OPINION
4A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • MONDAY, MAY 15, 2017
Founded in 1873
DAVID F. PERO, Publisher & Editor
LAURA SELLERS, Managing Editor
BETTY SMITH, Advertising Manager
JEREMY FELDMAN, Circulation Manager
DEBRA BLOOM, Business Manager
JOHN D. BRUIJN, Production Manager
CARL EARL, Systems Manager
OUR VIEW
Invest in good
science to track
marine toxin
hen the marine toxin domoic acid was first reported
in Pacific Northwest waters in 1991, it caused a flurry
of public consternation and scientific excitement.
Specialist conferences were convened about this new kid on the
block, joining older issues like paralytic shellfish poisoning.
The shellfish poisoning hasn’t been a problem since then, but
domoic acid — which causes amnesic shellfish poisoning — more
than makes up for it. It’s a byproduct produced by a kind of micro-
scopic marine organism. Domoic acid first generated headlines
in 1987 after mussels raised on Prince Edward Island in eastern
Canada resulted in human deaths and illnesses, including loss of
the ability to store short-term memories.
After it appeared here, speculation arose that it could have
been around longer, perhaps not causing significant problems. But
speculation is no substitute for scientific facts, and the fact is that
domoic acid is first known on this coast in the past quarter-century,
where outbreaks have killed seabirds and marine mammals from
California to Alaska.
Perhaps due to the rich nutrients in the Columbia River plume,
Clatsop County has Oregon’s best razor clam populations, while
the beaches in Pacific and Grays Harbor counties to the river
mouth’s north are the best in Washington state. Clams gener-
ate regional tourist revenue in the tens of millions in good years.
Dungeness crabs, which eat razor clams and other toxin-impacted
prey, can also be contaminated by the toxin during severe out-
breaks, threatening the most lucrative commercial fishery in the
two states. As we reported last week, domoic levels seriously
impacted the 2016-17 clam and crab seasons.
Oregon and Washington state both bar recreational and com-
mercial razor clam digging on ocean beaches when the toxin level
rises to 20 parts per million in sampled clam flesh. A study last
year suggested even this threshold is open to re-examination, since
some harm apparently can accumulate from consumption of sea-
food that passes current standards.
It’s vitally important to better understand exactly what causes
spikes in toxin levels. Warmer ocean waters associated with El
Niños and the Blob — an unusual mass of warm water in the
northeast Pacific — are a strong suspect. Such conditions are vir-
tually sure to become more common as the century continues to
warm up. Will this permanently degrade important shellfish indus-
tries? It’s possible that after acute recent problems, the domo-
ic-generating algae will go away or quit generating the toxin, as it
has in the past. But we can’t count on good luck.
Effective monitoring of actual ocean conditions before toxins
enter the near-shore food web is essential. In addition, the states
must strive for more timely information about clam conditions,
and more closely tailor digging times and places to take advantage
of clean clams. For example, in the past year on the Long Beach
Peninsula, digging would have been more-often permissible if
authorities had been willing to open miles-long segments of beach
where domoic levels were low.
Ultimately, it may perhaps be possible to bioengineer the
offending algae so it does not produce domoic acid, or to develop
other novel solutions to the problem. Economic and environmen-
tal harm from marine toxins argues for investment in good science
and aggressive follow through.
W
Get out and vote
uesday is Election Day, and no matter who you would like
to win any of the elections being contested, the important
thing is to vote.
All ballots must be turned in by 8 p.m. If you didn’t previ-
ously mail your ballot, it’s too late to do so, it must be hand-de-
livered to any of nine locations throughout Clatsop County. The
locations can be found at https://www.co.clatsop.or.us/clerk/page/
ballot-drop-site-locations.
Heading toward Election Day, voter turnout is
about even with what it was in the last off-year
election in 2015. As of Friday turnout stood at
22.9 percent of registered voters, while final turn-
out in the 2015 election was 22.8 percent.
While off-year turnout is typically low, there are
contested races for the Port of Astoria Commission, the Clatsop
Community College Board, the Clatsop Care Center Health
District, the Astoria, Seaside and Jewel school boards and the
Sunset Empire Park and Recreation District Board. Voters are
also being asked whether to approve a bond measure for the Port
of Astoria to improve airport infrastructure and relocate the Life
Flight Network, and in Seaside residents are being asked whether
the city should approve a five-year local option tax for fire person-
nel and equipment.
If you haven’t turned in a ballot and want a say in the outcome
in any of those races, now’s the time to do it. Every vote matters.
T
A political ax murder
By CHARLES
KRAUTHAMMER
Washington Post Writers Group
W
ASHINGTON — It was
implausible that FBI
Director James Comey
was fired in May 2017 for actions
committed in
July 2016 — the
rationale contained
in the memo by
Deputy Attorney
General Rod
Rosenstein.
It was implausible that Comey
was fired by Donald Trump for hav-
ing been too tough on Hillary Clin-
ton, as when, at that July news con-
ference, he publicly recited her
various email misdeeds despite rec-
ommending against prosecution.
It was implausible that Trump
fired Comey for, among other
things, reopening the Clinton inves-
tigation 11 days before the elec-
tion, something that at the time
Trump praised as a sign of Comey’s
“guts” that had “brought back his
reputation.”
It was implausible that Trump, a
man notorious for being swayed by
close and loyal personal advisers,
fired Comey on the recommenda-
tion of a sub-Cabinet official whom
Trump hardly knew and who’d been
on the job all of two weeks.
It was implausible that Trump
found Rosenstein’s arguments so
urgently persuasive that he acted
immediately — so precipitously, in
fact, that Comey learned of his own
firing from TVs that happened to be
playing behind him.
These implausibilities were obvi-
ous within seconds of Comey’s fir-
ing and the administration’s imme-
diate attempt to pin it all on the
Rosenstein memo. That was pure
spin. So why in reality did Trump
fire Comey?
Admittedly, Comey had to go.
The cliche is that if you’ve infuri-
ated both sides, it means you must
be doing something right. Some-
times, however, it means you must
be doing everything wrong.
Over the last year, Comey has
been repeatedly wrong. Not, in my
view, out of malice or partisan-
ship (although his self-righteous-
ness about his own probity does
occasionally grate). He was in an
unprecedented situation with unpal-
atable choices. Never in Ameri-
can presidential history had a major
party nominated a candidate under
official FBI investigation. (Turns
out the Trump campaign was under
investigation as well.) Which makes
the normal injunction that FBI
directors not interfere in elections
facile and impossible to follow.
Any course of action — disclosure
or silence, commission or omission
— carried unavoidable electoral
consequences.
AP Photo/Evan Vucci
President Donald Trump talks to reporters Wednesday in the Oval Of-
fice of the White House. Trump, in an apparent warning to his fired FBI
director, said that James Comey had better hope there are no “tapes” of
their conversations. Trump’s tweet came the morning after he asserted
Comey had told him three times that he wasn’t under FBI investigation.
Comey had to make up the rules
as he went along. He did. That was
not his downfall. His downfall was
making up contradictory, illogical
rules, such as the July 5 nonindict-
ment indictment of Clinton.
A series of these — and Comey
became anathema to both Dem-
ocrats and Republicans. Clinton
blamed her loss on two people. One
of them was Comey.
Whacking
Comey has
brought
more critical
attention to the
Russia story
than anything
imaginable.
And there’s the puzzle. There
was ample bipartisan sentiment for
letting Comey go. And there was
ample time from Election Day on to
do so. A simple talk, a gold watch,
a friendly farewell, a Comey resig-
nation to allow the new president to
pick the new director. No fanfare,
no rancor.
True, this became more diffi-
cult after March 20 when Comey
revealed that the FBI was investigat-
ing the alleged Trump-Russia col-
lusion. Difficult but not impossible.
For example, just last week Comey
had committed an egregious factual
error about the Huma Abedin emails
that the FBI had to abjectly walk
back in a written memo to the Sen-
ate Judiciary Committee.
Here was an opportunity for a
graceful exit: Comey regrets the
mistake and notes that some of the
difficult decisions he had previously
made necessarily cost him the con-
fidence of various parties. Time for
a clean slate. Add the usual boiler-
plate about not wanting to be a dis-
traction at such a crucial time. Awk-
ward perhaps, but still dignified and
amicable.
Instead we got this — a political
ax murder, brutal even by Washing-
ton standards. (Or even Roman stan-
dards. Where was the vein-open-
ing knife and the warm bath?) No
final meeting, no letter of resigna-
tion, no presidential thanks, no cor-
dial parting. Instead, a blindsided
Comey ends up in a live-streamed
O.J. Bronco ride, bolting from Los
Angeles to be flown, defrocked,
back to Washington.
Why? Trump had become
increasingly agitated with the Rus-
sia-election investigation and Com-
ey’s very public part in it. If Trump
thought this would kill the inquiry
and the story, or perhaps even just
derail it somewhat, he’s made the
blunder of the decade. Whack-
ing Comey has brought more criti-
cal attention to the Russia story than
anything imaginable. It won’t stop
the FBI investigation. And the con-
firmation hearings for a successor
will become a nationally televised
forum for collusion allegations,
which up till now have remained a
scandal in search of a crime.
So why did he do it? Now we
know: The king asked whether no
one would rid him of this trouble-
some priest, and got so impatient he
did it himself.
WHERE TO WRITE
• U.S. Rep. Suzanne Bonamici
(D): 2338 Rayburn HOB, Washing-
ton, D.C., 20515. Phone: 202- 225-
0855. Fax 202-225-9497. District
office: 12725 SW Millikan Way,
Suite 220, Beaverton, OR 97005.
Phone: 503-469-6010. Fax 503-326-
5066. Web: bonamici.house. gov/
• U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley (D): 313
Hart Senate Office Building, Wash-
ington, D.C. 20510. Phone: 202-224-
3753. Web: www.merkley.senate.gov
• U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden (D):
221 Dirksen Senate Office Building,
Washington, D.C., 20510. Phone:
202-224-5244. Web: www.wyden.
senate.gov
• State Rep. Brad Witt (D):
State Capitol, 900 Court Street N.E.,
H-373, Salem, OR 97301. Phone:
503-986-1431. Web: www.leg.state.
or.us/witt/ Email: rep.bradwitt@
state.or.us
• State Rep. Deborah Boone (D):
900 Court St. N.E., H-481, Salem,
OR 97301. Phone: 503-986-1432.
Email: rep.deborah boone@state.
or.us District office: P.O. Box 928,
Cannon Beach, OR 97110. Phone:
503-986-1432. Web: www.leg.state.
or.us/ boone/
• State Sen. Betsy Johnson (D):
State Capitol, 900 Court St. N.E.,
S-314, Salem, OR 97301. Telephone:
503-986-1716. Email: sen.betsy john-
son@state.or.us Web: www.betsy-
johnson.com District Office: P.O.
Box R, Scappoose, OR 97056. Phone:
503-543-4046. Fax: 503-543-5296.
Astoria office phone: 503-338-1280.
• Port of Astoria: Executive
Director, 10 Pier 1 Suite 308, Asto-
ria, OR 97103. Phone: 503-741-3300.
Email: admin@portofastoria.com
• Clatsop County Board of Com-
missioners: c/o County Manager, 800
Exchange St., Suite 410, Astoria, OR
97103. Phone: 503-325-1000.