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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 29, 2017)
BREAST CANCER? THINK MORE THAN PINK WEEKEND BREAK • PAGE 1C 145TH YEAR, NO. 65 WEEKEND EDITION // FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 2017 ONE DOLLAR Arcadia Beach RV park draws concerns Residents worried about traffic, environment By BRENNA VISSER The Daily Astorian Photos by Colin Murphey/The Daily Astorian A crew member on the Terrapin Island dredging vessel inspects a section of the dredge arm that submerges below the surface of the Columbia River. CLEAR CHANNEL Dredging projects preserve shipping in the river CANNON BEACH – Dozens of disgrun- tled residents voiced their environmental and safety concerns Thursday about a develop- er’s plan to build an RV park across from Arcadia Beach in Arch Cape. James Smejkal, the owner and devel- oper of the 17.6-acre parcel of forested land, sought temporary road access to the parcel earlier this year with the intent to build an upscale RV park — mostly because it is one of the only types of development allowed with the land’s zoning, he said. Smejkal’s consultant, Leonard Waggoner, conducted the neighborhood meeting Thurs- day. Smejkal was required to invite everyone within 300 feet of the project to a public pre- sentation before submitting a development permit application. “The idea is for the com- munity to give feedback to the developers,” Clatsop County planner Will Caplinger said. But many outside of the 300-foot radius packed the Cannon Beach Fire Hall, some as far north as Astoria and south as Netarts. Organizations such as the Audubon Society of Portland and the Haystack Rock Aware- ness Program came out to denounce the project. Concerns about adding traffic to an See RV PARK, Page 3A By EDWARD STRATTON The Daily Astorian S ince last spring, the hopper dredge Terrapin Island has been mak- ing passes along the mouth of the Columbia River, vacuuming up the slough from a shipping channel that handles about 46 million tons of cargo annually. An estimated 10 million cubic yards of sediment is removed from the shipping channel each year and placed in the river, on islands and out at sea. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, charged with keep- ing the channel navigable, is drafting a new 20-year maintenance plan. Sea critters hitchhiked on tsunami wreckage Clearing the mouth Great Lakes, the largest dredging company in the nation, has a contract to remove 2 million cubic yards of sediment out of the mouth of the river. After five months of work, the contract is nearing completion. “We’re basically excavating underwa- ter,” said Shohei Ishikawa, a site manager for Great Lakes. “We are contracted by the Army Corps of Engineers. The pur- pose is to maintain navigable waterways.” Between 3.5 million and 4.5 million cubic yards of sediment is removed each year from the mouth of the river, half a mile wide and 6 miles long. The mouth ends at river mile 3, near Jetty A and the entrance to Washington’s Baker Bay. Like a giant catamaran, the Terrapin Island is made from two separate hulls connected at the top by hinges. On either side of the vessel are arms, like vacuum heads, lowered into the water and drug behind the vessel, excavating 9-foot-wide swaths of sediment down to between 55 and 60 feet. Pumps in the drag arms A crew member at the controls of the Terrapin Island looks out over the mouth of the Columbia River during a recent maintenance operation. suck sediment into a central hopper, a giant wheelbarrow with an opening bot- tom that carries up to 3,000 cubic yards of sediment, equal to about 300 dump truck loads, gathered in about one hour of dredging. The bottom opens up, and the sediment drops out. How the vessel dumps sediment is as complex as the dredging itself. Great Lakes has three designated dumping spots. The preferred site is a grid of deep water about 8 miles offshore in the Pacific Ocean. The dredge also releases sediment near Cape Disappointment’s North Jetty to reinforce the beaches underlying the rock structure. In foul weather, the dredge is allowed to dump in shallow water. The Lower Columbia from the mouth upriver to Vancouver, Washington, where an additional 6 to 8 million cubic yards of sediment is taken out each year. About two-thirds is dis- posed of in the water, while another third is put on islands throughout the estuary and used for beach nourishment. “We’ve got kind of a core engineering regulation that charges us with making sure we have capacity for dredge mate- rial placement,” said Jessica Stokke, the Army Corps’ project manager for Lower Columbia dredging. Most of the material is course grain sand. The Army Corps finds places to put the material to use, such as helping cre- ate additional off-channel habitat in the Columbia National Wildlife Refuge or treating water for the city of Astoria. A 600-foot-wide shipping channel is maintained at 43 feet deep 100 miles Marine migration after Japanese quake in 2011 By SETH BORENSTEIN Associated Press WASHINGTON — Nearly 300 species of fish, mussels and other sea critters hitch- hiked across the Pacific Ocean on debris from the 2011 Japanese tsunami, washing ashore alive in the United States, researchers reported Thursday. It is the largest and longest marine migra- tion ever documented, outside experts and the researchers said. The scientists and col- leagues combed the beaches of Washington state, Oregon, California, British Columbia, Alaska and Hawaii and tracked the species to their Japanese origins. Their arrival could be a problem if the critters take root, pushing out native species, the study authors said in Thursday’s journal Science. See DREDGING, Page 7A See CRITTERS, Page 7A Stroke survivor credits quick response Back on his couch two days later By EDWARD STRATTON The Daily Astorian Ronald Paapke sat down on the couch in his Lewis and Clark home one evening this month to watch the news on TV when a massive stroke left the entire left side of his body paralyzed. Within two days, Paapke, 54, was back on his couch, after a quick response by all involved, a surgery at Oregon Health & Science University and a recovery one of his doc- tors called miraculous. After a day of running around, Paapke came home and sat down to watch the news just before 5 p.m. on Sept. 19. “As soon as I hit my chair, I felt like a weird sensation on the left side, mainly in my leg,” he said. Paapke tried but couldn’t move his leg. He tried to get up off the couch and crashed to the floor before calling for his wife, Jane Leino. See STROKE, Page 7A ‘IT WAS PRETTY MIRACULOUS, ALMOST AN IMMEDIATE RECOVERY.’ Dr. Stewart Weber | a vascular neurologist at OHSU Colin Murphey/The Daily Astorian Ronald Paapke, left, recounts the story of a stroke he suf- fered and the quick actions taken by his wife, Jane Leino, right, and emergency responders and doctors.
