DailyAstorian.com // WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 2018
145TH YEAR, NO. 172
Astoria
eyes new
code for
homeless
shelters
Decision nears on Port oil
contamination cleanup
Pollution dates back
to the early 1900s
By EDWARD STRATTON
The Daily Astorian
Warming center
worried about future
T
By KATIE FRANKOWICZ
The Daily Astorian
Dozens of people had something to
say last summer about whether the Astoria
Warming Center should continue to provide
emergency shelter on cold nights to home-
less people, but the city’s development code
was silent.
The Astoria Planning Commission hopes
to change that.
At a work session Tuesday night, com-
missioners discussed a possible code amend-
ment that would create a conditional-use
designation for emergency homeless shelters
that house more than 10 people. The desig-
nation would be permanent unless the use at
the location changes.
The warming center, which serves an
average of 25 people on the nights it is open,
operates on a temporary use permit that must
be applied for each year. Approval is not
guaranteed and it is difficult to plan for the
future at one location or pursue outside fund-
ing, board members have said.
“The goal of this was to update our devel-
opment code to provide some guidance on
emergency warming shelters in our city,”
said Planning Commissioner Daryl Moore,
who had drafted a possible code amendment,
hoping to provide a basis for discussion.
The goal is not to make it harder to open
shelters or pile on regulations, he added.
“This would actually reduce the amount of
regulation,” he said.
Moore’s draft combined language other
cities have used as well as some procedures
and approaches the warming center has
adopted.
His draft did not allow shelters in
high-density residential zones, where many
churches are located and where the warming
center is located now, in the basement of the
First United Methodist Church on Franklin
Avenue.
Moore said he wanted to incorporate con-
cerns that came up during discussions last
summer from people who said a neighbor-
hood was the wrong place for the shelter.
But Commissioners Jennifer Cameron-Lat-
tek and Brookley Henri, in particular, urged
Moore and city staff to consider including
high-density residential zones in the draft
code amendment.
Cameron-Lattek said the concerns Moore
referenced come from “a particular R-3,” the
city’s designation for the zones. Organiza-
tions most likely to provide space to a shelter
— churches — are located in high-density
residential zones, she said. Including the R-3
zone in the list as commissioners continue
to look at amending the code could generate
more of a communitywide discussion about
where warming centers could and should be
located, she added.
Dan Parkison, president of the Asto-
ria Warming Center board, was not present
at the Tuesday night meeting, but told The
Daily Astorian that under the temporary use
permit, “not only is our location not guaran-
teed, our very existence is not guaranteed.”
ONE DOLLAR
EnviroLogic Resources Inc.
Much of the former oil company infrastructure has been excavated from
the Port of Astoria’s central waterfront, including parts of a former plant
operated by ExxonMobil and Ed Niemi Oil Co. at the site of a present-day
commercial complex.
he state Department of Environ-
mental Quality is nearing a deci-
sion on the best method to clean
up the historical petroleum contami-
nation at the Port of Astoria’s central
waterfront.
Anna Coates, a natural resources
specialist with the state, said the
department will meet with the Port to
get feedback and likely make a deci-
sion in the coming weeks.
Since the early 1900s, much of the
central waterfront was occupied by
large oil storage and distribution facil-
ities, including pipes and storage tanks
above and below ground. The heavi-
est stretch of pollution runs beneath a
commercial complex at the corner of
Gateway and Hamburg avenues — the
site of a former bulk oil plant run by
Mobil and Ed Niemi Oil companies —
and under the former Port offices, end-
ing at the southeastern base of a slip
between piers 2 and 3.
In the late 1990s, a pipe leaked and
created a sheen in the Columbia River,
Coates said. In 2001, the state initiated
negotiations with the Port, Niemi Oil,
Harris Industries and McCall Oil &
Chemical Corp. on an investigation of
the pollution and feasibility study for
cleanup.
The investigation identified the
main source of petroleum from a
former ExxonMobil/Niemi Oil bulk
plant, a documented diesel release
from a McCall pipeline, an under-
ground storage tank previously oper-
ated by the Port and other nearby
pipelines.
Colin Murphey/The Daily Astorian
See PORT, Page 4A
An oil boom sits in the water near Pier 2 at the Port of Astoria.
The Port of Astoria’s central waterfront used to be populated with bulk fuel plants, seen on the left in this photo. An
oil sheen in the Columbia River in the 1990s initiated a multimillion-dollar cleanup effort nearing a final solution.
Clatsop County Historical Society
See SHELTERS, Page 4A
Natural Grocers opens its doors in Warrenton
The store is
the chain’s
10th in Oregon
By EDWARD STRATTON
The Daily Astorian
Edward Stratton/The Daily Astorian
Natural Grocers in Warrenton held a soft opening Tuesday and opens full time today.
WARRENTON — Natu-
ral Grocers, the region’s new-
est grocery store, has opened at
Youngs Bay Plaza.
The
13,000-square-foot
natural and organic store
employs about 20 peo-
ple, including Store Man-
ager Brian Marchello. Previ-
ously employed at Safeway,
Marchello said he became
interested in retailers like Nat-
ural Grocers when his wife’s
medical needs required his
family to take a closer look at
their diet.
“We don’t allow just any
product to (be) put in here on
the shelves,” Marchello said of
the retailer, which offers prod-
ucts such as organic produce,
grass-fed beef and free-range
eggs.
Along with groceries, Nat-
ural Grocers has a vast array
of vitamins, supplements and
body care products.
The
store
employs
Michelle Larsen, a nutritional
See STORE, Page 4A