OPINION
4A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 12, 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
10 years ago this week — 2006
Wildlife Biologist Kirsten Brennan is familiar with the Leadbetter
Point refuge. She spends a lot of time there, keeping an eye on the prog-
ress of the Western snowy plover, a small brown and white shorebird
listed as endangered in Washington state.
But on Sept. 5, she noticed something she had not seen before – a
rare plant that had not been seen for about 56 years.
To help the recovery of the plover, efforts are under way to restore
the bird’s habitat. Invasive European beach grass has been scraped away
and oyster shells spread over the exposed sand, ideal for the plovers’
nesting needs and similar to the open windswept sand dunes which once
existed.
Brennan was watching for the plovers when she noticed the plant.
It grew low to the ground, gripping the sand. Interspersed among the
thick, waxy green leaves were pink clusters of lowers, like small balls
of trumpets facing outward, no bigger than a thumb.
“I felt stunned,” she said.
Brennan had found some pink sandverbena. The last time anyone
had seen the plant in Washington was in the early 1940s. In Washing-
ton, pink sandverbena is listed as “extirpated.” Once widespread, it is
considered endangered in Oregon, threatened or endangered in Califor-
nia, and a “species of concern,” by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Wind and rain have worn the red off its walls, loosened the
wooden slats that bind it together and left it pockmarked and
sagging like an old barn.
The Red Building is the last structure from the Union Fish-
ermen’s Cooperative Packing Co. still standing on the water-
front. Its patchy red frame sits on the pilings south of the
Cannery Pier Hotel.
People from the Washington coast to Washington, D.C.,
are lining up to buy space in this building. They are picturing
white tablecloths and ine wine under its slouched roof and
ballroom dancing on its battered wood loors. Young couples
are touring the loft inside, where bird droppings cover the
ground, and reserving the space for their wedding day.
Local entrepreneurs Ryan Davis and Shawn Helligso are
transforming the former cannery maintenance shop into a
shopping square with a banquet hall upstairs and rows of tall
windows overlooking the Columbia River.
50 years ago — 1966
Home and car combination will be on display Tuesday and
Wednesday in Astoria. It includes all conveniences of home.
Several gillnetters last week found ish that apparently were dying
but showed no visible sign of injury, according to William Puustinen,
Columbia River Fishermen’s union oficial.
Puustinen said he caught a salmon which would sink, then struggle
to the surface, lap its gills rapidly, then sink again. He turned it over to
Oregon Fish commission laboratory for study.
Japanese ishing boats will drop 200 cider bottles into the
Paciic Ocean off Hawaii next month in an unusual type of
mail service.
The bottles will be empty except for containing letters from
Japanese school children here seeking pen pals from Mexico
and the United States.
The children hope the ocean currents will carry their bot-
tled letters to the West Coast of America and Mexico.
Three boats of the state’s ferry leet will be up for public auction Oct.
12, Oregon Highway Department has reported.
Alaska Development company, which put up down payment on
the boats Tourist 3 and Tourist 2 at an auction sale several weeks ago,
has decided not to complete the deal, forfeited its down payment, and
turned the boats back to the highway department. They will be offered
again for sale.
75 years ago — 1941
In high spirits in more ways than one over the huge run of
salmon in the river, Arthur Michael Lehto, a Saturday night
celebrant, was arrested by city police at Thirty Third Street
and Waterfront for breaking car windows in his own car.
Patrolman B. Mathre was dispatched to the scene where he
found Lehto armed with rocks he was throwing with as delib-
erate aim as he could muster at the windows of a car. Before
Mathre could stop Lehto the back window shattered under
the impact of a well directed toss.
Police were unable to explain why Lehto was iring at his
own machine. Their only guess was that he didn’t realize it
was his own car. Mathre’s report noted that Lehto was “feel-
ing very good” and was well provisioned to continue in his
happy mood.
He was booked for disorderly conduct and released on $15
bail.
SOUTHERN EXPOSURE
The tale of the
tail-less whale
By R.J. MARX
The Daily Astorian
RCH CAPE — Thanks to
Court Carrier of the Cannon
Beach Chamber of Com-
merce for rousting me from an end-
of-week stupor with the news that
a dead whale was making its way
toward Arch Cape.
Carrier graciously offered us a
parking spot at his house — which
in Arch Cape is a big deal.
But just as we were winging
past Tolovana, Carrier texted to say
the whale had been swept south. He
advised me to go through the tun-
nel and take it from there. You can
never really tell
where a whale will
come to land.
So my intrepid
spouse — did I
mention this was
our 28th wedding
anniversary? — accompanied me
through the Arch Cape Tunnel in
the early evening mist seeking a
dead whale driven in the tide.
I igured my best bet was to turn
right to Cape Falcon, not far past
the southern end of the bridge. You
don’t really understand how rug-
ged and deep this terrain is until
you drive it in the dark. We drove
to where we could see to the ocean,
parked the car and I winged it
down to the shore.
In the cove, don’t take any-
thing for granted. If you can ind an
entrance to the beach, you have to
slip and slide on your butt or take a
lying leap from the sideline. Don’t
ever trust a branch or root to hold
your weight. The cobble beach is
slippery even when the tide is out
and you need to dance a ballet on
tiptoes. While I was scrambling
around I heard voices and was
joined by a couple more curious
folks. Word traveled fast. All we
were missing were tom-toms.
We skirted beyond the cobbled
rock and onto the sandy beach.
At 7:30 the light was so dim I
couldn’t get a good shot with my
iPhone. Even with binoculars, all
I could see was the blurry hori-
zon. But everyone saw the lumpy
gray blip in the water. In that dim
weird light what we saw was what
looked like a latex rubber giant hot-
air balloon bouncing on the waves
and getting bigger, bigger — much,
much bigger.
As we were backing up to the
cobble rocks again as the sand
receded and the water inched closer
and our socks got damp, the big
latex balloon was looking more and
more like … a giant rat. Dead or
alive, I didn’t want to be within 50
yards of this thing.
Little did I know it could have
exploded.
There was nothing to do but
skittle back to safety and come
back in the morning.
A
The next day
What I saw at 9 that morn-
ing was pretty incredible. It was
the inverted belly of the whale all
puffed up into a balloon-like sac.
Would it, could it explode?
Seaside Aquarium’s Keith Chan-
dler has been chasing whales, dead
or alive, for decades. In 2003 a
17-ton gray whale washed to shore
just as the Seaside Volleyball Tour-
nament was about to close. Chan-
Lyra Fontaine/The Daily Astorian
Researchers examine the humpback on Short Sand Beach. Seaside
Aquarium’s Keither Chandler is in the light blue shirt.
L.M. Smith/For EO Media Group
L.M. Smith was among the onlookers on Cove Beach as the whale
washed up in September.
Submitted Photo
Paul Linnman’s contact with the
“exploding whale” was to define
his career.
dler was there. In February 2004,
the head of a sperm whale washed
up on Indian Beach. In late January
this year, a dead 24-foot humpback
whale washed ashore Sunday in
Seaside. Chandler was there, too.
“The bloat is the gas that built
up inside,” Chandler said on the
day of the latest beaching. “Is that
a risk? Could it explode? It could.
They have in the past. Not saying it
will, but it’s always a possibility.”
I was completely unaware of the
legendary Portland television news
reporter Paul Linnman, who in
1970 was showered with whale car-
cass after the humpback was dyna-
mited by the state highway depart-
ment to get it off the Florence
beach. Linnman wore that story as
his signature.
And there are no shortage of
graphic videos on the web, includ-
ing the 2004 Taiwanese incident
when a decomposing sperm whale
splattered onlookers in an explo-
sion as it was being transported for
a post-mortem examination.
That early Saturday morn-
ing, I snapped as many pictures of
the freaky-deaky whale as I could
against the incoming tide, bliss-
fully unaware of the worsening
bloat and its potentially dire conse-
quences. And equally unaware of
the tide licking at my feet, enough
to make me scamper up the rocks
and through somebody’s backyard
to the street.
Lo and behold, shortly after
leaving the beach, that belly did
burst — whether it was with a
bang or a whimper I don’t know —
mounds of undigested krill depos-
ited in the shallow waters of Cove
Beach.
By mid-afternoon, the tide
pulled the dead, now delated whale
back into the water and back to sea.
All that was left was a pile of krill
and ish remains. I am told that the
stench lingered.
Two days later, the whale
was swept to Short Sand Beach
in Oswald West State Park, 2
miles south of where the whale
had washed up over the week-
end. Chandler and researchers in-
ished taking tissue and blood sam-
ples a few days later. The necropsy
took place on the beach, where the
whale carcass will remain.
“There’s really no way to get
it off that beach because you can’t
get equipment there, and you can’t
get enough sand to bury it,” Chan-
dler said.
Will it smell?
“It will have an odor,” Chandler
said. “But I’ve smelled worse.”
So now I’ve got a whale story
of my own. Is it up to Paul Lin-
nman’s? Maybe not, but that’s OK.
There are certain experiences far
better seen on YouTube.
R.J. Marx is The Daily Astori-
an’s South County reporter and edi-
tor of the Seaside Signal and Cannon
Beach Gazette.