Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 4, 2016)
OPINION 4A THE DAILY ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, OCTOBER 4, 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 OUR VIEW Root for robust prospects for Astoria Marine GUEST COLUMN I n business since 1924 and considered one of Oregon’s most endangered historical assets, Astoria Marine Construction Co. has the possibility of ive more years at its present Jeffers Slough site after a welcome offer of lexibility from the state Department of Environmental Quality. The 8-acre site, nominated to the National Register of Historic Places for its role in World War II and Korean War shipbuilding, plays an essential part in maintaining the Columbia River estu- ary’s leet of commercial ishing vessels. Without the well-honed skills of Astoria Marine’s workers and the esoteric services offered by the shipyard, the basic underpinnings of our ishing industry could come undone. Pollution at the site, said to be isolated and not harming the Lewis and Clark River or surrounding property, is a legacy of past generations when there was a lack of understanding about the long-term consequences of releasing toxic pollution into the environment. Contaminants at Astoria Marine include petro- leum, heavy metals, polyaromatic hydrocarbons and organotins. Nowadays, shipyards, including Astoria Marine, take great pains to keep things like old copper-based bottom paint out of the soil, water and air. But particularly in our nation’s ferocious drive to win World War II, such considerations fell by the wayside. Since the wars of the mid-20th century, Astoria Marine has been a responsible and valuable contributor to our region’s econ- omy. Clatsop Economic Development Resources has played a key part in inding at least a short-term path forward for the ship- yard while local leaders seek a way for the company’s principals, or someone, to develop a new shipyard. This will occur after con- taminated soil at the existing location is capped or removed at a cost of $2 million-plus. The extra time for transition is a notewor- thy success for CEDR, which continues to mature into an essential voice for business on the North Coast. Like the earlier restoration of Paciic Power and Light’s old generating plant on the shores of Youngs Bay, the Astoria Marine cleanup has positive potential. Besides the peace of mind that many will appreciate from ensuring toxins are kept away, a thor- ough visioning process for our area’s maritime future can include a variety of paths — from a new service center for vessels, to ideas for how to capitalize on our impressive heritage of ishing, boat building, sailing and ocean commerce. It is worth noting in connection to the Astoria Marine story that the state of Oregon undercut both its customer base — and Clatsop County’s broader economy — with former Gov. John Kitzhaber’s poorly considered order to kill the mainstem Columbia gillnet salmon ishery. It will be welcome if DEQ’s tem- porary reprieve for Astoria Marine translates into a more general- ized sense of partnership and cooperation on the part of the state in keeping the coast’s maritime industries viable and healthy. It’s also important not to lose sight of the fact that Astoria Marine’s Tim Fastabend and others with the company have devoted amazing amounts of time, money and personal passion in preserving the shipyard and serving their customers. A 2013 fea- ture on the irm, at the time when the Historic Preservation League of Oregon singled it out for attention and assistance, captured something of what a remarkably historic business it is. It would still be wonderful if a way can be found to keep Astoria Marine Construction Co. and its facility alive in some form. Damian Mulinix/EO Media Group Salmon return to the Nemah Hatchery on Willapa Bay in 2015. Salmon plan a mismatch By HOBE KYTR For The Daily Astorian H ave you ever wondered just how that salmon got to your table at the restaurant, or in the grocery store, or on your barbe- cue at home? Salmon not only have to swim through a lot of water, both fresh and salt, but a lot of regulations as well. But those regulations protect them, ensuring there will be salmon for future generations. The following outlines how conservation of salmon works, particularly for the Colum- bia River, the greatest salmon river of them all. It covers a century and a half of how people have coped with changes in the natural environ- ment, luctuations in ish populations, ocean conditions, pollution, con- trol of ishing operations, as well as a host of other issues, by developing laws and structures that help ensure their survival. During the 19th and early 20th centuries, the states of Oregon and Washington each managed its own isheries in the Columbia River. In order to more effectively man- age Columbia River isheries, both states passed legislation establishing a bi-state compact to manage Colum- bia River isheries together in 1915. As required by Article 1, Section 10 of the U.S. Constitution, Congress ratiied the resulting Columbia River Compact in 1918. Columbia River isheries are managed concurrently under the Columbia River Compact by the joint management staffs of the Ore- gon and Washington Departments of Fish and Wildlife. Most of the Columbia River is under concurrent jurisdiction. For treaty tribal ish- eries, the Columbia River Treaty Tribes are co-managers through the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission. The Columbia River Compact also is advised by the Sho- shone-Bannock Tribe, the Confeder- ated Tribes of the Colville Reserva- tion, the Idaho Department of Fish and Game, National Marine Fish- eries Service, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Fishery management on the Columbia River can be quite com- plex. Thirteen stocks of salmonids in the Columbia River Basin are listed as threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act. And since multiple salmonid stocks run at the same time, all Columbia River isheries are mixed-stock isheries. The aim of orderly ishery manage- ment is to conserve weak stocks, and to target abundant hatchery stocks and healthy wild stocks. Listed stocks and other stocks of concern are deined as bycatch. Unintended deaths of bycatch are known as “impacts.” Each ishery is allocated a certain percentage of impacts. When you use up your quota of impacts, you’re done. Fishing season is over. Since the early 1970s, steel- head have been deined as a game ish. Retention of steelhead is pro- hibited in commercial isheries. The objective for commercial isher- ies is to avoid handling them in the irst place. During the mark-selective ishery for spring Chinook, test ish- ing determines when winter steel- head abundance is low, and adipose in-clipped spring Chinook abun- dance is high. Most hatchery ish are marked as hatchery ish by an adipose in-clip. The presence of an adipose in means the ish is regarded as wild, and may not be retained under mark-selective regulations. During the fall Chinook season, big mesh gear is sized so that summer steelhead, which are more torpedo-shaped than fall Chinook, swim right through the net, thus lim- iting directly handling steelhead. It is arguably better not to handle ish you can’t keep, rather than handling them, and risking subjecting them to release mortalities. Under former Oregon Gov. Kitzhaber’s plan for ishery reform, impacts formerly allocated to the commercial ishery have been incre- mentally transferred to the rec- reational ishery. But this did not increase participation in recreational ishing. Instead, participation in recreational ishing in the Colum- bia River has actually decreased below levels that existed before the Kitzhaber plan began to be implemented. Since limiting impacts for the commercial ishery decreases the amount of target species available for harvest, fewer locally sourced ish are provided for the ish consuming pub- lic to buy. The result has been hatch- ery surpluses and over-escapement to the spawning grounds. The pop- ulations of Washington and Oregon are growing, and demand for locally sourced salmon has never been higher. The result of the Kitzhaber plan is mismatch between supply and demand, and wasted ish that used to be available for consumers to buy. Hobe Kytr is Salmon For All’s administrator. When facts, logic and history don’t matter By CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER Washington Post Writers Group W ASHINGTON — And now, less than six weeks from the election, what is the main event of the day? A ight between the GOP presiden- tial nominee and a former Miss Universe, whom he had 20 years ago called Miss Piggy and other choice pejoratives. Just a few weeks earlier, we were seized by a transient hysteria over a minor Hillary Clinton lung infection hyped to near-mortal status. The latest curi- osity is Donald Trump’s 37 snifles during the irst presidential debate. (People count this sort of thing.) Dr. Howard Dean has suggested a possi- ble cocaine addiction. In a man who doesn’t even drink coffee? This campaign is sinking to somewhere between zany and totally insane. Is there a bottom? Take the most striking — and overlooked — moment of Trump’s GOP convention speech. He actually promised that under him, “the crime and violence that today aflicts our nation will soon — and I mean very soon — come to an end.” Not “be reduced.” End. Humanity has been at this since, oh, Hammurabi. But the audience didn’t laugh. It applauded. Not spur of the moment Nor was this mere spur of the moment hyperbole. Trump was reading from a teleprompter. As he was a few weeks earlier when he told a conference in North Dakota, “Politicians have used you and stolen your votes. They have given you nothing. I will give you everything.” Everything, mind you. “I will give you what you’ve been looking for for 50 years.” No laughter recorded. In launching his African- American outreach at a speech in Charlotte, Trump cataloged the hor- rors that he believes deine black life in America today. Then promised: “I will ix it.” How primitive have our pol- itics become? Fix what? Family structure? Social inheritance? Self- destructive habits? How? He doesn’t say. He’ll will it. Trust him, as he likes to say. After 15 months, the suspension of disbelief has become so ubiqui- tous that we hardly notice anymore. We are operating in an alternate universe where the geometry is non-Euclidean, facts don’t matter, history and logic have disappeared. Going into the irst debate, Trump was in a virtual tie for the lead. The bar for him was set almost comically low. He had merely to (1) suffer no major meltdown and (2) produce just a few moments of coherence. He cleared the bar. In the irst half-hour, he established the entire premise of his campaign. Things are bad and she’s been around for 30 years. You like bad? Stick with her. You want change? I’m your man. It can’t get more elemental than that. At one point, Clinton laughed and ridiculed Trump for trying to blame her for everything that’s ever happened. In fact, that’s exactly what he did. With some success. Time bomb By conventional measures — poise, logic, command of the facts — she won the debate handily. But when it comes to moving the needle, conventional measures don’t apply this year. What might, however, move the needle is not the debate itself but the time bomb Trump left behind. His great weakness is his vanity. He is temperamentally incapable of allowing any attack on his person to go unavenged. He is particularly sensitive on the subject of his wealth. So central to his self-image is his business acumen that in the debate he couldn’t resist the temptation to tout his cleverness on taxes. To an audience of 86 million, he appeared to concede that he didn’t pay any. “That makes me smart,” he smugly interjected. Big mistake. The next day, Clinton offered the obvious retort: “If not paying taxes makes him smart, what does that make all the rest of us?” Meanwhile, Trump has been going around telling Rust Belt workers, on whom his Electoral College strategy hinges and who might still believe that billionaires do have some obligation to pay taxes, that “I am your voice.” When gaffes like this are com- mitted, the candidate either doubles down (you might say that if you can legally pay nothing, why not, given how corrupt the tax code is) or simply denies he ever said anything of the sort. Indeed, one of the more remark- able features of this campaign is how brazenly candidates deny having said things that have been captured on tape, such as Clinton denying she ever said the Trans-Paciic Partnership was the gold standard of trade deals. The only thing more amazing is how easily they get away with it.
