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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 2016
Rescue school: Rescuers are always learning something new
Continued from Page 1A
On Monday, Senior Chief
Petty Officer Eric Bednorz
from Air Station Mobile stood
on the dunes of Clatsop Spit
and watched through a set of
binoculars while six Coast
Guard and two U.S. Air Force
rescue swimmers treaded
water.
“They’re just trying to
make it outside,” Bednorz
said of the swimmers, who
traded off playing survivor
and rescuer, trying to pull
each other through the 5- to
10-foot swells.
The Coast Guard pushes
its rescue swimmers past their
comfort zone, Bednorz said,
“but we want to do that under
instruction.”
Around the nation
Trainers from Air Station
Mobile in Alabama, swim-
mers, pilots and hoist opera-
tors from around the country
head each year to the mouth
of the Columbia River, which
offers rough surf and diverse
environments, from the cliffs
at Cape Disappointment to
the dunes of Clatsop Spit.
Swimmers practice maneu-
vering in the water. Pilots and
hoist operators on the Coast
Guard’s HH-60 Jayhawk and
HH-65 Dolphin helicopters
practice pulling them away
from danger. The entire crew
learns how to work together
during a rescue.
“The Coast Guard is the
best at all rescue-swim-
mer aspects,” said Allen-
Mikel Armstrong, one of two
pararescuemen on the North
Coast this week for training
from the Air Force’s 212th
Rescue Squadron in Alaska.
Jason Hughes, the other
pararescueman, said the
squadron coordinates closely
with the Coast Guard’s Air
Station Kodiak. The Air Force
has similar training in Alaska,
he said, but no surf compara-
ble to the North Coast.
Hughes was paired in the
surf training with 16-year
veteran rescue swimmer Ty
Aweau, who served four years
with Sector Columbia River
and has gone through the
training four times.
Photos by Danny Miller/The Daily Astorian
Coast Guardsmen complete training exercises Monday at Fort Stevens State Park.
Senior Chief Petty Officer Eric Bednorz, rescue swimmer
and trainer from the U.S. Coast Guard’s Air Station Mobile,
monitors training exercises from the shore on Monday at
Fort Stevens State Park.
Aweau said the dynamic
surf environment means res-
cuers are always learning
something new. “Bednorz is
aware of the water, what the
ocean does. He brings that
knowledge here.”
Rescue school
In the mid-1980s, the
A Coast Guard helicopter takes flight above Fort Stevens
State Park during training exercises on Monday in Hammond.
Coast Guard established a
helicopter rescue swimmer
program. In summer 1993,
HH-65 Dolphin helicop-
ter air crews started train-
ing using the hoisted swim-
mers near San Francisco and
on the cliffs of Cape Dis-
appointment. With support
from a helicopter, swim-
mers rescued simulated sur-
vivors from 200-foot cliffs,
wave-swept rocks and heavy
surf with ease, improving the
Coast Guard’s rescue capabil-
ities in otherwise inaccessible
terrain.
Master Chief Darell Gela-
koska, who headed the Coast
Guard’s rescue swimmer pro-
gram, helped develop the
concept of deploying rescue
swimmers from helicopters.
It was Gelakoska who rec-
ommended that an advanced
rescue swimmer training be
created to familiarize swim-
mers with the equipment and
conditions they would face
in the field. In 1996, a build-
ing at North Tongue Point in
Astoria was dedicated as the
school’s home base.
Since then, the Coast
Guard held semiannual train-
ings for pilots, hoist oper-
ators, flight mechanics and
rescue swimmers from air sta-
tions across the country.
Netting: Sportfishing groups don’t want 2013 agreement damaged
Continued from Page 1A
seines are a viable alternative
to gillnets. Commercial fish-
ers strongly disagree.
Under a 2013 agreement,
gillnets were to be phased out
in the river’s main stem over
four years and restricted to
off-channel areas. The state
was to give recreational fish-
ing in the main stem stronger
priority, enhance off-chan-
nel hatchery releases for
commercial harvest, and
develop alternative gear and
techniques.
Sportfishing
groups
don’t want that agreement
damaged.
“It is imperative that you
stand firm on ensuring the
removal of gillnets from the
main stem of the Columbia
at the end of the transition
period” on Dec. 31, Schamp
wrote.
While some “adaptive
management” of the plan
was expected, he and oth-
ers argued to the commis-
sion, the Fish and Wildlife
staff recommendation would
increase gillnetters’ take of
salmon. He said the plan does
not guarantee them more
revenue.
However, Astoria-based
gillnetters, seafood proces-
sors and community mem-
bers say the plan imperils
their livelihoods, alternative
fishing methods aren’t eco-
nomically feasible and revi-
sion is necessary.
Jim Knight, executive
director of the Port of Asto-
ria, said commercial fishing
is crucial to the area’s econ-
omy and multiple other busi-
nesses are linked to it.
Astoria gillnetter Otis
Hunsinger said 80 percent of
his income derives from the
Columbia River. He recently
bought a second boat and
said the cost of gear, per-
mits and other expenses is a
worry. “I’d like to know what
the future is,” he said.
Lori Steele, executive
director of the West Coast
Seafood Processors Asso-
ciation in Portland, said the
group supports the Fish and
Wildlife staff recommen-
dations. Commercial fish-
ers and processors have lost
money under the reform
plan, she said, and any fish-
eries reform must be fair and
flexible.
Michael Finley, the com-
mission chairman, said state
statute requires that Colum-
bia River fish management
rules be structured in a way
that they “enhance the eco-
nomic viability of recre-
ational and commercial fish-
eries and the communities
that rely on them.
“That’s a dual mandate,”
Finley said.
CREST: Critics of dam’s removal cite
Blitz’s report as proof of wrongdoing
Continued from Page 1A
The city’s attorney, how-
ever, has since suggested
that the federal government
likely owns the dam. He also
believes the structure is part
of the city’s levee system and
should be overseen by the city
with the U.S. Army Corps of
Engineers.
The city is awaiting clari-
fication from the U.S. Depart-
ment of Agriculture’s Natural
Resources Conservation Ser-
vice, which helped build the
dam and two other flood-con-
trol structures operated by the
water district since the 1960s.
Delved into other issues
Blitz’s report also delved
into whether former City
Manager
Kurt
Fritsch,
CREST and the water dis-
trict withheld or downplayed
information on the poten-
tial flooding risk if the dam
is removed. Fritsch resigned
in June amid questions about
the dam.
Critics of the dam’s poten-
tial removal, including the
Nygaard family, which owns
Warrenton Fiber and has had
long-running antipathy for
CREST, have held up Blitz’s
report as proof of wrongdoing
by the task force.
But Blitz has said he
has not made any conclu-
sive findings about CREST.
In an email Wednesday, the
attorney said his preliminary
report has been “mischarac-
terized as an investigation,
which it is not. It summarizes
records that were reviewed
and does so accurately. It
identifies issues raised in the
community.
“The focus now needs to
be on determining what the
city should do with structures
and levees, and on those mat-
ters which the commission
identifies for further review.”
Supporters of CREST
have bristled over the fact
that Blitz spoke with John
Nygaard, an attorney, about
the dam but did not interview
anyone from CREST or the
water district.
The report raised questions
about CREST’s motives and
asked whether the task force
may have engaged in pub-
lic corruption or civil rights
violations.
Financial benefit
Sinnott’s letter to Blitz
challenges the idea that
CREST would have benefited
financially from salmon cred-
its tied to the dam removal
project as a “fundamen-
tal misunderstanding.” The
federal Bonneville Power
Administration, which was
going to finance the project
to help improve salmon hab-
itat, would have received any
salmon credits. CREST would
have overseen the project.
Nygaard, in a letter to the
Bonneville Power Admin-
istration in April 2015, said
Warrenton Fiber should be
compensated for any loss of
development rights and for
agreeing to allow increased
salmon access from its private
property near the river.
Sinnott also attacks the
doubts raised in the city’s
report about the engineering
plan on the dam’s removal
that showed no significant
flooding risk. The report high-
lighted a city technical review
that questioned whether the
engineering plan accurately
measured the flood plain.
But Sinnott also points out
that the report describes the
dam as a potential asset for
the city that could be removed
later to offset the wetlands
impact of a development pri-
ority. “From this statement, it
appears that the concern with
the project is not the risk of
flooding or insurance premi-
ums, but the pecuniary inter-
est of the dam as an ‘asset’ to
be used for the benefit of cer-
tain private citizens of War-
renton,” she wrote.
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