DailyAstorian.com // WEDNESDAY, MARCH 29, 2017
144TH YEAR, NO. 194
ONE DOLLAR
Stormwater project at Port behind schedule
Project also over
its original budget
By EDWARD STRATTON
The Daily Astorian
T
Danny Miller/The Daily Astorian
Port of Astoria Operations Manager Matt McGrath points
to a new pump station feeding runoff to the Port’s new
stormwater treatment system on Pier 3 .
he weather has been rough on the Port of Astoria’s
new stormwater treatment system, now about nine
months behind schedule and $750,000 over the orig-
inal budget.
Port Executive Director Jim Knight said there
have been a series of delays because of heavy rains,
cold temperatures and surprises found underground on
Pier 3.
The state Department of Environmental Quality in
2014 required the Port to design a system to better leach
out copper after sampling showed that too much of the
metal was entering the Columbia River from outfall
pipes on Pier 3 and near Pier 1.
Copper can stunt the navigational skills and olfactory
systems of salmon and other marine life. The Port could
lose its federal stormwater permit, and its ability to con-
duct business, if it doesn’t lessen the amount of harmful
materials entering the river.
Environmental consultant Maul Foster Alongi
designed a system in which much of the Port’s storm run-
off would be caught and pumped to a biofi ltration system
before being released into the river . Construction started
in late summer.
A rainy mystery
“This is basically meant to be a big biofi lter,” Matt
McGrath, the Port’s operations manager, said on Pier 3
Tuesday, looking over the Port’s new multimillion-dollar
stormwater treatment plant.
See PORT, Page 7A
Port of Astoria Executive Director Jim Knight said there are issues with a berm surrounding the
retention ponds delaying completion of the agency’s new stormwater treatment system on Pier 3.
Edward Stratton/The Daily Astorian
Kujala takes bow as Warrenton mayor Locals could
partner with state
on transit projects
Balensifer,
Newton vie
for open post
By ERICK BENGEL
The Daily Astorian
WARRENTON — Before
his family, friends, supporters
and “Thank You” balloons,
Mayor Mark Kujala struck
his gavel a fi nal time Tues-
day night after serving more
than a decade on the City
Commission.
Earlier this month, Kujala
announced he would step
down to focus on his fam-
ily and business. The com-
mission will vote to appoint
Kujala’s successor at the next
meeting in April. Commis-
sioners Henry Balensifer and
Rick Newton plan to nominate
themselves.
Because the commission
will have four members, a tie
vote could complicate mat-
ters. Balensifer, the mayor pro
tem, will remain acting mayor
until the position is fi lled.
“That’ll be interesting,
to see how it shakes out,”
Lawmakers
are exploring
regional option
By PARIS ACHEN
Capital Bureau
Erick Bengel/The Daily Astorian
Mayor Mark Kujala, center, accepts a plaque in recognition and apprecation of his service
on the City Commission, flanked by Commissioners Tom Dyer, left, and Henry Balensifer.
Newton said.
Kujala, the owner of Ski-
panon Brand Seafood, served
on the commission 12 years,
fi ve as mayor. In the 2014
election, he became the city’s
fi rst elected mayor. Histori-
cally, city commissioners had
appointed the mayor for a
one-year term, as Kujala was
in 2011, 2013 and 2014.
Kujala helped guide the
city during the Great Coastal
Gale of 2007. More recently,
he emphasized urban renewal
and economic development.
He sought to certify Warren-
ton’s levees while challenging
the Federal Emergency Man-
agement Agency’s plans to
implement fl ood plain maps
that may overstate Warren-
ton’s fl ood risk and cause
spikes in insurance rates.
Kujala also oversaw the
community during the divi-
sive dispute over Oregon
LNG’s attempts to build a liq-
uefi ed natural gas pipeline
and terminal on the Skipanon
Peninsula. After the proposed
See KUJALA, Page 7A
SALEM — A legislative
committee charged with craft-
ing a transportation package
is considering a new fund-
ing model in which local gov-
ernments would “go Dutch”
with the state on projects of
regional interest.
“The concept of the state
and regions developing a
whole new partnership, a
whole new style of working
together, to build transpor-
tation infrastructure is trans-
formative,” said Andy Shaw,
regional affairs manager at
Metro.
The approach would help
address declines in federal
support of transportation infra-
structure and state funding that
has not kept pace with robust
population and employment
growth in the Portland metro
area, Shaw said.
The proposal came out of a
work group tasked with fi nd-
ing projects to relieve traffi c
congestion largely in the Port-
land metro area.
The group, a subset of the
larger Joint Committee on
Transportation Preservation
and Modernization, this week
recommended nearly $1.1 bil-
lion in congestion-relieving
projects in the next 10 years.
The projects are largely
concentrated in Portland
metro areas that bottleneck
such as n orth Portland’s Rose
Quarter on Interstate 5 and the
Abernethy Bridge between
Oregon City and West Linn
on Interstate 205.
See TRANSIT, Page 7A
A whale of a problem
Wreck leaves agency
pondering ‘whimsical’
salvage options for Hero
By NATALIE ST. JOHN
EO Media Group
BAY CENTER, Wash. — With the Hero
oil spill now mostly under control, state agen-
cies and oyster growers are trying to solve other
problems that arose when the derelict Antarctic
research vessel sank in early March .
There are still unresolved questions about
who is responsible for the boat and the cleanup.
The state’s derelict vessel program is critically
short on cash and the riddle of how to get a frag-
ile, polluted, 300-ton wooden boat out of a small
river is proving stubbornly hard to resolve.
Even so, oyster growers are cautiously opti-
mistic that the spill will not cause any long-term
damage.
“I think the important thing is we saw a pro-
gression each day of less and less oil and sheen,”
Bay Center Mariculture owner Dick Wilson
said . While most of his oysters are in Willapa
Bay, well away from the spill, the company has
its headquarters on Bay Center Dike Road, right
next to the Hero.
Wilson said he thought the state agencies
have been “very responsive,” and have done a
good job of communicating with those affected
by the spill.
“Unless something gets disturbed, which I
am not capable of predicting, we just don’t have
much going on right now except a big hulking
boat sitting in the river,” Wilson said.
See WRECK, Page 4A
Damian Mulinix/For EO Media Group
The once remarkable vessel Hero lists to the starboard
side as it rests almost completely underwater near the
mouth of the Palix River in Bay Center.