OPINION
4A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 2017
Founded in 1873
DAVID F. PERO, Publisher & Editor
JIM VAN NOSTRAND, Managing Editor
JEREMY FELDMAN, Circulation Manager
DEBRA BLOOM, Business Manager
JOHN D. BRUIJN, Production Manager
CARL EARL, Systems Manager
Water
under
the bridge
Compiled by Bob Duke
From the pages of Astoria’s daily newspapers
10 years ago this week — 2007
Officials from both sides of the Columbia River gathered near the South
Jetty Friday to celebrate the completion of the U.S. Army Corps of Engi-
neers’ interim repairs to both jetties at the mouth of the river.
The $30 million in repairs to the two jetties were needed to halt exten-
sive erosion of the rock structures and preserve the river’s navigability.
However, the repairs, which began in 2005, are only designed to last eight
to 10 years. The project completion event also marked the beginning of an
effort to rehabilitate the aging North and South jetties.
The structures were built in the late 1880s and extended in the early
1910s and experts at the Corps say they’re in need of a total overhaul, a
project that is estimated to cost between $150 million to $200 million and
is being compared in scope with the channel deepening project. Without
the overhaul, a very large storm — the kind the North Coast only sees once
every 100 years — could breach the jetties and quash a $14 billion segment
of the regional economy.
There’s no guarantee of a liquefied natural gas terminal being
sited on the Columbia River’s banks.
And while the Coast Guard has kept secret many of the
security issues associated with LNG shipments up the Colum-
bia River, local residents need to “trust their Coast Guard” and
understand those resource gaps will be filled before any LNG
facility is built, said Capt. Patrick Gerrity, Coast Guard Sector
Portland’s captain of the port.
“The bottom line, folks: The Coast Guard will make an unbi-
ased recommendation regarding the suitability of this proposed
project on the Skipanon Peninsula,” Gerrity told about 75 peo-
ple at a Tuesday night meeting.
50 years ago — 1967
Things are progressing well on Northwest Aluminum Co.’s $142 mil-
lion aluminum plant project at Warrenton, executive Vice President Rich-
ard Peck, New York, reported on a visit here Tuesday.
Peck had also visited in Portland with Glenn Jackson, Medford, board
chairman of PP&L Co., which owns the 880-acre site where the company
hopes to build, and in Salem with members of the Oregon State Sanitary
Authority.
Peck said it will be several months yet before plans are well enough
along to submit to the Sanitary Authority for detailed study.
The controversial relocation of U.S. Highway 101 over the
Nestucca sand spit may not be dead after all.
Gov. Tom McCall announced today three relocation propos-
als are being considered for the highway – including one over
the spit.
Clatsop County communities don’t want the state government to take
control of the beaches completely away from cities and counties in any
future amendments to the Beach Bill, it was generally agreed at a meeting
of the Clatsop Inter-Governmental committee Wednesday evening in Can-
non Beach’s Driftwood Inn.
Consensus Wednesday evening was that such matters as permission or
refusal to permit motor traffic on a beach should be left to the local commu-
nity; it was felt that setting speed limits should be a state function however.
Zoning of the coast area should be left to local government, speakers
said.
75 years ago — 1942
Astoria was a deserted city for an hour and fifteen minutes
Tuesday night as rules went into effect for the test air raid that
gave civilian defense officials a chance to mobilize their equip-
ment and manpower for emergencies that might arise during a
real air raid.
The streets were silent and empty except for block wardens
wearing official bands on their sleeves who strolled their beats
and ordered off the streets the few people or from the curb the
few cars that were caught out when the police sirens started to
blow at 7 p.m.
A few times ambulances sped through the streets, heading
for scenes of disaster reported by the wardens, or fire engines or
police cars to spots where incendiary bombs were supposed to
have fallen where help was needed.
Dr. Edward Harvey, superintendent
of the Food Industries Laboratory in this
city, proved very conclusively Thurs-
day evening that it is possible to fool the
palate of the best of epicures when at a
dinner at the laboratory he served as the
piece de resistance roast sea turtle which
some of his guests ate as beef, others as
bear meat.
The turtle, served with dressing, was
a part of the thousand pound “Tom Tur-
tle” recently shot off the Oregon Coast
and brought into Astoria.
The dinner was in honor of Dean
William Schoenfeld of Oregon State col-
lege, Prof. George Hystop of the same
The Daily Astorian/File college and Dr. Willis H. Rich of Stan-
Above is the 1,000-pound ford, director of research for the Oregon
turtle taken recently by the fish commission. They not only ate turtle
drag boat Sunset near Tilla- and liked it but they also ate fried salmon
milt as a hors d’oeuvre with a good
mook Head.
deal of relish and they had a lot of other
strange dishes, including shredded porpoise meat and crab paste.
This was Dr. Harvey’s way of proving that there is a lot of palatable food
in the sea which has never been considered as edible.
McCain faces a new
test of his principles
By DAVID LEONHARDT
New York Times News Service
I
t looks as if John McCain’s U.S.
Senate colleagues are going
to test him once again. And
the health insurance of millions of
Americans depends
on the outcome.
This summer,
when his party
was trying to force
a health bill with
unprecedented
haste — no
hearings, no support from medical
experts — McCain, R-Ariz., stood
up for the idea of the Senate. By
now, you’ve probably heard a line
or two from his July 25 speech,
shortly after learning he had
aggressive brain cancer. But the
full speech is worth reading. It’s
McCain at his best, a defense of
the imperfect but noble pursuit of
democratic politics.
“Our arcane rules and customs
are deliberately intended to require
broad cooperation to function well
at all,” he said from the Senate floor.
“Incremental progress, compro-
mises that each side criticize but
also accept, just plain muddling
through to chip away at problems
and keep our enemies from doing
their worst isn’t glamorous or excit-
ing. It doesn’t feel like a political
triumph. But it’s usually the most
we can expect from our system of
government, operating in a country
as diverse and quarrelsome and free
as ours.”
When his colleagues ignored
him, McCain cast the vote that
defeated their health bill two
days later, with a dramatic 1:30
a.m. thumbs-down. The vote was
remarkable because McCain is
a conservative, reluctant to tax
people for social programs, as the
Affordable Care Act does. But he
believed in a higher principle: the
Senate’s credibility.
The latest Trumpcare, known as
Graham-Cassidy, risks the Senate’s
credibility again. There has been
none of the regular process that
McCain demanded, not even a
Congressional Budget Office analy-
sis. No major medical group — not
doctors, nurses, hospitals or advo-
cates for the treatment of cancer,
diabetes or birth defects — supports
the bill.
Passing it would violate every
standard that McCain laid down.
Yet Republican leaders are rush-
ing toward a vote. Their proposals
have always depended on distrac-
tion, because they are so unpopular.
And the country has been distracted
lately, largely ignoring Graham-
Cassidy until now, despite its effect
AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite
U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., center, walks with Sen. Sheldon
Whitehouse, D-R.I., left, as they head to weekly policy luncheons at
the Capitol in Washington, D.C., Tuesday.
if enacted.
The bill would sharply cut fed-
eral health funding in 2020 — and
even more in 2027. Millions of
people would lose coverage. The
bill’s proponents are trying to sell
it as flexibility for states. But “flex-
ibility” alone won’t pay anybody’s
medical bills.
It would be a
tragedy for him
if he went back
on his word so
blatantly.
Consider the “Jimmy Kimmel
test.” That’s what U.S. Sen. Bill
Cassidy, R-La., said in May that he
would use to judge any proposal, in
honor of the talk-show host whose
newborn son needed heart surgery.
Cassidy said he wanted to ensure “a
child born with a congenital heart
disease be able to get everything she
or he would need in that first year
of life.”
Cassidy, though, has now put
his name on a bill that would harm
such a child (because insurers could
hike the family’s rates after the
diagnosis). He has recanted, without
acknowledging it.
For the bill to pass, McCain
would probably also need to reverse
himself. Any three Republicans can
stop the bill, and he — along with
Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski,
Rand Paul, Jerry Moran, Lamar
Alexander and a few others — is
one of the swing votes.
There is reason to believe
McCain will stand firm, starting
with his sense of personal honor.
It’s hard to imagine him violating it
to help a president who personally
demeaned him. But McCain showed
worrisome signs of wobbling
Monday, saying he may “reluc-
tantly” support the bill. He also
listens to Arizona’s governor, Doug
Ducey, who endorsed the bill even
though it could nearly double the
state’s uninsured population.
No doubt, the White House
and other senators are concocting
rationales — like a single hearing
next Tuesday — for why a “yes”
vote by McCain would not violate
his principles. But that’s laughable.
Graham-Cassidy has followed the
hasty, secretive, partisan process
that McCain so eloquently decried.
The good news is that McCain
has leverage. The compromise
that he wants — that both sides
“criticize but also accept” — is
entirely feasible. Democrats want
to fix Obamacare’s problems, both
for substantive reasons and to avoid
a civil war over a single-payer
system. The outlines of a deal, with
more state flexibility but without
coverage losses, are obvious.
John McCain is a complicated
figure. One of his own aides
recently described him as “nine
parts hero, one part troll.” He has
strengths and weaknesses, as the
rest of us do, and I won’t pretend to
agree with all of his opinions. But
he has, undeniably, made greater
sacrifice for this country than most
of us ever will.
It would be a tragedy for the
country if he were now willing to
take away decent health care from
millions of people. It would be a
tragedy for him if he went back on
his word so blatantly. I remain hope-
ful that he will stay true to it.
WHERE TO WRITE
• U.S. Rep. Suzanne Bonamici
(D): 439 Cannon House Office
Building, Washington, D.C., 20515.
Phone: 202- 225-0855. Fax 202-225-
9497. District office: 12725 SW Mil-
likan 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.