DailyAstorian.com // TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 2016
144TH YEAR, NO. 58
Anchovies pick up where
sardines left of in Astoria
ONE DOLLAR
R.J. Marx/The Daily Astorian
This 40-foot gray whale with no tail
washed ashore Friday in Arch Cape.
Dead
whale
on the
move
Whale carcass
eludes researchers
By R.J. MARX
The Daily Astorian
Danny Miller/The Daily Astorian
SeaA inc. employee David Pocaca moves ice on Thursday at the SeaA Inc. fish-processing building in Astoria.
SeaA Inc. hopes
to process more
species, become
year-round operation
By ERICK BENGEL
The Daily Astorian
ARCH CAPE — Researchers gathered in
Falcon Cove were prepared to conduct a nec-
ropsy of the humpback whale washed ashore
Friday night. Although the whale had been
dead for several days, they hoped the exam-
ination would provide clues as to the mam-
mal’s demise.
But when they arrived at the secluded
and tide-driven Cove Beach, the whale was
gone. “The whale washed back out,” Tiffany
Boothe of the Seaside Aquarium said. “It
probably will wash back in deeper into the
Cape Falcon Marine Reserve — an area we
can’t access because of the boulders.”
The carcass could wash up on another
beach or it could “rot away” somewhere, the
aquarium’s General Manager Keith Chan-
dler added.
See WHALE, Page 10A
he factory sounds and briny scent of ish
processing has returned to the Astoria
Riverwalk at Ninth Street after a two-
year lull.
SeaA Inc., a business that sorts, freezes and
conveys anchovies wholesale to domestic and
international markets, has reanimated the ware-
house and processing plant once occupied by
Astoria Holdings Inc.
From late afternoon until midnight, the work-
ers take the day’s haul, separate the damaged ish
and pack the rest into plastic-lined boxes.
The packages are frozen, loaded onto refrig-
erated trucks, transported to Tacoma, Washing-
ton, and shipped to markets in Japan, China and
western European countries for use as food and
bait.
In summer 2014, Astoria Holdings, a sar-
dine-only business that opened in 1999, shut-
tered after the Paciic Fishery Management
Council set unexpectedly low catch limits for
the year’s sardine season.
Marine scientists had documented a plum-
meting sardine population, prompting the coun-
cil to scale back traditional quotas.
“That pretty much stopped us,” said Rick
Parker, a SeaA Inc. engineer who had worked
for Astoria Holdings.
The council, which regulates Oregon, Wash-
ington state and California isheries, shut down
sardine ishing for the 2015 and 2016 seasons.
T
Ray Pitz/Sherwood Gazette
Jason Goodding’s No. 85 jersey was
scheduled to be retired during a Sher-
wood vs. Lakeridge football game Fri-
day in Lake Oswego.
Danny Miller/The Daily Astorian
See ANCHOVIES, Page 10A
Anchovies move along a conveyor belt before packaging at the SeaA Inc. building.
Former teammates,
family to attend
Pro-painkiller lobby shaped
policy amid drug epidemic
By MATTHEW PERRONE
and BEN WIEDER
Associated Press
and Center for Public Integrity
For more than a decade, members
of a little-known group called the Pain
Care Forum have blanketed Wash-
ington with messages about prescrip-
tion painkillers’ vital role in the lives
of millions of Americans, creating an
echo chamber that has quietly derailed
efforts to curb U.S. consumption of
drugs like OxyContin, Vicodin and
Percocet.
In 2012, drugmakers and their
afiliates in the forum sent a letter
to U.S. senators promoting a recent
report on a “crisis of epidemic pro-
Sherwood
team retires
Goodding’s
number
Pamplin Media Group
portions”: pain in America. Few
knew the report stemmed from leg-
islation drafted and pushed by forum
members and that their experts had
helped author it. The report estimated
more than 100 million Americans —
roughly 40 percent of adults — suf-
fered from chronic pain, an eye-pop-
ping statistic that some researchers call
deeply problematic.
The letter made no reference, how-
ever, to another health issue that had
been declared an epidemic by federal
authorities: drug overdoses tied to pre-
scription painkillers. Deaths linked to
addictive opioid drugs had increased
more than fourfold since 1999,
AP Photo/Toby Talbot
See EPIDEMIC, Page 10A
OxyContin pills arranged for a pho-
to at a pharmacy in Montpelier, Vt.
The No. 85 football jersey of slain Sea-
side Police Sgt. Jason Goodding is sched-
uled to be retired during the Friday matchup
between Sherwood and
Lakeridge high schools at
Sherwood.
The presentation will fea-
ture family, teammates from
Goodding’s 1993 Sherwood
football team and words from
football coach Greg Lawrence.
Jason
Goodding was shot and
Goodding
killed in February in Seaside.
He grew up in Sherwood, and played basket-
ball, baseball and football.
A recent golf tournament in his honor
raised more than $60,000, funds that will
help not only Goodding’s family, but also
will be used to establish a scholarship fund
and a second fund to help other families who
may suffer similar tragedies in the future.