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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 3, 2017)
144TH YEAR, NO. 133 DailyAstorian.com // TUESDAY, JANUARY 3, 2017 ONE DOLLAR Technology may offer struggling timber hope Two mills test panels By GILLIAN FLACCUS and PHUONG LE Associated Press RIDDLE — John Redfield watches with pride as his son moves a laser-guided preci- sion saw the size of a semi-truck wheel into place over a massive panel of wood. Redfield’s fingers are scarred from a life- time of cutting wood and now, after decades of decline in the logging business, he has new hope that his son, too, can make a career shaping the timber felled in southern Ore- gon’s forests. See TIMBER, Page 4A Danny Miller/The Daily Astorian A crew works on CREST’s Columbia-Pacific Passage Habitat Restoration project located along Highway 401 on Thursday in Washington. Reconnecting the river with the past Fish-passage work brings Megler Creek back to the time of Corps of Discovery Shielded sites thrust into debate over dams By EDWARD STRATTON The Daily Astorian ISMAL NITCH, Wash. — Beset by wind, rain and thunder, the Corps of Dis- covery made camp Nov. 12, 1805, near Dismal Nitch at the foot of a small, unnamed stream, today known as Megler Creek. Capt. William Clark wrote in his journal of how the Corps, trying to replenish stocks of pounded fish, killed at least 15 salmon in the stream to supplement their meager rations. Until recently, the creek where the Corps encamped more than 210 years ago ran under a damaged 48-inch culvert beneath the rock rip- rap of Washington State Route 401, limiting fish passage to a trickle during high tides. But a partnership between the Lewis and Clark National Historical Park and the Colum- bia River Estuary Study Taskforce will soon restore Megler Creek to its historic levels of fish passage. AP Photo/Gillian Flaccus John Redfield, chief operating officer of D.R. Johnson Lumber Co. in Riddle, poses for a photo as he shows an ex- ample of a cross-laminated timber, or CLT, panel that underwent a flammabil- ity test. D.R. Johnson is one of just two companies in the United States current- ly able to produce the panels. D Danny Miller/The Daily Astorian The Columbia River Estuary Study Taskforce’s Columbia-Pacific Passage Habitat Restoration project hopes to restore salmon passage to Megler Creek. A project by the Co- lumbia River Estuary Study Taskforce and National Park Service is replacing a damaged 48-inch culvert through which Megler Creek travels under Wash- ington State Route 401 with a 12-foot concrete culvert. The project will improve fish passage and create miles of cold-water spawning habitat similar to what the Corps of Discovery encountered more than 200 years ago. Piercing the armor “Research has indicated that nearly 80 per- cent of juvenile out-migrants are using this Washington shoreline as they’re migrating out to sea,” said Jason Smith, a habitat restoration project manager with CREST overseeing the culvert replacement. Juvenile salmon migrating out to sea need off-channel rest stops as they acclimate to salty water, just as adult salmon need habitat to spawn eggs in when coming home. But along a 9-mile stretch of waterfront between Knappton Columbia River Estuary Study Taskforce See CREEK, Page 7A Native American sites caught up in fish fight By KEITH RIDLER Associated Press BOISE, Idaho — A little-known federal program that avoids publicizing its accom- plishments to protect from looters the thou- sands of Native American sites it’s tasked with managing has been caught up in a big net. The Federal Columbia River System Cul- tural Resources Program tracks some 4,000 historical sites that also include homesteads and missions in Oregon, Washington state , Idaho and Montana. Now it’s contributing information as authorities prepare a court-ordered environ- mental impact statement concerning strug- gling salmon and the operation of 14 federal dams in the Columbia River Basin. See DAMS, Page 7A Researchers explore sea lion feast at Bonneville dam Sea lions spread salmon-eating behaviors Columbia Basin Bulletin A new study used the same kind of models that scientists use to track disease to instead examine how some Califor- nia sea lions have learned to prey on salmon gathering to ascend fish ladders at Bonne- ville Dam. Although sea lions com- monly feast on fish, their pre- dation on salmon at Bonne- ville Dam on the Columbia River poses wildlife man- agement challenges. The sea lions that gather on the Colum- bia each spring are protected by the federal Marine Mam- mal Protection Act, while the salmon they are eating are pro- tected by the Endangered Spe- cies Act. In 2008, NOAA Fisheries authorized Oregon, Washing- ton state and Idaho wildlife authorities to begin trapping, removing and sometimes euthanizing sea lions shown to repeatedly prey on salmon at the dam. The removal pro- gram was designed to reduce impacts on protected salmon. NOAA Fisheries recently authorized the states to con- tinue the removals over the next five years. The new study exam- ined the effectiveness of the removal program, employ- ing epidemiological models to assess how the behavior of eat- ing salmon at the dam passes among sea lions. The research concluded that the removal program has successfully slowed the trans- mission of the behavior among sea lions, but would have been more effective if it had started sooner. Intervene early The findings highlight the need to act early “from both a AP Photo/Rick Bowmer See SEA LIONS, Page 7A Water flows through the Bonneville Dam on the Columbia River near Cascade Locks.
