OPINION
4A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • THURSDAY, OCTOBER 12, 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
OUR VIEW
AP Photo/Jeff Barnard
Dead zones in the Pacific Ocean trouble researchers.
Unified action
necessary to
preserve ocean life
I
t’s troubling to learn “a suffocating ribbon of low oxygen
seawater over the continental shelf” expanded northward this
summer to impact the North Coast and even Washington’s
Olympic Peninsula.
Reported this week by Tom Banse of Northwest News
Network, dead zones began affecting Oregon’s southern near-
shore waters around 2000 — representing an acute change from
marine oxygen levels in the previous half century. Since 2000,
patches of the state’s southern continental shelf resemble a watery
desert, nothing but dead things littering the bottom. It is a vision
of what it would be like if the air we breathe developed invisible
pockets devoid of life-giving oxygen, inexorably drifting through
towns and countryside killing everything in their path.
Researchers with the Olympic Coast National Marine
Sanctuary found “literally no oxygen” at one site. Off the
Quinault Indian Reservation, there were “dead fish and shellfish
at various locations and times beginning near the end of July and
extending through most of August.”
Technically called hypoxia, the lack of oxygen in seawater
is, so far, still a localized and patchy problem. But it’s easy to
see how it can become an apocalypse for sea life and for coastal
economies dependent on crabbing and fishing.
Fish are highly mobile and sometimes can move away from
unfavorable conditions. It might be this year’s mediocre salmon
runs in our area and stellar returns in Alaska partly reflect fish
“voting with their fins” and shifting northward. Dungeness crab,
shellfish and other invertebrates don’t have as much ability to
flee — though Banse reports that this year “observers noted crabs
leaving the ocean to seek more oxygenated waters in coastal estu-
aries and bays.”
It’s significant that the Oregon Legislature finds all this suffi-
ciently troubling to warrant creation of a new high-level coun-
cil to examine what can be done about the problem. The causes
of hypoxia are likely to be complex and overlapping various gov-
ernment jurisdictions, but it’s possible to imagine that state-level
action could be beneficial in curbing runoff of excess fertilizer
and other pollutants into the ocean. Such chemicals are known to
impact marine life. The state also can play a meaningful role in
monitoring and documenting offshore damage, building a case
for broader action.
In other respects, dead zones along the edge of the northeast
Pacific Ocean may result from much larger problems than any
one state can address. Oregon State University researcher Francis
Chan pins the problem in part on disrupted ocean circulation pat-
terns and ocean warming. It took a September storm to break up
this summer’s low-oxygen zones, an intervention no state can
hope to influence.
Like citizens of a Dust Bowl town hiring a biplane to seed
reluctant rainclouds, on its own Oregon isn’t likely to make much
difference.
More unified action certainly will be required. For the imme-
diate future, that must consist of cooperative agreements between
the West Coast states. Governors of the three mainland Pacific
states already have taken some steps to work in concert on cli-
mate issues, in part because of an acknowledgment that they are
increasingly impacting the ocean. The three states will need to do
more, reaching out to British Columbia, Alaska and perhaps even
across the ocean to Asia in hopes of forging stronger scientific
and resource-management alliances.
Little help can be expected from the feckless Trump admin-
istration, which has set about neutering the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency and sabotaging international efforts to pro-
tect the planet on which we rely. In the face of overwhelming
evidence, current federal leaders deny there is a problem. This
week’s U.S. Department of the Interior announcement of an end
to the “war on coal” is in effect a declaration of war on coastal
communities that rely on cold and productive ocean water.
Ultimately, all Americans of every political shade will under-
stand it’s in our paramount economic and physical interests to get
a handle on whatever is turning part of the ocean into a waste-
land. Until then, coastal citizens must defend our own interests in
every way we can.
To serve is to slobber
By FRANK BRUNI
New York Times News Service
o one besides Donald
Trump was going to ask
Rex Tillerson to the prom.
No one else was
going to pin a
corsage on Jeff
Sessions, pick up
Steven Mnuchin
in a chauffeured
limo, give a box of
Godiva chocolates
to Betsy DeVos.
A more conventional, responsi-
ble, admirable president would have
looked right past them, at comelier
options galore. On some level they
know that. Trump certainly does.
That’s his power over them — a
poison in the heart of his Cabinet.
He gave them a chance and a dance
that they weren’t going to get any
other way. In return he demands a
gratitude that’s unhealthy, a defer-
ence that’s unseemly.
Every presidential administra-
tion has its deadbeats and dysfunc-
tions. None that I’ve observed has
an ethos of abject servility like
Trump’s. That’s what we witnessed
over the weekend, when the
obsequious handmaiden otherwise
known as the vice president flew
at taxpayer expense to his home
state of Indiana for a game between
the Indianapolis Colts and the San
Francisco 49ers.
Mike Pence merely pretended
that he was in the mood for foot-
ball. He was really in the market
for cheap political theater. During
the national anthem, when some
players predictably took a knee, he
took calculated offense, storming
out of the stadium and doing his
boss proud. Trump tweeted after-
ward that Pence had been obeying
his orders.
Pence has a long and serious
political résumé, but would another
Republican president have tapped
him for the No. 2 spot? I doubt it. I
also doubt that another Republican
president would have chosen Rick
Perry for the Energy Department,
Ben Carson for Housing and Urban
Development or a host of the peo-
ple who are working — or worked
— just below the Cabinet level.
Sean Spicer? Anthony
Scaramucci? They aren’t superstars
who had been underutilized before.
They’re opportunists who lunged
for an adventure that they had prob-
ably never envisioned.
Unlike his predecessors, Trump
didn’t have his pick of the crop.
Some prospects didn’t want to be
anywhere near such an egomania-
cal, unprincipled man, while others
were nonstarters because they’d
publicly vented their doubts about
him.
The team he assembled wasn’t
all stars. With a few notable
exceptions, it was a coalition of the
N
AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, left, speaks following a meeting with
President Donald Trump at Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster,
N.J., in August.
willing, and a ragtag one at that.
And then, through his example
and erratic behavior this year, he
systematically diminished these
recruits. If they had pride and much
of a reputation on their way into the
administration, they’ll be lucky to
hold on to tatters of either on their
way out.
The most effective leaders
extract the best from the people
The most
effective
leaders
extract the
best from the
people around
them. Trump
provokes the
worst.
around them. Trump provokes the
worst. Tom Price, his ousted health
and human services secretary,
was shady from the get-go, but
still: Would he have acted quite
so high-flying and mighty — all
those regal seats on all those pricey
charters — but for Trump, whose
entire rule smacks of economically
self-aggrandizing brand promotion
and whose family is busting the
Secret Service budget?
Would Mnuchin be so blasé
about his own use of government
planes? According to multiple
reports, he charged the government
$800,000 for military transport
when commercial flights were
available — and Transportation
Secretary Elaine Chao, too,
indulged in needlessly expensive
air travel.
Would Scott Pruitt, the director
of the Environmental Protection
Agency, have spent nearly $25,000
on some special phone booth? This
fish rots from the bejeweled head.
And these people have become
practiced at humiliation. Maybe
their perks are Percocets for the
pain.
Sessions twisted in the wind
while Trump, in tweets and talk,
rued that he’d ever appointed him
attorney general and suggested
that he might dismiss him any day.
Spicer sucked up Trump’s boldly
advertised displeasure with his
comportment at the lectern and
even the color of his suits.
Tillerson tucked his dignity into
some sock drawer as Trump repeat-
edly contradicted his statements
and undermined his authority. For
Trump this was gleeful sport. He’s
only as big as his ability to make
his underlings look small.
Mnuchin signed on as his
Treasury secretary to become his
apologist, and was prodded to
vouch for the president along lines
having nothing to do with his port-
folio. On a Sunday morning news
show, he dutifully joined Trump’s
campaign against pro football play-
ers who don’t stand for the anthem.
In a public statement, he docilely
claimed that there was no reason
— none whatsoever! — to believe
that Trump had any patience for
neo-Nazis.
I flash back on that infamous
Cabinet meeting, when Trump
coaxed those insane testimonials,
and see more clearly than ever that
he was establishing the terms of
service: I strut, you slobber, for as
long as I can stand you or you can
stand it.
Which won’t be forever, and
that’s the scariest part. Trump’s
options will grow less attractive,
not more. On the far side of this
uncomely crowd, there’s an even
sorrier, more simpering crew of
replacements.
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.