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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • MONDAY, AUGUST 7, 2017
‘Bag ban’ urged in Long Beach
Advocates want
plastic out of
environment
By AMY NILE
EO Media Group
AP Photo/Gillian Flaccus
LONG BEACH, Wash. —
They’re going to ask the City
Council to bag it. Single-use
plastic bags, that is.
Martha Williams and Larkin
Stentz want Long Beach lead-
ers to ban plastic shopping bags
in the city. They plan to make
their pitch at City Hall during
the council’s meeting at 7 p.m.
tonight.
Williams, a retired elemen-
tary school teacher, brought her
new, Al Gore-approved lessons
back to Long Beach after she
attended the former vice pres-
ident’s environmental educa-
tion and activism program in
Denver last March. She’s now
working on projects in her
community to curb the effects
of climate change.
Stentz, owner of Green
Angel Gardens, is campaign-
ing with Williams against sin-
gle-use plastic bags.
“We were trying to narrow
it down to something doable,”
Stentz said, so they decided to
ask the City Council to ban the
bags by a certain date that has
yet to be determined.
Plastic soup
Commission Vacancy Announcement
Port of Astoria
Decades of throwaway life-
styles have created the Great
Pacific garbage patch, a mas-
sive expanse of floating plas-
tics and trash in the North
Pacific Ocean. By conserva-
tive estimates, the patch is
thought to be at least the size
of Texas, although it’s almost
impossible to accurately mea-
sure the vast and ever shift-
ing trash vortex. It spans the
Pacific from the West Coast of
North America to Japan.
Because plastic bags don’t
break down easily, they tend
to stick around, ripping into
smaller and smaller pieces
over time. The ocean water
near the garbage patch is often
Gene Brick, 92, left, and his son, Bartt Brick, peer through
a telescope in Madras in June that they made togeth-
er in 1964. The two plan to watch the upcoming solar
eclipse together Aug. 21 as it passes through Oregon.
Bahamas Reef Environment Education Foundation
A plastic bag floats in a school of fish. Advocates want to ban single-use plastic bags.
described as “plastic soup,”
because it’s littered with con-
fetti-sized particles.
An average of 46,000 tiny
pieces of plastic are floating
on every square mile of the
world’s oceans, according to
a United Nations environment
program.
You are what you eat
Fish can’t tell the differ-
ence between the tiny plastic
particles and food. So they end
up eating the plastic. Another
marine animal comes along
later and eats the fish and the
plastic inside it. The process
repeats all the way up the food
chain.
A gray whale died in 2010
on a West Seattle beach with
a large amount of garbage in
its stomach. The whale had
ingested plastic bags, surgi-
cal gloves and numerous other
products discarded by people.
Not only are plastic bags a
hazard to marine life, sea birds
and animals, they also pile
up in landfills and clog storm
drains.
“One of the things we’re
both realizing is we can get
overwhelmed with data,”
Stentz said. “We want to bring
it down to the local level.”
Bring your own bag
Because of the adverse
effect plastics have on the
ocean, he and Williams said
Long Beach seemed well-
suited to lead rural and coastal
Washington state in find-
ing a better way to help keep
water, fish and the food supply
healthy.
At least one county and
13 Washington cities, mostly
around Puget Sound and along
the Interstate 5 corridor from
Bellingham to Olympia, have
restricted merchants’ use of
plastic bags, according to the
nonprofit Municipal Research
and Services Center. Each
ban is a little different. Some
require retailers to carry only
recycled or reusable paper
bags, while others allow cer-
tain types of plastic. Many
require retailers to charge cus-
tomers a minimum fee for
each bag, others don’t.
Paper or plastic
Chuck Winn, manager of
Sid’s Market in Seaview, said
he doesn’t want to see more
cities ban plastic bags. For
more environmentally-consci-
entious customers, the grocer
sells reusable shopping bags
and provides paper bags.
“In the old days, all we had
was paper,” Winn, 73, said. “In
fact, we have some folks who
still request paper.”
The Seaview market takes
used bags and single-use plas-
tics from anyone willing to
return them for recycling. Peo-
ple can put their used plastic
bags, wraps and films into the
big recycling bin in the store
parking lot on Pacific High-
way. The bags are then taken
to a Tacoma warehouse to be
recycled, Winn said. He said
he wasn’t sure what becomes
of the recycled bags from
Seaview.
The warehouse did not
return a call for comment.
However, in the U.S. they’re
often melted down and used
for composite lumber. They’re
also commonly made into a
new batch of bags that can
later be recycled. Making bags
from recycled material is more
efficient and eco-friendly than
making them from scratch.
‘Enough is enough’
Williams said she’d pre-
fer not to have paper bags,
either. She wants Long Beach
to move toward using reusable
bags. She and Stentz hope the
City Council will put together
a group to look into what Long
Beach could do to reduce its
use of plastics. The group
could then help the council
with rules to put in place to
move closer to that goal.
“We’re joining in with a
mass movement around the
United States,” Williams said.
“Cities around the country are
saying ‘enough is enough.’”
Father, son prepare for
eclipse after missed
viewing in 1979
By GILLIAN FLACCUS
Associated Press
MADRAS — The last
time a total solar eclipse
blacked out the sun in Oregon
nearly 40 years ago, Gene
Brick was working in a tim-
ber mill that refused to shut
down for the spectacle.
The World War II veteran
and amateur astronomer was
devastated when his friends
raved about experiencing a
pitch-dark sky in the middle
of the day.
“Everyone who was out-
side got to see it, and they
enjoyed telling me all about
it — and I was hurt by that,”
said Brick, now 92. “But
work is work, you know.”
Brick will get another
chance to witness history
this month, when a total solar
eclipse begins its path across
the U.S. in Oregon.
The one he missed in 1979
covered the Pacific North-
west and parts of Canada.
This total eclipse will be visi-
ble from coast to coast across
the nation — something that
hasn’t happened in 99 years.
Brick plans to watch the
event with his son using
two telescopes: a fancy new
one and one the two crafted
together 53 years ago in
their basement.
The men will peer at the
sun through both during the
eclipse’s totality, when the
moon’s shadow completely
covers the sun for just over
two minutes. They also will
use special filters to photo-
graph the eclipse through
the newer machine.
For Brick, who survived
a kamikaze attack on the
USS Drexler during the Bat-
tle of Okinawa, the opportu-
nity is the experience of a
lifetime.
“I always loved to look
at the moon,” he said, after
peering through the tele-
scope the pair crafted in
1964. “I still do.”
The Bricks will have
a prime location for their
father-son moment. The
town of Madras, in cen-
tral Oregon, is in the high
desert, where summertime
skies are often clear and
cloudless.
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Due to the recent announcement by Port Commissioner Robert Mushen of his
immediate resignation from the Port Commission, the Commission is seeking
candidates for Dr. Mushen’s position (Position 4). Position 4 remains active until
June 30, 2019. Position 4 will be up for election in May of 2019.
Th e Commission is seeking to appoint a new Commissioner to Position 4 at the
August 22, 2017 Regular Meeting of the Commission in Open Session. (Note: this
is a change from the Port’s Regular Meeting originally scheduled for August 15).
Th e Commission will be interviewing candidates during the August 22 meeting.
To be considered for the position, the Commission requests that interested
candidates please forward a letter of interest expressing your desire for
consideration. Please include your qualifi cations and stated desire as to why you
should be considered. Also, please provide a brief biography or resume along with
your letter of interest.
All applications will be reviewed by all Commissioners prior to the
August 22, 2017 Commission Meeting. Candidates must be registered voters of
Clatsop County.
Please mail or hand deliver your documents to the
Port Offi ce in Astoria in sealed envelopes addressed to:
Port of Astoria Commission
Attention: Frank Spence, President
#10 Pier One, Suite 308
Astoria, OR 97103
Applications must be received no later than
12:00 noon, August 16, 2017.
For any questions please contact Frank Spence at:
503-325-2365