7A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, DECEMBER 15, 2017
Colin Murphey/The Daily Astorian
Cheri Lerma waits for customers to arrive at her cafe in downtown Cannon Beach.
Flood maps: ‘People aren’t fully aware of the circumstances’
Continued from Page 1A
“This mapping project was
tied together as a countywide
effort,” Ratté said. “When
we shared draft information
in 2013, there were concerns
with some of the results in the
estuary.”
But the delays have cost
Steve Sinkler, who owns
The Wine Shack and Lazy
Susan in Cannon Beach,
thousands of dollars in
insurance.
Sinkler attended a FEMA
open house last year where
it was projected that the new
maps were to be adopted by
this spring. He had recently
purchased the two proper-
ties, and was working with his
mortgage company and FEMA
to reconcile the discrepancies
between the maps and how
much he would have to pay in
flood insurance. Through this
process he went from being
required to pay the highest
level of insurance to not being
required to buy flood insur-
ance at all.
“We saw that timeline and
thought, ‘Great, we won’t have
to pay $9,000 by this time next
year,’” Sinkler said. “But then
we had to again.”
The appeal process did not
start until the fall, mostly due
to the change in presidential
administrations, which stalled
the publication of most, if not
all, notifications in the Fed-
eral Register, Ratté said. Cit-
ies now will be expected to
update any necessary flood
ordinances around the summer
of 2018.
‘Government
moves slowly’
A lack of communication
about the status of the proj-
ect is what has driven peo-
ple like Bruce Francis, the
property manager of Break-
ers Point Condominiums, to
raise the profile of the issue
at city meetings. Since 2015,
Francis has been paying thou-
sands of dollars in insurance
for two buildings out of 20
that touch the boundary of the
flood zone.
“People
aren’t
fully
aware of the circumstances,
I think. With so much money
involved, people should be
more aware of it,” Francis said.
“We know government moves
slowly, but we’ve waited. And
now we are making noise and
complaining.”
Puffins: ‘I want to be able to say I helped recover them’
Continued from Page 1A
on the West Coast has been on
the decline for more than 20
years, Stephenson said. In the
1990s, 5,000 of the birds were
nesting on the Oregon Coast.
Today, it is just a few hundred.
Despite the fact Haystack Rock
still hosts more than 85 per-
cent of the puffin population in
Oregon, last year only 124 puf-
fins were counted — a sharp
decline from the 612 recorded
in 1988.
Stephenson has a few
guesses as to why. Rising
ocean temperatures could be
driving the type of fish puf-
fins eat deeper into the water,
past depths where the puffins
can dive. But without more
research, he can’t say for sure.
In the last 20 years, there
have been no significant stud-
ies done on puffins in Ore-
gon beyond monitoring pop-
ulation size, Stephenson said,
partially due to limited federal
funding.
“It’s not going to be just
one thing,” he said.
Securing the grant would
allow researchers to collect
blood samples, which could
reveal more information about
what puffins eat and their
genetic history, Stephenson
said. That could lead to reve-
lations about any illnesses or
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subspecies that could affect
the colonies. It would also
finance transmitters, which
could track migration patterns
to determine how far the birds
need to go out to find food.
Answering these questions
are some of the first steps to
solving the problem of why
fewer and fewer puffins are
returning to Haystack Rock.
“No one wants to be at U.S.
Fish and Wildlife when puf-
fins blip out. I want to be able
to say I helped recover them,”
Stephenson said.
Education
The other 20 percent of
the sweatshirt proceeds will
be geared toward educational
programs offered through
Haystack Rock Awareness
Program, program coordinator
Melissa Keyser said.
The programs include
events like the “Puffin Wel-
come” hosted for kindergart-
ners, as well as expanding the
annual “Puffin Walk” in the
first week of July.
“In the past, we’ve done
more basic outreach with
our basic beach routine,”
Keyser said. “We want to
amp up this event with more
activities and a guest speaker
with these funds to educate
people as to why populations
are declining.”
Keyser said she is excited
to see the community engaged
with the fundraiser.
“We want to make sure our
educators are educated and
those who are interested have
the resources to know how to
educate themselves when it
comes to this issue,” Keyser
said. “The more we know, the
more we know what we can
do.”
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Who can enter?
Results:
Other contest rules:
• Photographers of all ages; must be
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• Top 10 photographs will be published in
the Coast Weekend print edition on Thursday,
Jan. 4, 2018.
• All photographs entered may be used in
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What photographs are eligible?
• All subjects are welcome.
• Digital entries: Digital photographs may be
color or black-and-white and must be JPEGs,
maximum of 5MB, 300 dpi resolution and at
least 5”x7” in image size.
• Top 25 photographs will be published
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Submission deadline:
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