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.