DailyAstorian.com // WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 17, 2018
145TH YEAR, NO. 142
ONE DOLLAR
Fires on Uppertown street cause alarm
Four fires leave
neighbors uneasy
on 38th Street
A fire in
Uppertown
burned a
pickup truck.
By JACK HEFFERNAN
The Daily Astorian
After someone appeared to set fire
to an Uppertown home last week,
Mari Inaba
Fisherman
sues after boat
crash near
Hammond
fires at three more residences broke
out on the same street in the past few
days. One of the fires appears to acci-
dental — not that it matters to con-
cerned residents in the neighborhood.
Emergency personnel responded
to a truck on fire in a driveway on
38th Street near Harrison Avenue
shortly before 2:30 a.m. this morning.
The fire damaged the front of a red
pickup, melting the engine.
“The front was totally demol-
ished,” Interim Police Chief Geoff
Spalding said. “It was a large fire.”
Two burn marks also appeared
near the front door of the house
behind the driveway. No injuries
were reported.
Astoria police also responded to a
report Saturday morning that a small
See FIRES, Page 7A
RECYCLING GOING
STRONG IN ASTORIA
Video released Tuesday
By JACK HEFFERNAN
The Daily Astorian
A sport fisherman has filed a lawsuit after being
rammed in a harrowing boat crash on the Columbia
River near Hammond in August.
Bryan Maess is suing the alleged driver of the
boat — Marlin Lee Larsen — for $372,500 after
his boat was slammed while trolling for Chinook
salmon during the popular Buoy 10 fishery sea-
son. The lawsuit claims Larsen caused physical
and emotional injury in his negligence prior to the
crash.
Maess, Christopher McMahon and Roni
Durham were standing in a 20-foot Weldcraft about
8:30 a.m. near Tansy Point when they noticed a
31-foot Bayliner Trophy speeding toward them.
After yelling at the boat and waving their hands,
the trio leaped into the river seconds before crash.
The three were eventually pulled from the water
and treated at Columbia Memorial Hospital for
minor injuries. Their boat was severely damaged
by the crash.
The lawsuit alleges Larsen was traveling at an
excessive speed, distracted from using his cell-
phone and did not have one of the two other occu-
pants of the vessel keep watch of surrounding boat
traffic.
Maess sustained injuries to the right side
of his body. He continues to wear a knee brace
on his knee, his ankle still hurts and a wound on
his shin has not fully healed, according to the law-
suit. He initially experienced neck pain, vision
issues, headaches and a hyperextended left thumb
after floating with the debris from the wreck in
water.
The lawsuit also claims Maess, a 47-year-old
sergeant with the Hermiston Police Department,
suffered emotionally and financially after needing
to take time off work.
Photos by Colin Murphey/The Daily Astorian
Recology employees using heavy equipment at the Astoria Transfer Station process recyclables.
Program diverts
about 30 tons of
material a month
By KATIE FRANKOWICZ
The Daily Astorian
M
See BOAT CRASH, Page 7A
Clatsop County Sheriff’s Office
A sport fisherman has filed a lawsuit over a
boat crash near Hammond in August.
ost
Astorians
have
embraced expanded curb-
side recycling.
Since a program for the pickup of
glass, yard debris and compost rolled out
in September, Astoria has been divert-
ing around 30 tons of material a month.
Recology, which collects trash and recy-
cling in the city, reports there are 2,300
compost and glass customers, putting
participation in the new curbside collec-
tion program at about 70 percent.
“It’s proving to be a pretty good pro-
gram,” Carl Peters, Recology’s gen-
eral manager for the region, told Asto-
ria city councilors during a presentation
Tuesday.
But a situation unfolding in China
over the past year could complicate the
future of recycling programs.
China, which recycles around half of
the world’s paper and plastics products,
announced last summer that it would no
longer take 24 varieties of solid waste.
The ban went into effect Jan. 1 and
includes common types of plastic and
paper sent from the U.S. to China.
National Public Radio reports that
the U.S. exports about one-third of
its recycling, half of which ends up in
China. Disposal sites and plants in many
Bales of recycled paper products await shipment by Recology at the Asto-
ria Transfer Station.
Western nations are now experiencing
huge backups.
For companies in the garbage busi-
ness, the decision by the Chinese govern-
ment to crack down on foreign waste has
made recycling more complicated and
more expensive. Recology is no excep-
tion, Peters said. Private trash companies
used to be able to make some money off
recycled materials by selling bales to
countries like China. But the new mea-
sures come with new costs. More people
must be on the line to ensure items are
clean, slowing down the entire sorting
and packing process. The Portland-area
companies that process recycling for
Recology are taking a hit.
They are paying to recycle, Peters
said.
Trash is a market and has its own
fluctuations, but Peters said he hasn’t
seen a downturn quite like this one in his
31 years in the business.
When City Councilor Zetty Nem-
lowill asked what a ban in China could
mean for Astoria, Peters said, “In a lot
of places in Portland right now it’s actu-
ally cheaper for me to throw (recyclable
material) away than to recycle it. But we
don’t do that.”
See RECYCLING, Page 7A
Port tenant seeks answers on stormwater treatment
Uncertainty
around plans
for cost sharing
By EDWARD STRATTON
The Daily Astorian
Port of Astoria Commis-
sioner Bill Hunsinger has
questioned how the agency
plans to cover a $1.75 million
loan taken out to pay for a new
stormwater treatment system
on Pier 3, and how it plans to
have tenants cover about half
the cost.
“Which tenants are respon-
sible for half of the total loan
cost, and have they been con-
tacted?” Hunsinger asked in a
guest column published Friday
in The Daily Astorian.
On Tuesday, Kurt Englund
of Englund Marine & Indus-
trial Supply, one of the Port’s
largest tenants affected by the
stormwater system, asked the
Port Commission for an audi-
ence with the agency to answer
those questions.
His company has not had
any formal communication
from the Port regarding the
stormwater system in a year
and a half, Englund said.
“We don’t know where we
stand on that, along with prob-
ably a lot of other tenants as
well,” Englund said.
The Port was required by
the state Department of Envi-
ronmental Quality in August
2014 to install a stormwater
treatment system by July 2016
after monitoring found unsafe
amounts of copper entering the
Columbia River, potentially
harming salmon and other
aquatic life.
The
Port’s
contrac-
tor started construction in
2016 on a system of ponds
and a bioswale to leach
harmful substances out of
storm runoff before discharge
into the river. The system was
See PORT, Page 7A
Edward Stratton/The Daily Astorian
The Port of Astoria’s recently activated stormwater treat-
ment system sits along the western edge of Pier 3, next to
Astoria Forest Products’ processing yard.