7A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • THURSDAY, JUNE 29, 2017
Plant: ‘You start
dreaming about
pulling these things’
Continued from Page 1A
Taking root
Capital Bureau
Legislators have less than two weeks to finish and vote on a transportation package. The plan includes new taxes and fees
and increases in other taxes and fees to fund maintenance and improvements to roads, bridges, transit and sidewalks.
Transportation: ‘There is bipartisan consensus’
Continued from Page 1A
The agreement addresses
issues that had previously
threatened to undermine the
future of the transportation
plan. The plan still addresses
about eight to 10 years of
needs, according to the Gover-
nor’s Office.
Those included the over-
all amount of taxes and spend-
ing in the package, what the
money went toward and cost
controls on the state’s low-car-
bon fuels standard, Brown
said.
“In terms of the low-car-
bon fuels standard, that is
being institutionalized to
bring stability and certainty
to the system. I think there is
a consensus amongst stake-
holders. You’ll see the con-
sensus approach as the bill
draft comes out,” the gover-
nor said.
Brown declined to say how
the overall amount of the pack-
age has changed but said she is
excited “about the significant
investment we will be making
in public transit.”
“Suffice it to say there is
bipartisan consensus on the
levels,” she added.
Butterflies: Early blue violets are crucial to life cycle
Continued from Page 1A
This is the end point of a
process called “augmentation”
— an ongoing effort to reintro-
duce the threatened silverspot
butterfly to areas the species
disappeared by 1980 by releas-
ing caterpillars at specific sites
across the state.
Last week, the U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Service
announced it will release hun-
dreds of caterpillars at two new
sites this summer and next: the
Nestucca Bay National Wild-
life Refuge in southern Tilla-
mook County and the Saddle
Mountain area in central Clat-
sop County.
Pretty flowers
Policeman’s helmet is here
because it is pretty.
Native to the Himalayas,
it was introduced to North
America as an ornamental
garden plant. But Graeper
would much prefer it if you
planted something else.
Consider columbine, she
says, a native perennial that
flourishes in the North Coast’s
cool, wet climate and pro-
duces intricate, brightly col-
ored flowers.
Policeman’s
helmet
chokes out native plants, fill-
ing up empty spaces or tram-
pling what’s already there.
Native pollinators — think
hummingbirds and honey
bees — don’t like it. In addi-
tion to reducing plant and
animal diversity, police-
man’s helmet also increases
the risk of streambank ero-
sion, according to the land
conservancy.
The effects of policeman’s
Decline
The small reddish-or-
ange butterflies with their
distinctive silver spots were
once found on coastal grass-
lands from Northern Califor-
nia to southern Washington,
but development, changes to
the forest and invasive weeds
and grasses reduced the silver-
spots’ preferred habitat. The
decline is linked primarily to a
lack of early blue violets, “nor-
mally the only plant on which
the Oregon silverspot can suc-
cessfully feed and develop as
larva,” according to Fish and
Wildlife.
These plants are crucial
throughout a silverspot’s life
cycle. Their presence stim-
ulates the female butterflies
to lay eggs in the first place.
Later, young caterpillars feast
on the leaves.
By 1980, the butterflies had
vanished from at least 11 dif-
ferent localities. That same
year, U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service listed the Oregon sil-
verspot as a threatened spe-
cies. In Clatsop County, the
butterflies were noted at Clat-
sop Plains, but the popula-
tion has gone down since this
discovery.
No one has ever docu-
mented a silverspot at the
Nestucca Bay site, but this area
is within the butterfly’s histor-
ical range, according to Fish
and Wildlife. Why silverspots
abandoned Saddle Mountain
is mystery. The violets are still
there, and thriving. The butter-
flies are not. They haven’t been
seen there since the 1970s.
Nestucca will be the first
of the two sites to get this
new influx of caterpillars.
Next summer, it will be Sad-
dle Mountain’s turn. If these
sites are successful, as biolo-
gists expect they will be, they
will bring the overall popula-
tion that much closer to recov-
ery. Currently, silverspots are
established at five sites; the
ultimate recovery goal is 10
self-sustaining populations.
Abraham
Lincoln’s beard
The caterpillars that biol-
The land conservancy first
began to notice the plant at its
Circle Creek property, a hab-
itat reserve south of Seaside
near the Necanicum River.
When land stewards
and volunteers encoun-
tered policeman’s helmet on
the property, they pulled the
plant up by the roots before it
could spread seeds. The seeds
are only viable for up to 18
months and regular pulling
can easily eliminate police-
man’s helmet from an area.
But not this time.
“It just kept coming back
every year and it was get-
ting worse and they couldn’t
really figure out why,” said
Melyssa Graeper, the Neca-
nicum Watershed Council
coordinator.
Then they considered the
plant’s unique characteristics.
Like many invasive plants,
policeman’s helmet is irritat-
ingly resilient. Its seed pods
can eject seeds up to 20 feet
and these seeds don’t have
to land in dirt. They can float
down waterways until they
find soil.
The policeman’s helmet
had to be coming from some-
where upstream, the land con-
servancy concluded. And if
the plants were taking root at
Circle Creek, they were likely
becoming a problem along
streambanks and properties
upstream, too.
The Land Conservancy
works on property it owns.
The Necanicum Watershed
Council, by contrast, works
with landowners on private
property. To nip the growing
problem of policeman’s hel-
met in the literal bud, the two
groups joined forces.
The Nestucca Bay National Wildlife Refuge and Saddle Mountain National Estuary Pro-
gram study areas.
North Coast Land Conservancy
Early blue violets grow wild in the Clatsop Plains. The violets
are critical to the survival of silverspot butterfly caterpillars.
Silverspot butterfly
ogists, such as Walker, will
release this summer come
from labs at Seattle’s Wood-
land Park Zoo and Portland’s
Oregon Zoo.
Scientists collect female
butterflies from the large wild
population at Mount Hebo
in Tillamook County’s Siu-
slaw National Forest and bring
them to labs at the zoos. Here
technicians coax the females
into laying eggs. When lar-
vae hatch from these eggs,
they are so small you could
put them next to a penny and
they wouldn’t even be as long
as Abraham Lincoln’s beard,
Walker said. By the time they
are released, however, the cat-
erpillars are about an inch
long.
Adapted to the environ-
ment, biologists are optimis-
tic that caterpillars at Saddle
Mountain and Nestucca will
succeed, but they also know
not all the caterpillars will live
long enough to become adult
butterflies.
“We don’t expect them all
to survive,” Walker said. But,
she added, “Probably one of
their functions within the eco-
system is to be food for other
things.”
Biologists expect to release
approximately 3,000 cater-
pillars this summer; most
will go to the Nestucca res-
toration site. Some will
seed established sites and the
rest will go back to areas where
their mothers were collected.
helmet can be alarming and
discouraging, said Reich, but
compared to other invasive
weeds Clatsop County deals
with, it can be much less of a
headache to address.
Hope and caution
Japanese knotweed is also
prevalent here; the best way
to deal with it is by using her-
bicides. The billowing, enor-
mous,
yellow-blossomed
Scotch broom is another
scourge. It is nearly impos-
sible to pull older plants by
hand and seeds can persist
in the soil for decades. Chil-
dren not yet born will be car-
rying on Graeper and Reich’s
work to eradicate these nox-
ious weeds.
Policeman’s helmet is
simpler. It is easy — even
fun, say volunteers — to pull
the plants out, and the seeds,
though highly mobile in the
right environment, don’t last
as long.
Regular land conservancy
volunteer Jeff Roehm was out
on Wednesday afternoon pull-
ing policeman’s helmet with
his teenage grandson. He was
working in an area that took
him six hours to clear last
year; yesterday it only took
him 10 minutes. To see that
kind of progress is motivat-
ing, he said.
Roehm, who was born in
Seaside and lives in Portland,
is committed to the cause of
maintaining Circle Creek as
natural reserve filled with
native plants.
“You start dreaming about
pulling these things,” he said
about policeman’s helmet.
All of this gives Graeper
and Reich hope that after
three years, the Necanicum
River could be free, or nearly
free, of policeman’s helmet.
“We could really get in front
of the control of this plant,”
Reich said. “It’s really more
possible to have an effect.”
Constant vigilance is nec-
essary, though, they caution.
Recently, a patch of police-
man’s helmet was spotted
growing merrily on the side of
U.S. Highway 26.
Graeper theorizes a boat
trailer might be responsible.
Volunteers recorded thriv-
ing policeman helmet plants
all over a boat ramp near the
Teevin & Fischer Quarry out-
side Seaside.
Perhaps, when a fisher-
man backed his trailer down
the ramp, some policeman’s
helmet seeds stuck in the mud
ended up clumped between
tire treads. Maybe, on his way
home after a day on the water,
the fisherman pulled over
to check the trailer or take
a bathroom break. Maybe,
Graeper says, those seeds
dropped from the mud and
found another place to spread.
YMCA: Building is
a work in progress
Continued from Page 1A
Weber’s sister, Anna Weber.
The studio’s handiwork can
be seen in signs and design
elements for businesses
around Astoria, from the
painted sign for Reach Break
Brewing on Duane Street to
a 10-foot dimensional sign
curving around the front cor-
ner of Carruthers Restaurant
on Commercial Street.
Up until 1989, the build-
ing was virtually intact. That
fall, though, most of the origi-
nal windows and lintel details
were removed.
“It is our goal to restore
the entire facade to its origi-
nal stature,” Noel Weber said.
“It helps that we have his-
toric photographs, original
blueprints and a few remain-
ing architectural sections as
reference.”
The YMCA is a work in
progress, with more work
on the interior and exterior
coming down the road. Ulti-
mately, the Webers hope
to open the building up for
workshops and a sign shop,
among other plans.
Joshua Bessex/The Daily Astorian
Noel Weber hopes to restore the former YMCA building
in downtown Astoria.