SEASIDE HIGH SCHOOL WINTER SPORTS PREVIEWS PAGES 8A & 9A
DailyAstorian.com // THURSDAY, DECEMBER 1, 2016
144TH YEAR, NO. 110
ONE DOLLAR
Port loses
budget
committee
chairman
Walked out after
being called a stooge
By EDWARD STRATTON
The Daily Astorian
Danny Miller/The Daily Astorian
Vessels parked near Rice Island in August on the Columbia River. Columbia River Pilots are testing new anchorages near
Tongue Point, Port Westward and Mayger.
PARKING TIGHT ON
COLUMBIA RIVER
More spots could
spur commerce
By EDWARD STRATTON
The Daily Astorian
O
n any given day, up to 10 ships can be
found at anchor in the Columbia River
along the Astoria waterfront, waiting for
berths to open upriver.
The river includes 11 federally designated
anchorages with more than 40 parking spots
between Astoria and Vancouver, Washington.
Faced with seasonal shortages to anchor
larger Panamax-sized vessels, the Columbia
River Pilots are testing new anchorages near
Tongue Point, Port Westward and Mayger.
The group is responsible for helping pilot ships
safely up the narrow shipping channel.
“There’s not a whole lot of room for
(anchored) ships,” said Rick Gill, president of
the group.
Gill said getting more anchorages has been
an ongoing issue, driven largely by the Colum-
bia River Steamship Operators’ Associa-
tion, which represents ship owners, operators,
agents, towers and fuelers along the Columbia
and Snake rivers.
Efficiency
Kate Mickelson, director of the association,
said adding anchorages adds efficiency and
makes regional ports more marketable.
When ships can’t anchor in the Columbia,
they will sometimes steam in circles offshore
while waiting, or be forced to go to lay berth,
with little access to land-side services. In addi-
tion, Mickelson said, there are only four anchor-
age spots near Astoria — the only on the entire
lower Columbia — that can take a vessel longer
than 650 feet without use of an additional stern
buoy to prevent the ship from swinging into the
channel, or a tug on standby.
Mickelson said all those options, caused
by congestion and lack of parking, increase
costs and make the Columbia less attractive to
shippers.
“On occasions when anchorages are
unavailable or vessels are forced to stay at berth
longer than necessary, terminals along the river
system become congested and barge and train
schedules become delayed,” Mickelson said.
“While this may seem insignificant, it can dis-
rupt the movement of goods all the way to the
Midwest.”
Rice Island
Overseeing the anchoring of ships on the
Columbia is the U.S. Coast Guard.
“The pilots came to us with a proposal last
year for three new anchorages,” said Lt. Cmdr.
Laura Springer, chief of waterway management
for the Coast Guard’s Marine Safety Unit.
The first of the new proposed anchorages
being tested is just south of Rice Island, a dredge
spoil deposit north of Tongue Point on the Ore-
gon-Washington border. Gill said the site pro-
vides a wide, off-channel area with room for
three vessels. The pilots started placing vessels
there in August.
Springer stressed that there is no law prohib-
iting vessels from anchoring anywhere outside
the main channel, and that none of the anchor-
ages proposed by the pilots have been des-
ignated with the Coast Guard. If the anchor-
ages were to become official, she said, they
would have to go through a public rule-making
process.
Springer said the Coast Guard would revisit
in the spring whether to start that process. Gill
said the pilots haven’t even started testing the
proposed anchorages at Port Westward or
Mayger.
River of commerce
Much of the increased need for anchorages
on the Columbia is driven by the U.S. Army
Corps of Engineers’ $200 million channel-deep-
ening project, completed in 2010. The project,
which lowered the Columbia’s depth from 40 to
43 feet, was largely meant to accommodate the
growing sizes of ships. Panamax ships, cargo
carriers capable of passing through the Panama
Canal’s locks, can run 1,000 feet long, 110 feet
wide and draft more than 40 feet when loaded.
Since the project’s completion in 2010,
according to the Army Corps, the deepened
channel has led to more than $900 million
in capital investments to the Columbia. Bil-
lions more are in the works, largely driven by
bulk commodities such as grain, oil, coal and
methanol.
“Our purpose is to make the Columbia River
region increasingly popular for commercial
ships and shipper(s) to come and do business,”
Mickelson said. “Additional anchorages lines
up with this purpose and would aid in improv-
ing efficiencies within our system and help our
regional ports become more marketable, enable
more cargo volumes to transit our system, and
bring growth and jobs to our ports and regional
economies.”
The chairman of the Port of Astoria’s
budget committee was replaced on Tuesday
when he walked out of a meeting after being
called a stooge by Port Commissioner Ste-
phen Fulton.
John Lansing has served on the bud-
get committee since 2003, shortly after he
moved to the North
Coast as a manager for
the local Wells Fargo
branch.
During a presen-
tation on state bud-
get law by Port auditor
Jim Lanzarotta from
the accounting firm
Moss Adams, Lansing
appeared to have a dis-
Stephen
agreement with Ful-
Fulton
ton and Port Commis-
sioner Bill Hunsinger
regarding the voting rights of alternates on
a budget committee. Fulton called Lansing
a stooge of Jim Knight, the Port’s executive
director, which Lansing denied before walk-
ing out. Knight, who was out sick, was not at
the meeting.
See PORT, Page 10A
Warrenton
wants a
deputy dog
$15,000 is the goal to
restart K-9 program
By ERICK BENGEL
The Daily Astorian
WARRENTON — The Warrenton Police
Department is raising money to purchase a
drug-detection dog.
Within the next six months, the depart-
ment hopes to have a K-9 officer trained
and certified to sniff out cocaine, heroin and
methamphetamine.
The dog would be used in search war-
rants, traffic stops, random checks for ille-
gal narcotics in schools, and other occasions
where law enforcement suspects drugs are
present.
See DEPUTY DOG, Page 10A
‘Our purpose is to make the Columbia River region
increasingly popular for commercial ships and
shipper(s) to come and do business.’
Kate Mickelson
director of the Columbia River Steamship Operators’ Association
HOW TO HELP
Donors can visit the GoFundMe page
(“WarrentonK9”), drop off contributions at
the police department, or send checks to
the department: Attn. Officer Robert Wirt
at P.O. Box 250 Warrenton, OR.
Willapa gillnetters losing grip
Fishermen lament
season closures, waste
of hatchery runs
By LUKE WHITTAKER
EO Media Group
LONG BEACH, Wash. — It’s been a tough
two years for gillnetters on Willapa Bay.
Battered by increasing costs, stifled by
stricter regulation and furious over fewer fishing
days, commercial gillnetters have been gritting
their teeth since 2015 when a new management
plan was instituted by the Washington Depart-
ment of Fish and Wildlife.
As some in the industry were forced to sell
their boats and find new work, others remain
steadfast and galvanized in their resolve in call-
ing for change in what they say has been mis-
management by state officials in Olympia.
Gillnetting gradually fading
Approximately 40 commercial gillnetters
currently work on Willapa, a small fraction of
what used to be there.
“There isn’t a fleet here anymore,” said gill-
netter Gary Walters, 59, in between drags on
his cigarette. “There used to be 100 boats, now
you’re lucky if there’s 10.” In 2016, 23 different
gillnetters made deliveries at the Port of Pen-
insula during a season fragmented by frequent
closures.
“It’s gotten worse and worse,” said Warren
Cowell, a shellfish farmer and gillnetter who’s
“losing hope.”
“Most of the gillnetters these days have other
jobs,” Cowell said. “You can’t make a living as
a gillnetter anymore.”
See GILLNETTERS, Page 10A
Luke Whittaker/EO Media Group
Warren Cowell unloads a late-run coho caught in Novem-
ber. “I think they’re the best salmon that come into the
bay, the late run silvers. They come in on the big moons,
the big tides, when the water’s cold,” Cowell said.