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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 14, 2016)
OPINION 4A THE DAILY ASTORIAN • WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 2016 Founded in 1873 DAVID F. PERO, Publisher & Editor LAURA SELLERS, Managing Editor BETTY SMITH, Advertising Manager CARL EARL, Systems Manager JOHN D. BRUIJN, Production Manager DEBRA BLOOM, Business Manager HEATHER RAMSDELL, Circulation Manager Water under the bridge Compiled by Bob Duke From the pages of Astoria’s daily newspapers SOUTHERN EXPOSURE 10 years ago this week — 2006 A federal proposal would slash the critical habitat in Oregon, Washing- ton and California set aside under the Endangered Species Act for the mar- bled murrelet, a threatened sea bird, by about 95 percent, to 221,692 acres. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said Tuesday the bird already is pro- tected by other plans such as the Northwest Forest Plan and state and tribal management plans on the 3.37 million acres that would lose the critical habitat designation. It is studying a proposal to delist the bird altogether. Early projections of harvest levels in the Clatsop, Tillamook and other state forests contained in the state’s 2001 Forest Man- agement Plan are proving overly optimistic as the document begins to be implemented on the ground. From original estimates of as much a 279 million board feet a year, the Oregon Department of Forestry is now predicting that on average about 40 percent less timber will come out of the for- ests annually. That could translate to big cuts in revenue to Clatsop County, which receives about $4 million a year in timber revenues, as well as other smaller taxing districts in the county and elsewhere. Clatsop Community College has been named the sole beneiciary of a $700,000-plus trust through one of its earliest supporters. College directors agreed to undertake the Towler Trust established by John W. Towler, son of long-time principal and superintendent of Astoria schools Emmett D. Towler, at the monthly meeting Tuesday. 50 years ago — 1966 Fourteen trawlers and two factory ships of the Russian leet were hovering close about the mouth of the Columbia River, just beyond the lightship, when George Moskovita brought his boat Mitkof in from a cruise after tuna Tuesday afternoon, he reported. “One of the trawlers was alongside a factory ship and the cut- ter Yocona was just coming out of the river,” Moskovita said. “Both the Russians took off and headed farther out to sea. It looked as though they suspected they were inside the 12-mile limit they had agreed to respect.” Bumble Bee Seafoods corporation, which broke sales records again last iscal year, is off to a good start this year and “we look for a better year,” President Malcolm MacNaughton, Honolulu, of parent company Castle and Cooke, Inc,. said at a luncheon here Tuesday. Clatsop Plains Pioneer Presbyterian Church will celebrate its 120th anniversary next week. The church was organized Sep- tember 19, 1846, at the home of William H. Gray. To commem- orate the event, open house will be held Sunday from 2-4 p.m. United Presbyterian Women will greet guests, according to the Rev. John C. Evans Jr., pastor. Paid vehicular trafic over the Astoria bridge has averaged 1,678 daily since the Labor Day weekend, records of the Oregon Highway department indicated Thursday. Average for the period since the bridge opened to trafic July 29 stood at 2,560 vehicles daily for 466 days. 75 years ago — 1941 Enrollment at Astoria public schools this morning totaled 1418 pupils, nine less than opening day last year, the city schools superinten- dent’s ofice reported, with Capt. Robert Gray Junior High School and Astoria High School each showing a gain and Lewis and Clark and John Jacob Astor each having a decrease. The Navy’s new $500,000 sec- tion base on Pier 2 of the Asto- ria port docks went into commis- sion Monday, with Commander George Grant taking over super- vision of the new defense link which will serve as a shore unit in support of coastal patrol vessels operating offshore and in harbors from Moclips, Washington, south to Tillamook. Fish handling facilities of Columbia River canner- ies Thursday afternoon were being taxed to the limit by one of the greatest fall runs in a generation – described as “enormous” by Tom Nelson, patriarch of the river’s packers Daily Astorian and now associated with Point A movie poster for “Dive Bomber.” Adams Packing company. From Celilo falls to the sea, every gillnetter came in loaded today. No cannery in the lower river reported a per-boat average of less than 2000 pounds, while major operators gave the average at 3000 pounds. At Altoona two great ishermen, Nick Marincovich and William Weatten had caught 11,000 pounds each by morning, obviously making more that a single delivery apiece. Protecting the North Coast, wildlife an acre at a time By R.J. MARX The Daily Astorian T here’s something magical about the huge swaths of land stretching for miles, mountain and sea. That’s what the North Coast is all about: a stunning and unique visual scenery. This summer, a 360-acre parcel on Tillamook Head was transferred from timber property to conser- vation corridor. The North Coast Land Conservancy and GreenWood Resources closed on the Boneyard Ridge property for $1.3 million. The purchase creates 3,500 connected acres from the summit of Tillamook Head to the Necanicum River Valley. Boneyard Ridge — named because of elk bones found on the property — serves as a link between Ecola State Park, stretches along the Tillamook Head shoreline and land conservancy’s Circle Creek Habitat Reserve in the Necanicum River loodplain west of U.S. Highway 101 at the south end of Seaside. Katie Voelke, the conservan- cy’s executive director, calls the Boneyard Ridge acquisition “the last piece of the puzzle,” connecting Ecola State Park to Circle Creek and the corridor of protected lands along the Neawanna and the Necanicum. Such a transaction might have been unthinkable half a century ago, when timber companies and environmental groups were sworn enemies in city ofices, courtrooms and in the ield. The public estate North Coast Land Conservancy founder Neal Maine described the frustration environmentalists felt in the early 1980s, when conservation came as a result of a gavel from the courts, with two hostile sides pitted against each other — maybe that’s where we get the word loggerheads. Private landowners, loggers and ranchers argued that efforts to pro- tect wildlife that result in restrictions on land usage constitute a “taking” of private property requiring compensation. Environmentalists posited that wildlife, water and air are held in trust by the government for the public beneit. Oregon passed the Forest Practices Act in 1971 to ensure the continued growing and harvesting of trees while protecting soil, air, water and wildlife habitat. The federal Endangered Species Act in 1973 — signed by President Richard Nixon — and the Marine Protection, Research and Sanctuaries Act of 1972 were enacted to oppose wanton private use of natural resources that destroy the “public estate.” The laws soon showed effects on land-use decisions in Oregon and locally. In 1986, property then known as “Gearhart Ranch” — later devel- oped into the Highlands — was delayed by environmentalists by the silverspot butterly, a threatened species at home on the Clatsop Plains. The Northwest Forest Plan, cre- ated in 1994, established a system of reserves across the range of the spotted owl — symbol of the 1980s federal timber wars — to provide long-term nesting habitat. Sixteen beaches in Oregon, including two in Clatsop County, Submitted Photo Map of North Coast Land Conservancy protected properties. Neal Maine Katie Voelke were protected as management areas for the endangered snowy plover. Submitted Photo A change in approach With encouragement from heightened public awareness and new federal and state rules, the Seattle-based Trust for Public Lands encouraged the development of local land trusts in the Paciic Northwest. The North Coast Land Conservancy emerged from this call. “In 1985 a group of people from Cannon Beach, Astoria, and points between — all veterans of the envi- ronmental battles of the 1970s and early ’80s — assembled to consider a new way to approach conservation on the Oregon Coast,” the conser- vancy states on its website. In its irst year, the conservancy started with a modest 3-acre marsh to mitigate the impacts of a new Little League ield in Seaside. By 1987, Cavenham Forest Industries — which had purchased Crown Zellerbach — was con- ferring with the Cannon Beach Planning Commission to manage ridgeline development as part of urban growth planning. Between 1999 and 2003, Washington’s Nature Conservancy acquired most of the 8,000 acres that now make up the Ellsworth Creek Preserve in nearby Willapa. Parcels were added as the Nature Conservancy worked primarily with the Campbell Group and John Hancock, each a major lumber consortium. In 1991, the North Coast Land Conservancy preserved 140 acres on Saddle Mountain, protecting the Copes salamander and marbled murrelet, both endangered species threatened by logging, without a court order. In 2003, the conservancy acquired Circle Creek, a strate- gically located 364-acre parcel in Seaside, with Sitka spruce, an historic lood plain, wetlands and waterways. The purchase delivered “a vision that dealt with connectivity, that dealt with the community and the The endangered marbled murrelet benefited from land protection. pulse of the region,” Maine said. Beyond Boneyard Ridge It’s fair to say that 30 years ago a school district superintendent would not have been writing a logging company to thank them for a gift of 80 acres for a new campus to move schools out of the tsunami danger zone. “We applaud your community spirit and corporate philanthropy,” Superintendent-emeritus Doug Dougherty wrote to Weyerhaeuser in August. The land conservancy’s Maine and subsequent leadership rely on cooperation, mutual beneit and community engagement to achieve their goals. Purchasing land is a “much better way to go” than litigating for it, Maine said. Voelke said she hopes to learn from the Boneyard Ridge purchase as a model for future conservation. “Right now we see opportunities to do meaningful forest conserva- tion,” Voelke said. The conservancy is seeking to ill the “puzzle pieces” between Tillamook Head and Neahkahnie Mountain. “We are speciically looking at the areas around the state parks,” Voelke said. “Areas we can make a huge contiguous corridor. That’s the kind of thing we see as a very good role for us.” It used to be the conservancy battled timber companies in court- rooms; now they sign partnerships in those same buildings. “I think it’s a little bit like the tortoise and the hare,” Maine said at the conservancy’s 30th anniversary picnic. “Let opportunities come to you, let others do some dreaming — and help them be successful.” R.J. Marx is The Daily Astori- an’s South County reporter and edi- tor of the Seaside Signal and Cannon Beach Gazette.
