10A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • MONDAY, AUGUST 8, 2016
CLATSOP COUNTY FAIR
Port: ‘We’re trying
to be proactive
instead of reactive’
Continued from Page 1A
Photos by Danny Miller/The Daily Astorian
Jeff Fetter from Buckley, Washington, competes in the Clatsop County Logging Show on Saturday at the Clatsop County Fair.
“Fish carcass disposal is
allowed,” said Jennifer Pur-
cell, a spokeswoman for the
state Department of Environ-
mental Quality.
Jim Knight, the Port’s
executive director, has said
the agency is trying to take a
proactive approach to com-
pliance and wants to keep a
good relationship with state
environmental regulators.
Port staff on Friday set up
a portable septic tank to col-
lect ish remains pumped
from the adjacent ish-clean-
ing tables next to the East
End Mooring Basin. Permit
and Project Manager Robert
Evert said the long-term solu-
tion will involve a pipe under
the Astoria Riverfront Trolley
tracks and into the city’s sani-
tary system. The Port is work-
ing with a contractor to also
hook the West End Mooring
Basin into the city’s system,
and expects to have the sta-
tion open by Tuesday.
“We’re trying to be pro-
active instead of reac-
tive,” Evert said, adding the
permit is clear that noth-
ing but stormwater can be
discharged.
The Port holds a National
Pollutant Discharge Elimina-
tion System 1200-Z indus-
trial stormwater permit,
required for runoff from its
properties into the river. The
several ish processors at
the Port fall under the 900-J
seafood processing per-
mit regulating what amount
of seafood byproduct can
be discharged. Purcell said
that while she’s working
on a project addressing ish
waste in the seafood proces-
sor permit, that doesn’t affect
ish-cleaning stations.
The Port was recently
ined $36,000 by the state
for mistakes in monitoring
stormwater, a price escalated
by previous violations. After
the state found above-bench-
mark levels of copper in run-
off, the Port is taking out a
loan and constructing more
than $1.5 million worth of
stormwater collection and
treatment systems on the
central waterfront and at
North Tongue Point.
Stolen bikes: None of
the bikes were locked
Continued from Page 1A
Carson Littlepage cleans his sheep and prepares it for
auction on Saturday at the Clatsop County Fair.
Jalen Battilega cleans his sheep and prepares it for auc-
tion on Saturday at the Clatsop County Fair.
Sam Schacher, 7, from Astoria, rides a sheep during a mutton bustin’ event on Saturday at the Clatsop County Fair.
No high for ’shroom hunter in court trip
Court of Appeals
not digging pitch,
conviction upheld
Blazing trails — to jail
By NATALIE ST. JOHN
EO Media Group
OLYMPIA, Wash. — A
“magic mushroom” hunter’s
journey through the Wash-
ington Court of Appeals has
turned out to be something of
a bad trip.
At the end of July, a panel
of COA justices said they
didn’t buy Benjamin Joshua
Chester’s argument that Cape
Disappointment State Park
Ranger Tom Benenati violated
his privacy by searching the
bag of hallucinogenic mush-
rooms that Chester ditched
when he was caught illegally
harvesting them inside the
park. They upheld Chester’s
2015 Paciic County Supe-
rior Court conviction for drug
possession.
Our psychedelic
peninsula
In the fall, ’shroomers
lock to Clatsop and Paciic
counties to hunt for psilocybe
azurescens and other psyche-
delic mushrooms, so it’s not
at all uncommon to see young
people wandering slowly
through peninsula pastures
and dunes, taking an unusu-
ally intense interest in the
ground.
Numerous special-inter-
Photo by shroom360 at
Mushroom Observer
Some Pacific County mush-
rooms, like this one, are un-
lawful to harvest or possess.
est forums, including www.
shroomery.org, note the local
abundance of ’shrooms, and
offer advice about how to
avoid getting busted while
harvesting them. As a result,
’shroomers often carry cam-
era or other special-pur-
pose bags, because inter-
net lore holds that cops can’t
legally search or arrest people
who are doing “research” or
“nature photography.”
The local cat-and-mouse
game between law enforce-
ment and ’shroomers even
gets a mention on the Wiki-
pedia page for azurescens, or
“azures.” According to the
page, “Cape Disappointment
State Park, near Ilwaco, Wash-
ington, has a large popula-
tion, but harvesting is a poten-
tial felony that is enforced
by local law enforcement
agencies.”
Chester, 33, apparently
didn’t get the memo. On Nov.
22, 2014, Benenati went to
investigate a report of two
men who were behaving sus-
piciously in a gated-off area of
the park that was closed to the
public. He found Chester in
the woods, “on his hands and
knees, intently going through
the leaf debris in a manner
that was consistent with a per-
son who was harvesting mush-
rooms,” according to court
documents. Chester tried
to walk away, but Benenati
stopped and arrested Chester.
During a subsequent search,
Benenati discovered a bag of
freshly harvested magic mush-
rooms at the spot where Ches-
ter had been working.
After Chester’s arrest,
Paciic County Prosecutor
Mark McClain offered him a
plea-deal that would have sent
him to county jail for about 15
days, but Chester wanted to
go to trial. During the August
2015 trial, Chester and his
attorney tried to prevent the
bag of mushrooms from being
presented as evidence, but the
judge allowed them. The jury
convicted Chester, and he was
sentenced to 45 days in jail.
“What most of the com-
munity doesn’t realize ... is
that every case we take to trial
results in an appeal, frequently
more than one, which is far
more time consuming than the
trial itself,” McClain said in a
statement after the trial.
Reasonably
suspicious behavior
In his 2015 appeal, Ches-
ter argued that Benenati did
not have “reasonable suspi-
cion” that he was commit-
ting a crime when he stopped
him. He also argued that he
had not actually abandoned
the bag of mushrooms, so it
was personal property that
Benenati did not have the
right to search or seize.
The justices didn’t ind
these arguments very con-
vincing. Generally, police
need a warrant to perform
searches during stops, but
Washington law makes a
clear exception for prop-
erty that has been volun-
tarily abandoned. The three
justices noted that Chester
did not dispute the fact that
he was caught in an off-lim-
its area, that harvesting of
mushrooms was prohibited
under park rules, that the
state park is a public place
where he had no reasonable
expectation of privacy, and
that he had tried to lee from
Benenati — a clear indica-
tion “that Chester intended to
leave the bag behind.”
“The trial court concluded
that Benenati had probable
cause to believe that Ches-
ter was illegally harvesting
mushrooms …” the justices
wrote in the opinion. “... The
trial court further concluded
that Chester had no reason-
able expectation of privacy
in the bag of mushrooms.”
Overall, police have
recovered nearly 15 stolen
bicycles, valued altogether at
$8,000 to $10,000, and have
returned several to their own-
ers. Some of the bicycles had
already been dismantled, had
parts or accessories removed,
and one had been repainted a
different color, according to
police.
One owner from out of the
area chose not to retrieve his
bicycle, and instead donated
it to a toy drive during
Christmas.
“It’s very disappointing
that the crimes were happen-
ing,” Warrenton Police Chief
Mathew Workman said. “Vis-
itors come to enjoy them-
selves and have fun and some-
one is taking their property.”
Several of the bicycles
were recovered at a resi-
dence on U.S. Highway 101
just south of Warrenton after
oficers received informa-
tion from one of the sus-
pects. Police also recovered
a stolen motorcycle that had
been reported to the Clatsop
County Sheriff’s Ofice.
At the campgrounds, Work-
man said, none of the bicy-
cles were locked or secured.
Campers need to secure their
bicycles, even at their own
campgrounds, he said.
“Overall, it is a very safe
environment. People need to
remember they don’t know
everybody in a campground,
and locals can come and go,”
Workman said. “All of these
bikes were just laid out. None
of them were secured. None
of them were locked.”
The three suspects will
be arraigned soon in Clatsop
County Circuit Court.
Gerou is charged with
irst-degree theft and sec-
ond-degree burglary. He was
arrested earlier this year in
connection to other theft and
burglary cases.
Kitzman and Lafreniere
are both charged with irst-de-
gree theft. Kitzman has a
criminal history that includes
convictions of theft, assault
and driving under the inlu-
ence of intoxicants. Lafre-
niere was arrested earlier this
year for theft, burglary, men-
acing and disorderly conduct.
All three are in custody in
Clatsop County Jail.
Warrenton Police con-
tinue to investigate and more
charges or arrests are possible.
Anyone with informa-
tion about the bicycle thefts
is asked to contact Ofi-
cer Robert Wirt at rwirt@
ci.warrenton.or.us or Ofi-
cer James Pierce at jpierce@
ci.warrenton.or.us or call
503-861-5622.
Kelly: He has set a goal
of feeding 1,500 students
Continued from Page 1A
“It’s one of those jobs
where you work hard and
long hours, but you don’t get
much appreciation,” he said.
“It does not give you a lot
after the Coast Guard.”
Kelly said he saw the arti-
cle in The Daily Astorian
about the district searching
for a new food services direc-
tor, and thought the position
was the same as what he did
on the ship, albeit on a larger
scale. He thought of start-
ing a restaurant, but his wife
already had a stable job, and
he didn’t want to spend 12
hours a day behind a grill.
At Astoria, Kelly said
his main goal is to increase
participation in food ser-
vice, which has been lack-
luster but improving since
the district started offering it
for free. He has set a goal of
feeding 1,500 of the approxi-
mately 1,800 students attend-
ing Astoria.
“It would be nice if they
stayed here instead of going
down to Dairy Queen,” he
said.
Kelly didn’t want to
divulge his recipes, but said
he is running them past the
district, and using the U.S.
Department of Agriculture’s
Mixing Bowl program, which
provides peer-reviewed rec-
ipes. Kelly is also hoping to
run the recipes past students
once they return to school.
“We’ve gone to more of
a heat-and-serve model,”
Kelly said. “But I think you
have to do more than that.”
Kelly,
who
often
depended on canned food
while cooking for a cutter
crew out on patrol for sev-
eral months, wants to incor-
porate as many local, fresh
products as he can, partner-
ing with organizations like
the Astoria Co-op Grocery.
The district has turned to the
Oregon Child Nutrition Coa-
lition, a group of more than
80 school districts running
their own food service pro-
grams who banded together
to bid on food and supplies.
The real test, Kelly said,
will be running his recipes
past the kids once they return
from his school. He also has
Rebecca to turn to.
“My daughter doesn’t
like the food at Warrenton,”
he said, adding that he packs
her lunch. “She’s kind of my
sounding board on things at
home.”
— Edward Stratton