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JOHN D. BRUIJN, Production Manager
DEBRA BLOOM, Business Manager
E
SHOUTOUTS
This week’s Shoutouts go to:
• Cannon Beach Chamber of Commerce members who
received honors last week during the organization’s annual mem-
bership awards ceremony. Beachcomber Vacation Homes was
named Member of the Year, while Maggie & Henry was hon-
ored for Excellence in Customer Service. Buddie Asay Anderson
Deni received the honor of Volunteer of the Year and Coaster
Construction earned recognition as Supporter of the Year.
Chamber Executive Director Court Carrier detailed the chamber’s
most recent accomplishments and told the gathering it had been
an “incredible year.” Carrier cited a number of the city’s economic
achievements including continued growth in tourism throughout
the year.
• The Astoria Music Festival, which is preparing to open for
its 15th season in June. The nonprofit festival organization will
hold a series of classical music events featuring international art-
ists from June 10 through June 25. The festival’s season will open
with a memorial tribute to Michael Foster, an Astoria teacher, art
collector and longtime board member who died in December.
The musical tribute will be a performance of Beethoven’s Ninth
Symphony, which was Foster’s favorite piece of music.
Danny Miller/The Daily Astorian
Naselle Youth Camp students dig and plant along the Megler Creek
restoration project near Dismal Nitch.
• Students from the Naselle Youth Camp in Washington state
who recently participated in a restoration project near Dismal
Nitch. Six students and two instructors, in partnership with the
Lewis and Clark Historical Park and the Columbia River Estuary
Taskforce, planted native species such as thimbleberry and red
twig along the east bank of Megler Creek as part of the effort to
restore the creek.
• Astor School students who participated in the annual Jump
Rope for Heart event on Valentine’s Day. The event raised $5,577
for the Heart Association.
• The Ilwaco High School girls basketball team, which con-
cluded its season with a run in the state playoffs that landed them
in the Top 5 in the 58-team 2B classification. The Lady Fishermen
placed fifth in the state tournament with a 23-win regular season
and had six additional wins in the playoffs. For the players, the
season’s achievements and the playoff run was “a dream come
true.” As player Makenzie Kaech said afterward, “Kids dream of
playing here growing up.”
• The Seaside High School boys and girls basketball teams,
which advanced Thursday to the “Final Four” of the state 4A tour-
naments and will be in action again today.
COUNTERPOINT
Warrenton
wants to
use dam for
flood control
Dam is
obsolete and
potentially
dangerous
By MARK KUJALA
For The Daily Astorian
By TESSA SCHELLER and GAIL GALEN
For The Daily Astorian
OUR VIEW
ach week we recognize those people and organizations
in the community deserving of public praise for the good
things they do to make the North Coast a better place to
live, and also those who should be called out for their actions.
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, MARCH 10, 2017
M
any people have asked: “What is
going on with the Eighth Street
Dam?”
The dam is a flood control structure
constructed similar to the
numerous levees Warrenton
maintains on the Skipanon
River. It’s located off of S.
Main and Eighth Street. It
has a gravel road across the
top and a large opening in the
middle to control water flow during the incom-
ing and outgoing tides.
The structure was built during the early
1960s to control the water levels upstream
along the Skipanon River for agriculture land
use, which benefited upriver landowners with
flood control of their property. The Skipanon
Water Control District was created to manage
the structure. The water levels were originally
controlled through a series of boards that
were placed-horizontally in the opening of the
structure.
Design change
In 2002, the water district decided to change
the design of the structure to make it easier to
operate and maintain, and to create opportuni-
ties for fish passage and to enhance water flow.
The structure was altered without input from
the community, and the water levels signifi-
cantly increased upstream of the dam because it
was now subject to tidal influx.
The water district later approached the city
wishing to remove the Eighth Street structure
entirely. The city agreed to look into a bridge
proposal to replace the dam, and engaged the
Columbia River Estuary Study Taskforce to
further explore the possibility.
As engineering and hydrology reports asso-
ciated with the project were revealed, it came
to the city’s attention there might be additional
flooding to properties upstream and a potential
impact to the levees. Furthermore, a 2002
Natural Resources and Conservation Service
report detailed that before the 2002 modifica-
tion to the structure was to take place; levees,
tide gates, and waterfront property should have
been fortified so that any damage from the
new incoming tides and elevated water levels
wouldn’t adversely affect both property and
city infrastructure. It was also suggested that
flood plain easements might need to be pur-
chased from property owners before changes
to the dam were made. Those steps never
occurred, and the 2002 NRCS report was just
recently made public late in 2016.
Complaints
The city has received complaints about
property flooding and erosion upstream of
the dam. Tide gates and levees have been
damaged and the cost to the city to fix these
issues has been considerable during the last 14
years. Most troubling is that the water district
removed the tide gate doors from the Eighth
Street structure in November 2015 that were
designed to prevent stormwater flooding in
the winter months. The city believes these tide
gate doors should be put back on and operated
as intended, for the benefit of the citizens of
Warrenton.
At an impasse with the water district, the
city has reached out to the U.S. Army Corps of
Engineers for assistance in determining what
to do next. We have also remained open to
mediation with the water district. The city was
prepared for mediation in December; however
the water district pulled out of that planned
meeting. The city wishes to avoid litigation,
but liabilities and responsibilities for the Eighth
Street Dam have yet to be determined and
hopefully that can be done swiftly.
Mark Kujala is the mayor of Warrenton.
Do you have a Shoutout or Callout you think we should know about? Let
us know at news@dailyastorian.com and we’ll make sure to take a look.
Fiction for fact
Mayor Mark Kujala stated that he wants to
operate the structure “as intended, for the benefit
of the citizens of Warrenton.” That substitutes
fiction for fact. The dam was never intended to
benefit the city.
Mayor Kujala also stated that dam manage-
ment changes were made “without input from
the community.” This statement is also fiction.
There have been many documented public
meetings on the dam, frequently attended by the
mayor’s own family. The City Commission was
often specifically invited, but declined to attend.
All recommendations made by the Natural
Resources Conservation Service in 2002, includ-
ing those listed by the mayor, were taken into
consideration by the district. The district is using
new scientific, technical analyses, performed by
an independent, international, engineering firm.
The mayor claims that there has been “con-
siderable” flood damage to city properties for
the last 14 years. That period includes 10 years
during which the tide gates were in operation,
before they were permanently lifted, and later
removed. So obviously, by the mayor’s own
admission, the tide gates did not perform to
prevent property flooding.
As to the mayor’s comments about riverside
property erosion risks; any property on any river
is at risk for erosion, unless the river is enclosed
in concrete.
Moving forward
A dam inspection was performed by the
Oregon Water Resources Department in
December 2012.
Key findings noted the lack of an emergency
spillway and a substantial restriction to the
natural drainage of stormwater. The dam hazard
classification was rated between “significant”
and “high.” The report states, “An engineering
analysis of the dam, and options for its removal
are warranted”.
That urgent advice from the state has been
diligently followed by the district. With support
from the city, the district obtained funds from the
Bonneville Power Administration to remove the
dam and to replace it with a safe bridge specifi-
cally for the benefit of Warrenton citizens, at no
cost to them.
This was a “shovel ready” project of local
significance, until the city’s support was abruptly
withdrawn in spite of permits already issued by
both the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the
Oregon Department of State Lands.
As surprising and disappointing as that abrupt
reversal was, the district was further shocked
when the City Commission chose to spend city
taxpayer money to hire an attorney to threaten
litigation against the district.
It was the district, not the city, who initiated
a mediation process several months ago. We
hoped to resolve this puzzling aggression with-
out an expensive adversarial conflict.
No evidence
CALLOUTS
This week’s Callouts go to:
• The Oregon Department of Transportation, which is con-
tinuing to receive critical audits at a time when it’s asking for huge
budget increases for transportation infrastructure improvements.
In the latest audit, released earlier this week by Secretary of State
Dennis Richardson, it found that ODOT’s contracting system is
vulnerable to contractor gamesmanship and fraud despite a decade
of warnings from the department’s own employees. The audit
found that the department fails to employ methods to track “unbal-
anced” bids, meaning those with unrealistic line-item amounts
meant to boost profits. The audit’s findings were similar to one in
2008 which cited “unbalanced” bidding, suggesting that the prob-
lem hasn’t been correctly addressed. While ODOT officials ques-
tioned the audit’s methodology, they agreed with the recommen-
dation to more closely track line items in the bid through project
completion.
Suggestions?
T
he Eighth Street Dam was one of 10,000
federally funded projects for agricultural
lands in the U.S. that were prone to
flooding. Completed in 1963, it had a design life
of 50 years. A special district was formed under
Oregon law for taxation. A taxpayer elected
Board of Directors manages the dam.
The dam is located in Warrenton, but the bulk
of the water district (the lands intended to be
improved) are outside of Warrenton in Clatsop
Plains. Property owners within the district have
paid a special tax since 1963 for the manage-
ment of the dam.
Unfortunately, there was a gross underesti-
mation of our rainfall during the original design
process. This resulted in undersized culverts in
the dam that cannot adequately empty the vast
watershed that drains through the mouth of the
Skipanon River.
Joshua Bessex/The Daily Astorian
Warrenton wants to restore the Eighth Street
Dam for flood control and has sought guid-
ance from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
There is no evidence that the Eighth Street
Dam prevents significant flooding. There is
plenty of evidence that the dam restricts outflow
and actually contributes to flooding upstream.
The dam is obsolete, maybe dangerous.
The district’s board has a legal, fiduciary
and constitutional duty to its taxpaying constitu-
ents who have funded the maintenance of
this structure for over 50 years. Those taxpayers
deserve to have their rights defended. Potential
mismanagement of this aging structure by the
city, for an imagined benefit to the city, could
harm upstream taxpayers. Does that seem
right?
A question the taxpayers of Warrenton should
ask their elected representatives: How much
taxpayer money has the city spent in an attempt
to seize control of a dangerous and obsolete dam
from another public body that has been working
hard to do the right thing? And perhaps equally
important: why?
As we move toward removal, imagine much
improved water quality, a once again navigable
Skipanon River, and more healthy salmon runs,
all at no cost to city taxpayers. That was, and is,
the district’s goal. We hope you will agree that it
should be the city’s goal as well.
Tessa Scheller is the chairwoman and Gail
Galen is secretary of the Skipanon Water Con-
trol District board.