DailyAstorian.com // TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 2017
145TH YEAR, NO. 102
ONE DOLLAR
WORK TO BEGIN ON WEST END MOORING BASIN
Ilwaco lends Astoria
a hand, and a dredge
Ship sinks
in Ilwaco
port basin
By EDWARD STRATTON
The Daily Astorian
he Port of Astoria’s West
End Mooring Basin was extra
busy Monday. Crews from
Bergerson Construction pulled out
old pilings and drove new ones from
a barge parked amid rows of pleasure
craft.
Meanwhile, crew members on the
Port of Ilwaco’s dredge hooked up
pipes and prepared to start the first
interstate dredging partnership on the
Columbia River.
Perpetually strapped for cash, the
Port of Astoria has not dredged its
western marina, a main local mooring
space for personal craft, in more than
a decade, despite long waiting lists. At
low tide, slips on the north end of the
marina turn into sandbars, damaging
docks and leaving any wayward boats
on their sides.
The Port’s dredge, the Felkins, was
at work Monday on the face of Pier 1,
where the agency docks cruise and log
ships. But the Felkins is too large to
come into the western marina.
Port of Astoria Operations Man-
ager Matt McGrath estimated the total
cost of dredging the western marina at
between $500,000 and $600,000.
The partnership with Ilwaco allows
the Port to spread the project out over
two to three years with minimal mobi-
lization costs, McGrath said. The
agency has dedicated $273,000 this
fiscal year to dredging. That work will
open 35 additional slips and bring in
an estimated $40,000 in additional
annual revenue.
T
Vessel last registered
to Astoria company
By NATALIE ST. JOHN
For The Daily Astorian
Colin Murphey/The Daily Astorian
Workers connect a pipe Monday that will be used for a dredging operation at the
West End Mooring Basin in Astoria.
Colin Murphey/The Daily Astorian
ILWACO — It was there, and then it
wasn’t.
Friday night, the 79-year-old Lihue II
looked perfectly sound as it sat in the Port
of Ilwaco slip where it had been moored for
a few days. By Saturday morning, it was sit-
ting on the bottom of the port basin.
Now, Port of Ilwaco staff are confronting
the possibility that they may be stuck clean-
ing up the 55-ton mess.
While it appears that the sinking did not
cause a serious oil spill, there are plenty of
other complications when a 61-foot-long
boat sinks in a small port.
“We’ve been dealing with other derelict
vessels for years, but we’ve never had one of
this size,” Port Manager Guy Glenn Jr. said
Monday.
Staff acted quickly to minimize damage
and alert authorities, Glenn said. It’s always
worrisome when a derelict vessel sinks,
because many of them leak environmentally
See SHIP, Page 4A
See DREDGING, Page 4A
Workers at the West End Mooring
Basin in Astoria prepare pipe
Monday for a dredging operation.
Guy Glenn Jr.
Oil-containment booms were placed
around the Lihue II to contain leaking
hydrocarbons.
Edward Stratton/The Daily Astorian
Portions of the Port of Astoria’s West End Mooring Basin would turn into sand
bars and leave boats leaning in the mud at low tide.
Astoria mayor
swears in new
police officers
Both have fire
training backgrounds
By KATIE FRANKOWICZ
The Daily Astorian
The Astoria Police Department is close to
being fully staffed for patrols again.
Mayor Arline LaMear swore in the
department’s two newest officers at a City
Council meeting Monday night.
Andrew Murray and Levi Winfrey bring
the total number of officers up to 15. The
department is authorized for up to 16 offi-
cers and Interim Police Chief Geoff Spald-
ing plans to begin recruiting for the sixteenth
officer soon.
Murray and Winfrey still have months of
police academy and field training with other
Astoria police officers ahead of them before
they will begin patrolling the city on their
own. Spalding estimates it will be summer
before the men can work solo.
See OFFICERS, Page 4A
Once a student, later a teacher, now a lifeboat school chief
School attracts aspiring
‘surfman’ boat drivers
By EDWARD STRATTON
The Daily Astorian
Fresh out of basic training, Ryan O’Meara’s
first assignment in the Coast Guard in 1997 was
as a replacement on a 44-foot lifeboat crew in
La Push, Washington, where three of the four
crew members died during an attempted rescue
of a sailboat crew in distress.
“I was younger,” O’Meara, now 43, said.
“They asked me how I felt about going there,
and I said, ‘Absolutely.’ I wanted to drive the
boats in the worse conditions as possible.”
Twenty years later, O’Meara is the head of
the Coast Guard’s National Motor Lifeboat
School, training the Coast Guard’s next genera-
tion of surfmen. He replaced Kevin Clark, who
retired after 30 years in the service.
O’Meara grew up near a Coast Guard boat
base in Chicago. His father published boating
magazines, and he often heard about the Coast
Guard in mariner circles.
Raising himself since 16, he lacked the
personality traits needed to be successful, and
saw the Coast Guard as a path to maturity, he
said.
A year into his watch in La Push, O’Meara
attended a course at the lifeboat school. Estab-
lished in 1968 next to the Graveyard of the
Pacific, the school is the only place in the U.S.
to learn rough weather surf rescue.
It attracts aspiring surfmen from around the
country, who then return to their stations to use
what they’ve learned.
At 26, O’Meara started his second stint at the
school, this time as an instructor.
Edward Stratton/The Daily Astorian
See O’MEARA, Page 4A
Ryan O’Meara is the new commander of the National Mo-
tor Lifeboat School at Cape Disappointment, Washington.