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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 2017
Session: Members of
both parties seek to pass
a transportation package
Continued from Page 1A
suing the administration to
stop enforcement of the order.
“There’s obviously a
great deal of concern here
for our vulnerable neighbors
who are under attack by the
actions of the White House,”
said House Majority Leader
Jennifer Williamson, D-Port-
land. “We’ve resolved to
stand with them and to use
very legal tool at our disposal
to protect them.”
Invocation
In a gesture of resistance
to Trump’s executive order,
House Speaker Tina Kotek
kicked off Wednesday with
an invocation from a Port-
land imam.
Imam
Muhammed
Najieb, director of the Mus-
lim Community Center of
Portland, recited opening
chapters of the Quran on the
floor of the House.
“I hope the recitation he
shared with us today helps
send the message to those
in the Capitol and to Orego-
nians across the state: every-
one is welcome here,” Kotek
said in a statement.
Meanwhile, on the floor
of the Senate, Minority
Leader Ted Ferrioli, R-John
Day, spoke to some Demo-
crats’ anxiety concerning the
Trump administration.
“We understand how
Democrats may be feeling,
especially when they look at
the Washington, D.C., situa-
tion, and it’s a terrible thing
to be without any access to
the levers of power,” Ferrioli
said. “We certainly know how
that feels here in Oregon.”
Ferrioli said he hoped
that Democrats would work
with Republicans to solve
the state’s pressing problems.
Republicans have asked
Democrats for reforms to the
Public Employees Retire-
ment System, spending cur-
tailment and adjustment to
the carbon fuels standard in
exchange for their support of
tax measures for general rev-
enue and transportation.
Compromise needed
Despite the Legislature’s
Democratic majority, Repub-
lican votes are needed to pass
tax measures, which require
a three-fifths majority vote.
“We need compromise on
key legislative issues before
us, and we would like to start
by reaching out. Republicans
are reaching out to Demo-
crats in the spirit of compro-
mise, and we hope that this
sets a tone for a very produc-
tive legislative session,” Fer-
rioli said.
Some
Republicans
said they worry the state’s
$1.8 billion budget gap
may grow larger as federal
matching formulas change
under the new presiden-
tial administration. One of
those potential changes is
the way health care is sub-
sidized for the poor under
Medicaid.
Republicans
in Congress have vowed
to repeal the Affordable
Care Act, casting more
uncertainty on Oregon’s state
budget.
“We’ve seen this play out
in the reverse when Demo-
crats in Congress had a Dem-
ocratic president, red states
suffered,” said Rep. Julie
Parrish, R-West Linn. “Now,
it’s the opposite. Now, we’re
a blue state with a red fed-
eral administration, and we
have the potential to make
our $1.8 billion budget hole
worse.”
Transportation
package
One area where lawmak-
ers from both parties agree
is on their desire to pass a
transportation package this
session.
“To be frank, since I’ve
been in this building, this is
the one session that has actu-
ally so far, been the most
civil and been the most non-
partisan,” said Sen. Brian
Boquist, R-Dallas, who sits a
joint committee crafting the
transportation package.
Two Democrats and two
Republicans are heading up
that effort.
Sen. Sara Gelser, D-Cor-
vallis, said this session gives
“an opportunity for Oregon
to shine and really demon-
strate our Oregon values and
to make Oregonians proud of
the place that we live.”
Fish plan: Decrease isn’t expected
to affect staffing in the short term
Continued from Page 1A
includes two other Mitch-
ell Act-affected hatcheries
on the Klaskanine River and
Gnat Creek, neither of which
are significantly affected by
changing production.
Each year, Big Creek
raises and releases on average
543,000 coho, 154,000 chum
and 55,000 winter steelhead.
But the hatchery’s biggest
export by far is the 3.1 million
fall “tule” Chinook salmon
released each year, which
will be capped at 1.4 million
by 2022. Klaskanine Hatch-
ery, which Dietrichs said is
largely funded by Bonneville
Power Administration, will
continue to produce a maxi-
mum of more than 2.4 million
Chinook.
Each fall, Chinook that
make it past recreational and
commercial fishermen come
back up Big Creek, ready to
spawn, into holding ponds.
The hatchery’s staff, often
with the help of local stu-
dents, removes eggs from
ripe adults, sending the fish to
local food pantries or deposit-
ing in local streams for nutri-
ents. The hatchery raises the
eggs into alevin, places the
fry into cement raceways and
releases them as juveniles in
the spring. The cycle starts
over again when previously
released salmon, drawn back
by the smell of the water and
other navigation techniques
not totally understood by sci-
entists, return to their artificial
spawning grounds after years
of feeding in the ocean.
“Coho are solid,” Dietrichs
said of the more than half-mil-
lion coho the hatchery raises.
“They really hone into their
home site. Tules stray more.
That’s what’s really driving
the changes” in production.
Strays
About 80 percent of the
salmon caught in the Colum-
bia River are raised in hatcher-
ies, which supplement endan-
gered wild species being
Danny Miller/The Daily Astorian
Steelhead salmon flop around in a net at Big Creek Fish Hatchery.
rebuilt and allow for commer-
cial and recreational fisheries,
but can also compete with and
hinder their recovery.
Rob Jones, chief of Anad-
romous Production and Inland
Fisheries for NOAA Fisher-
ies’ West Coast region, said
the agency started in 2013
looking at the impacts of
hatcheries on the recovery of
endangered wild salmon spe-
cies. Special focus was paid
to where farmed fish stray
onto wild spawning grounds,
breeding with and weakening
the genetics of wild salmon.
On Jan. 15, NOAA
released a biological opin-
ion detailing changes com-
ing over the next several years
to the 62 hatcheries on the
Columbia receiving federal
funding through the Mitch-
ell Act, along with about
$1.8 million in federal fund-
ing withheld until the opinion
was issued. Jones estimated
the act funds about 50 mil-
lion of the 120 to 140 million
hatchery salmon produced
in the Columbia River Basin
each year through a variety
of agreements to mitigate the
impact of development.
The result was a decrease
in federal funding for Chi-
nook production that fish-
ery managers have estimated
will translate into a 7 percent
reduction in commercial and
recreational landings. Federal
funding for coho, which have
been found less harmful to
wild stocks, was increased and
is expected to raise catches
by 4 percent. While it’s Chi-
nook production is being
halved, Big Creek is expected
to increase coho production
from 543,000 now to a maxi-
mum of 735,000 by 2022.
NOAA’s biological opin-
ion also included a require-
ment to use only breed-
ing stock that originates in
the Columbia, reducing the
genetic risk to native fish
stocks, and more monitoring
of the effects of hatcheries on
wild salmon.
Healthier upstream
While fall Chinook pro-
duction was drastically cut on
the lower Columbia, Bonne-
ville Hatchery is expected to
go from 2.5 to a maximum of
5 million Chinook produced
each year.
“The wild stocks in the
lower river, what we call the
coastal area, are in worse
shape than the stocks in the
Cascade stratum upstream,
or in the (Columbia River)
Gorge stratum,” Jones said.
“That was the No. 1 factor
for reducing production in the
estuary.”
Jones said states continue
to research why estuary fish
do worse. Scott Patterson, the
manager of Oregon Depart-
ment of Fish and Wildlife’s
fish propagation program,
said there are several guesses
as to why, although none of
them conclusive. One idea,
he said, is that there are sim-
ply more wild and farmed fish
caught in the estuary.
Patterson said he doesn’t
expect the decrease in Chi-
nook production at Big Creek
to affect staffing in the short
term, with about nine staffers
shared between Big Creek and
Klaskanine. Dietrichs said
production has changed every
year he’s been at Big Creek
Hatchery, but that his focus
remains on raising quality fish
for other hatcheries and con-
sumers on the river.
Girls: Kits will be sent ‘all over the world’
Continued from Page 1A
Anna Reed /Statesman-Journal
People gather outside hearing rooms on the first day
of the Oregon 2017 legislative session at the Oregon
State Capitol in Salem on Wednesday.
Garner: Court found no
‘wrongdoing by police,
prosecutors, or trial judge’
Continued from Page 1A
The appeals court on
Wednesday rejected Garner’s
claim that his attorneys also
failed to properly challenge
the trial court’s dismissal of
a juror who was uncomfort-
able with the death penalty.
Both Garner and the state
Department of Justice, which
had fought against a new
sentencing hearing, could
appeal Wednesday’s ruling to
the state Supreme Court.
The appeals court rul-
ing raises the possibility the
infamous case will return to
Clatsop County. Garner and
a friend, Leslie Roy Simp-
kins, were charged with kill-
ing Bailey for talking about
their drug activity. Simpkins
claimed he was a bystander
to Garner’s cocaine-and-al-
cohol-fueled rage with Simp-
kins’ knife that August day
on the run-down boat. Simp-
kins was acquitted of aggra-
vated murder in 2002 after
two trials.
District Attorney Josh
Marquis, who prosecuted
Garner and Simpkins, spoke
of the difficulty of redoing
the sentence for a crime that
is nearly two decades old.
“Given that it took four
years to take this case to trial,
finding out 19 years after the
murder that an appeals court
may require a new penalty
phase is very disappointing,”
the district attorney said in an
email.
Marquis said Garner’s
guilt is not an issue, nor is the
conduct of local police, pros-
ecutors or the Circuit Court.
Garner’s arguments now rest
“on claims that one of his
appellate lawyers failed to
raise an issue. At no point did
the court find any wrongdo-
ing by police, prosecutors, or
the trial judge.”
Ryan O’Connor, a Port-
land attorney who repre-
sented Garner before the
Court of Appeals, said: “I’m
sure that he’s pleased to get
an opportunity for resentenc-
ing, but disappointed in the
result of the juror issue. We’ll
have to consult with him to
see whether he wants to ask
the Oregon Supreme Court to
review the juror issue.”
Kristina Edmunson, the
communications director at
the state Department of Jus-
tice, said the state is “review-
ing the court’s decision and
evaluating our next steps.”
The Rainier Oregon Stake,
which oversees the other con-
gregations, is leading the proj-
ect through Days for Girls, an
international nonprofit founded
by a Mormon woman but that is
independent of the church.
In April, members of these
churches will meet for two days
in Rainier and assemble full
kits, which will be taken to the
Days for Girls headquarters in
Lindy, Washington, and, from
there, transported to where they
are needed.
Ken Jones, an Astoria ward
member, said the churches do
not know where Days for Girls
will send the kits.
“They do projects all over
the world. A good share of
them do go to Africa, but there
are some that go to South
America,” he said. “Wherever
the young women are having
problems getting their school
in, and having this problem (of
feminine hygiene), they help
out.”
The kit includes eight absor-
bent flannel pads, two “shields”
(fabric stuffed with liner) that
act as moisture barriers, two
pairs of underwear, plastic bags
for clean and soiled items, a
washcloth and travel-sized
soap.
“We are all donating our
own time and our own materi-
als to make these,” Joy Jones,
an Astoria church leader and
Ken Jones’ wife, said.
Early Days for Girls ideas
included sending regular dis-
posable pads. But disposal is a
problem in places where waste
infrastructure isn’t up to the
task.
Pads “end up just clogging
their water systems. They throw
them away, and they get into
fences, they get into the brush
and the bushes … So dispos-
able things do not work at all,”
Joy Jones said.
Avoiding trash buildup is
one reason why tampons aren’t
part of the kit. (Another is a cul-
tural taboo, in some regions,
against insertable items.)
The chosen fabrics are pat-
Submitted Photo
From left: Joy Jones, Toni Kasper, Renee Vocana and Eliza Ferrin — four Days for Girls
committee leaders — helped organize Saturday’s event at the Astoria Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-day Saints church.
terned and darkly colored so
that staining isn’t obvious —
a key feature in managing the
stigma of menstruation.
In Western countries, where
menstruation does not perma-
nently stunt a woman’s life, this
stigma can be hard to imagine.
“You never think about
something like this being a
problem in another country,”
Joy Jones said.
But traditional beliefs in
some villages of Africa, the
Indian subcontinent and else-
where mandate that women
on their period spend up to
one week a month sequestered
in a hut, often with little to no
human contact. Teenage girls
frequently fall behind their male
classmates, and many abandon
their education altogether.
“When we first heard of
it, we said, ‘Well, of course
— of course this is some-
thing we need to do,’” Jones
said, “because it just seemed
so logical that we need to help
these young girls in these other
countries.”
Emma Goldthorpe, 12, a
Warrenton church member
who participated in Saturday’s
bag-making, said in an email
message that she enjoyed “help-
ing to serve other girls who live
far away from me.”
“I learned they don’t have
some things I do, but we are
all still girls,” she wrote. “It felt
nice to help.”
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