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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 3, 2016)
OPINION 4A THE DAILY ASTORIAN • MONDAY, OCTOBER 3, 2016 GUEST COLUMN 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 Anchovy ishery is riddled with conlict DEBRA BLOOM, Business Manager By DEBORAH JAQUES For The Daily Astorian HEATHER RAMSDELL, Circulation Manager OUR VIEW Tourism-related DUIIs illustrate pinch on resources ourism usually brings to mind the idyllic scenes of vaca- tioners relaxing on the beach, strolling through town while visiting shops, enjoying the plentiful recreational activities and frolicking about at the numerous weekend festivals the North Coast has to offer. The North Coast and the Long Beach, Washington, Peninsula are no longer secret destinations, and the past decade has ushered in a boom of visitors and tourism spending to both sides of the Columbia River. Local leaders who tout tourism growth point to the past two years and the clear inancial impact tourism has gen- erated, especially in Clatsop County. According to Travel Oregon, visitors to Clatsop County in 2015 spent $539.6 million. While some residents may wish there wasn’t as much tour- ism occurring here, simply put, the tourism bell has been rung and people from other areas have heard it and responded. Like the line from the movie “Field of Dreams” goes, “If you build it, he will come.” It’s been built and they have come, and while some may wish it was otherwise and the coast could go back to the quiet days before the boom, that train has already left the station and won’t be returning anytime soon. T Need for balance But there is a great need for balance between the two view- points because tourism brings negative side effects as well, like stress on public infrastructure along with trafic snarls, crowded beaches, shopping areas and restaurants that come with those dol- lars. One of the more serious — and potentially deadly — side effects is an increase in drunken driving and the danger it presents for other drivers as well as the strain it causes for police, prosecu- tors, probation oficers, treatment providers and jail staff. As The Daily Astorian reported Friday, nearly 40 percent of the DUII cases iled with the Clatsop County District Attorney’s Ofice each year within the past ive years have involved people who live outside the county. So far this year, the number of DUII cases is on pace to surpass previous years — a igure likely inlu- enced by the transfer of misdemeanor DUIIs in Astoria to Circuit Court — and the number of out-of-towners in those cases hovers right at about 40 percent. As District Attorney Josh Marquis points out, “The citizens of Clatsop County, who pay taxes, are subsidizing visitors in ways that go beyond our streets.” Tourism taxes Leaders in county government and the coastal cities need to be mindful and proactive in addressing the delicate balance between the local quality of life and the growth of tourism, along with issues like the DUIIs that tourism presents. In all likelihood those issues will continue to grow along with the surge in the number of visitors and tourism spending. Although it varies by jurisdiction, Clatsop County and cities within it generate revenue from tourism-based taxes, some more than others. In Cannon Beach for instance, more than 60 percent of the city’s entire general fund is generated by tourism taxes, and portions of those tax revenues are earmarked for various quali- ty-of-life residential services as well as tourism marketing. The area’s city and county leaders should examine how the tourism dollars that low into their individual budgets are used, and they should ensure there is a continuing balance between tour- ism marketing and fulilling the growing need to address the side effects like DUIIs and the stress on public infrastructure. Tourism and residential quality of life can coexist, but it will take proactive efforts to manage that delicate balance. T he Daily Astorian article (“Anchovies pick up where sardine left off in Astoria” Sept. 20) painted a pretty rosy picture about the uptick in local commercial anchovy harvest. I was also initially excited to see ish going up the conveyor belt on the Riverwalk; it’s nice to see a ishing town at work. The people at Sea-A and ishing crew from Kodiak are friendly and show pride in their work and product. Our anchovy wealth has also been relected by the magniicent seasonal occurrence of marine birds and mammals feasting in our Columbia River Estuary, including brown pelicans and hump- back whales again. After being astonished to see that the new anchovy purse seiners were actually ishing in the river as far up as the bridge among the Buoy 10 ishermen, returning salmon, surfac- ing whales and foraging seabirds, I got an uneasy feeling and investi- gated further. I did internet research, listened in on the recent Paciic Fisheries Management Council Meeting, and contacted state oficials and salmon ishermen. As it turns out, this year’s Columbia River anchovy ishery is riddled with conlicts. It is a massive extraction of these forage ish, unprecedented in decades, primarily for export to Asian markets. At this scale, the ishery is poten- tially harmful to our local ecosystem, established local bait ishing busi- nesses, ESA-listed salmon stocks, and is directly counter to state and federal efforts to reduce salmonid predation by seabirds. The anchovy take limits are not based on current scientiic data regarding stock size; isheries managers are only guessing at the ability of the stock to support the allowable catch. Since these ish have been a relatively untapped resource for commercial ishermen, absence of a stock assessment was not a pressing issue until market conditions changed, and the small, but mighty, leet from Alaska came in to exploit the stock at its center of abundance. This is taking place in the midst of unusual oceanographic conditions that may be constricting the range of anchovy and creating unusual densities of mature, egg-bearing ish in estuarine waters. ‘Last resort’ Anchovy have been described as a ishery of ‘last resort’ by the California Wetish Producers Association. Something to turn to after other species decline and isher- ies are shut down. Following the clo- sure of the West Coast sardine ish- ery, increased pressure on anchovy was fully expected. According to some analyses, the central stock of anchovy based off southern and central California has plummeted largely due to environmental change, yet ishing has continued. The proit on harvest per ton of anchovy is Oregon is higher than it is in California, so it is not surprising that some purse seine boats shifted efforts north. The eficiency of the leet to capture their daily capacity in our estuary is increased by the use of the use of spotter planes, cues from Deborah Jaques/Submitted Photo Pelican swarm around a salmon-fishing boat in the Hammond Boat Basin in August. The author was conducting pelican surveys. pelicans, predictability of bait-ish movement with the tides, shoreline and freshwater boundaries, and ability to transfer excessive catch from one boat to another in relatively calm waters. This new anchovy ishing effort has been described by a local salmon ishermen as akin to “shooting ish in a barrel,” as well as a “train-wreck in motion.” Until recently, the Oregon ishery has taken place in the absence of an observer program to monitor bycatch, including ESA-listed salmon. Harvest limits The Paciic Fisheries Management Council sets federal harvest limits for coastal pelagic ish species and has set the acceptable biological catch for the northern stock, from San Francisco to the Canadian border, at 9,750 metric tons. This year that quota may be met over a period of a few months, and nearly all of it will have come from one place, our Columbia River estuary and mouth waters. States have the right to reduce federally allowable take within their waters. The state of Washington places priority on the ecosystem value of marine forage species. To protect the food web and existing small bait isheries, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife years ago adopted regulations that impose daily and weekly possession limits for anchovy. The limits preclude development of the type of large-volume ishing operations that are taking place in Oregon this year. Washington rules limit the catch, possession or landing of anchovy to 5 metric tons daily and to 10 weekly. Just one of the three new boats working the Columbia this year has been aiming for about 85 tons per day, as reported in the Daily Astorian. The accumulated tonnage of catch to date is not publicly avail- able due to conidentiality concerns. The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife was apparently caught off-guard by this year’s anchovy ishery and is moving forward on temporary adjustments to the rules, partly in response to testimony at the recent Paciic Fisheries Management Council meeting where concerns were raised about ESA-listed salmon and local depletion of prey resources for dependent predators. Cormorant cull Meanwhile, in a few days, federal Wildlife Services agents will resume shooting double-crested cormorants in the Columbia River in response to a mandate from the NOAA under the guise of the ESA. The ODFW is one of the many state and federal agencies that developed and support the seabird control plan. The bellies of the dead birds will probably mostly contain northern anchovy, but nobody will be looking at that. The culling continues a now nearly 20-year-long campaign against birds, originally designed to reduce Caspian tern consumption of salmon smolts upriver and encourage greater reliance on northern anchovy in the estuary. Our government agen- cies are now allowing depletion of this same northern anchovy breeding stock, so it theoretically follows that breeding terns and cormorants may increase consumption of salmon in the coming years, which could result in more birds being killed and displaced. How much sense does a large-volume commercial anchovy ishery make in light of the millions of tax payer dollars invested in controversial cormorant and tern control measures? These measures also result in harassment of brown pelicans and other nontarget animals that are not fairly disclosed. The anchovy stock based off of the Columbia River is clearly critical to many marine wildlife species who migrate thousands of miles annually to feed on the ish in late summer-fall. Over 80 percent of all brown pelicans surveyed by the USFWS in Oregon and Washington occurred within the Columbia River Estuary in mid-September this year. Pelicans tend to know where the anchovy are. The warm water Blob and other ocean anomalies that reduce productivity, have probably only led to greater importance of our estuary to ish and wildlife in the California Current system. Please contact the ODFW marine resources department and the Paciic Fisheries Management Council if you want urge more thoughtful stewardship and long-term protection measures for northern anchovy and the rich biodiversity that depends on it. Public comments to Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife are accepted at odfw.info@state.or.us Public comments to the Paciic Fisheries Management Council are accepted at pfmc.comments@noaa. gov Deborah Jaques is an inde- pendent wildlife biologist, owner of Paciic Eco Logic consulting, based in Astoria, and brown pelican specialist. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Land of the free W hatever happened to tolerance? The current presidential cam- paign strongly implies there are many Americans who would deport the Statue of Liberty, whose famous son- net advises other countries to “give me your tired, your poor, your hud- dled masses yearning to breathe free.” I suspect that Donald Trump and his surrogates might prefer this ver- sion of the sonnet: “Give me your extreme-vetted and send only your smartest, best-connected and richest white people to our shores. No los- ers, no Mexicans and no Muslims, please.” That kind of hate speech might get rave reviews from the neo-Na- zis and the Ku Klux Klan, but no hur- rahs from those of us who encour- age admittance of people whose only asset may be the desire for a better life. Think about it. Where would we be if Trump’s opportunistic intoler- ance of other ethnicities prevailed throughout our history? Sorry, Albert Einstein, Andrew Carnegie and Alex- ander Hamilton. Under The Don- ald’s extreme vetting proposal, you wouldn’t be admitted. Nor would ilm director Billy Wilder and Croa- tian-born Nikola Tesla, who gave the world alternating current. Since Arnold Schwarzenegger’s father, Gustav, was a Nazi and Arnold went AWOL from the Austrian army, serving a prison sentence, we’d have to terminate the Terminator. Bid Gule gule (goodbye) to con- troversial TV Dr. Oz, who hosted Trump on his Sept. 15 show. Oz’s Muslim parents are from Turkey and Mehmet speaks luent Turkish. Whoa! And (drum roll, please) we’d say sayonara to The Donald himself. Trump’s grandfather, Friederick, was a draft-dodger who led Germany to America, where he applied for citi- zenship in 1892, and lied about his age. Oops! Schadenfreude. Others not admitted might include British-born Charles Chaplin and nov- elist Aldous Huxley, author of “Brave New World,” and Haiti-born John James Audubon, whose father sired a number of mixed-race children. That’s just my short list of some who might be denied residence in “the land of the free and the home of the brave.” Since diversity and inclusiveness are what “make America great,” we should admonish those who divide, demean, and demonize others. Oth- erwise, we make a mockery of “the land of the free and the home of the brave.” DR. ROBERT BRAKE Ocean Park, Washington Age gracefully ged we will all become,” they say, “if we’re lucky.” But when we arrive on those weakened, eroded shores, where is the wisdom that is supposed to arrive in tow? For there is no wisdom in depending upon two legs, when three or four, or motor and ‘A wheels are necessary. Life is something you show up for, and where is the wisdom in not show- ing up for it because foolish pride won’t let you accept the aid and assis- tance to do so? Where is the wisdom in an old person not wanting to appear old, then complaining how native tribes and Eastern societies hold their aged in high esteem? Alas, where is the wisdom, after having lived a life fully able, to resent or deny the disabling nature of age, when others were never allowed the gift of being so able, or knew such a briefer moment in it? Do you remember youth and all of its glories? Would you deny youth its glory, because you have aged out of it? Let youth glory, let it lend a hand, as you once lent a hand. Show up to the life you have, that is still possible, by whatever means you can. If it takes an extra hand or leg or motorized wheel or dia- per, there’s no shame in this. There is only shame in prejudice toward the disabled, toward the aged, toward yourself. A friend talks about seeing, in his Montana childhood, the old Indi- ans who fought Custer in their youth. “They always rode with a long pole,” he says, which they used to help them mount and dismount their horses. I wonder if these veterans of Little Big Horn were embarrassed by their pole? M. ALEX “SASHA” MILLER Astoria Homeless solution keep hearing about how much of an issue the homeless popula- tion is causing all around the area. A workable solution would be to put them to work, for pay. If they won’t work, then make them leave the area. This worked when we had the Civil- ian Conservation Corps, and it would work now. CLEVE ROLFE Seaside I
