous rsh ip !
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b
r t
he
be
T ickets a re a va ila ble
n ow , on ly a t th e
T to tou e m
Ca rria ge H ouse Visitor Cen ter,
m
714 E xch a n ge Street, Astoria .
way g e t a
Tickets a re $10 for Cla tsop Cou n ty H istorica l
is to Society
m em bers a n d $25 for n on -m em bers
M em bersh ips sta rt a t ju st $35 fo r
in d ivid u a ls a n d $5 5 fo r a fa m ily
C C HS
Cla tsop
Cou n ty
H istorica l
Society