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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 29, 2017)
7A THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 2017 Critters: Diversity was ‘jaw-dropping’ Dredging: Army Corps will hold public hearing in Astoria on Oct. 17 Continued from Page 1A “It’s a bit of what we call ecological roulette,” said lead author James Carlton, a marine sciences professor at Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts. It will be years before sci- entists know if the 289 Japa- nese species thrive in their new home and crowd out natives. The researchers roughly esti- mated that a million creatures traveled 4,800 miles across the Pacifi c Ocean to reach the West Coast, including hun- dreds of thousands of mussels. Invasive species pose a major problem worldwide with plants and animals thriv- ing in areas where they don’t naturally live. Marine inva- sions in the past have hurt native farmed shellfi sh, eroded the local ecosystem, caused economic losses and spread disease-carrying species, said Bella Galil, a marine biologist with the Steinhardt Museum of Natural History in Tel Aviv, Israel, who wasn’t part of the study. A magnitude 9 earthquake off the coast of Japan triggered a tsunami on March 11, 2011, that swept boats, docks, buoys and other man-made materi- als into the Pacifi c. The debris drifted east with an armada of living creatures, some that gave birth to new generations John W. Chapman Marine sea slugs from a derelict vessel from Iwate Prefec- ture, Japan, washed ashore in Oregon in 2015. Research- ers reported Thursday that nearly 300 species of fish, mussels and other sea creatures hitchhiked across the Pacific Ocean on debris from the 2011 Japanese tsunami, washing ashore alive in the United States. while at sea. “The diversity was some- what jaw-dropping,” Carlton said. “Mollusks, sea anemo- nes, corals, crabs, just a wide variety of species, really a cross-section of Japanese fauna.” The researchers collected and analyzed the debris that reached the West Coast and Hawaii over the last fi ve years, with new pieces arriv- ing Wednesday in Washington. The debris fl owed across the North Pacifi c current, as other objects do from time to time, before it moved north with the Alaska current or south with the California current. Most hit Oregon and Washington state. Last year, a small boat from Japan reached Oregon with 20 good-sized fi sh inside, a kind of yellowtail jack native to the western Pacifi c, Carl- ton said. Some of the fi sh are still alive in an Oregon aquar- ium. Earlier, an entire fi shing boat — the Saisho-Maru — arrived intact with fi ve of the same 6-inch fi sh swimming around inside. The boat is on display at the Columbia River Maritime Museum. Co-author Gregory Ruiz, a Smithsonian marine ecol- ogist, is especially interested in a Japanese parasite in the gills of mussels. Elsewhere in the world, these parasites have taken root and hurt oyster and mussel harvests and they hadn’t been seen before on the West Coast. The researchers note another huge factor in this fl o- tilla: plastics. Decades ago, most of the debris would have been wood and that would have degraded over the long ocean trip, but now most of the debris — buoys, boats, crates and pallets — are made of plastic and that survives, Carlton said. And so the hitchhikers survive, too. “It was the plastic debris that allowed new species to survive far longer than we ever thought they would,” Carlton said. James Byers, a marine ecologist at the University of Georgia in Athens, who wasn’t part of the study, praised the authors for their detective work. He said in an email that the migration was an odd mix of a natural trigger and human aspects because of the plastics. “The fact that communi- ties of organisms survived out in the open ocean for long time periods (years in some cases) is amazing,” he wrote. Continued from Page 1A “We place it along erod- ing shorelines, in the river,” Stokke said. “We try to place material near shore to support the jetties and shore- lines north and south of the Columbia.” Since 1890, the Army Corps estimates more than 1 billion cubic yards of sed- iment has been dredged between the mouth of the Columbia and Vancou- ver. The Army Corps does about half the annual dredg- ing through its vessels the Essayons and Yaquina, while also contracting with companies. Getting full About 15 of the 20 or so designated upland sites where dredge spoils are placed are at or nearing capacity, said Jeff Henon, a spokesman for the Army Corps. The Army Corps is in the scoping stages of a new 20-year channel mainte- nance plan, gathering pub- lic comment on strategies to place the dredged mate- rials off-channel, and on ways to reduce the need for dredging. “We defi nitely already do this with pile dikes or wing dams,” Stokke said. “They direct river fl ow toward the channel, which keeps a faster fl ow. We have over 200 structures. We’ve been constructing them since the 1880s.” Sponsoring the new 20-year plan with the Army Corps are the Port of Port- land and Washington ports in Vancouver, Woodland, Kalama and Longview. The Ports each sponsored a project fi nished in 2010 to deepen the Columbia ship- ping channel to 43 feet. The Army Corps is hold- ing public hearings along the river to gather comments on how the channel should be maintained. On Oct. 17, they will be in Astoria. Stroke: ‘Within a minute after we got it out, he could start moving his left arm’ Continued from Page 1A “He was fi ghting me, because he wasn’t thinking quite right,” she said. “He wanted me to help him up. I tried one time, two times. I said, ‘Ron, I would like you to lay down on the fl oor so I can look at you and see what’s going on.’” Leino, who had worked at a hospital in Alaska, asked Paapke to smile and lift his arm or leg. By then, she knew he was having a stroke and called 911. Within fi ve minutes, responders with the Lewis and Clark Fire District arrived and stabilized Paapke until Medix took over . Within an hour of the stroke, Paapke was at Colum- bia Memorial Hospital. At 5:30 p.m., Dr. Stew- art Weber, a vascular neurol- ogist at OHSU, received an alert on his pager from Colum- bia Memorial , where a doctor determined Paapke was having a sizable stroke. He connected via the hospital’s telemedicine program and examined Paapke. A brain scan showed a blood clot running 12 centimeters up Paapke’s carotid artery from his neck to his brain. “We decided that he would probably benefi t the most from getting clot-busting medica- tion,” Weber said. Paapke was given a shot of tPA, or tissue plasminogen acti- vator, used to dissolve blood clots. Only about 5 percent of stroke patients receive the drug, which needs to be administered within three hours. But the clot wasn’t dissolved by the medi- cation, making Paapke a good candidate for a newer treatment at OHSU known as a mechani- cal thrombectomy. Paapke was fl own to Port- land by Life Flight Network and by 7:30 p.m. was being stretchered into OHSU’s emer- gency department. an interventional neuroradiolo- gist at OHSU, inserted a cath- eter into an artery in Paapke’s groin, threading it through his aorta and into the carotid artery. “It was fi lled with plaque from smoking,” Bozorgchami said of Paapke’s artery. The doctor inserted a stent mesh used to reinforce weak vessels. Within a half-hour, Bozorg- chami pulled out the stent, and with it the blood clot, a long, snaking mass of coagulated blood cells. It was the largest blood clot he had pulled out in six years at OHSU, Bozorgc- hami said. “Within a minute after we got it out, he could start moving his left arm, which was totally paralyzed, and give us a thumbs up,” Weber said. “It was pretty miraculous, almost an immedi- ate recovery.” Prayers Paapke’s friends and family prayed for him the entire time he was gone, Leino said. “I’m just praying that it con- tinues to be as great as it’s come out so far, because his life and my life could have been com- pletely different, if everything didn’t work as smoothly.” With about a month to go before his next checkup, Paap- ke’s goal is to quit smoking and lose about 5 pounds. Since being released from the hospi- tal, he has been going around thanking the responders with Lewis and Clark, Medix, Life Flight, Columbia Memorial and OHSU whose response he said was textbook. “I’d like to thank everyone involved,” he said. “It was a great team effort.” Plaque from smoking Dr. Hormozd Bozorgchami, The Astor Street Opry Company is proud to announce its Annual Auction and Gala Saturday, November 18 5pm Astor Street Opry Company Playhouse 129 W. Bond Street Astoria This event will feature a live jazz band, RJ Marx Jazz Quartet, and other live performances featuring ASOC’s most favored and talented people! In addition, we will have a silent and live auction with lots of great items you will want to purchase to complete your holiday shopping! And the food...well, we are having the best, of course! $ 20 per person • $ 35 per couple Tickets online at http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/3084324 Get your tickets now and come kick off the holiday season with us while supporting the local arts! For information about this and other shows,find us at www.astorstreetoprycompany.com or email us at info@atorstreetoprycompany.com
