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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, MARCH 23, 2018
Lewis & Clark Timberlands
to require recreation permits
By BRENNA VISSER
The Daily Astorian
Josh Bessex/The Daily Astorian
The Coast Guard cutter Alert, shown here returning to
Astoria in 2015, is undergoing repairs.
Coast Guard
cutter Alert returns
to Astoria early
Mechanical
failures cut
patrol short
By JACK HEFFERNAN
The Daily Astorian
A counternarcotics patrol
in the eastern Pacific Ocean
involving the Coast Guard
cutter Alert was cut short
earlier this month due to a
series of engine failures.
Overheating and clogged
strainers caused some of the
35 mechanical failures over
the first 19 days of the trip.
The more than 65 Coast
Guard members on board
were unable to perform any
patrols.
The final straw was a
crankcase explosion in the
main diesel engine caused
by a failed lube oil pump.
“It’s not safe to oper-
ate with only one engine,”
Cmdr. Tobias Reid said.
“The other casualties would
not have brought us back
home.”
The trip was origi-
nally scheduled to last until
Wednesday. The cutter is
back at the 17th Street Dock,
where it will undergo repairs
for at least six weeks.
Companies
stopped
building engines used on the
49-year-old cutter around the
time of its commission.
“It’s fairly normal for
an old ship like this to have
a high number of break-
downs,” Reid said. “When-
ever we get parts, they’re
for engines that are not
being produced anymore.
That causes most of our
problems.”
The Alert is one of 14
remaining 210-foot Reli-
ance-class medium endur-
ance cutters in the Coast
Guard’s fleet and one of
three on the West Coast.
Astoria was selected in April
as the home of two new 154-
foot Sentinel-class cutters by
2021.
In good condition com-
pared to the other 210-foot
cutters, the Alert will likely
remain in commission for
another 10 to 15 years,
Reid said. He is optimistic,
though, that future cutters
can be retired sooner.
“I’m really enthused
about the shipbuilding pro-
cess we have now,” Reid
said. “It’s very important
for our service that we keep
building new ships.”
Starting in June, people
who like to recreate on Lewis
& Clark Timberlands will
need a permit.
Since the mid-1990s, the
timberlands have been open
and free for recreation from
hiking and biking to bow
hunting. It will stay that way,
said Mark Morgans, the area
manager of Lewis & Clark
Timberlands. No costs will
be associated with the permit
and the requirement will only
apply to property in Oregon.
The permit idea came from
a local desire to find a better
way to communicate via text
about closures, safety issues
and any other policy changes,
Morgans said.
Better
communication
could have been used in sit-
uations like last fall when the
property was closed for fire
danger, Morgans said. After
a bout of rain, the fire haz-
ard was low enough to allow
about a week’s worth of
recreation.
“But we had no method
Danny Miller/The Daily Astorian
Permits will be required for recreation on Lewis & Clark
Timberlands this summer.
to be able to (communicate)
that,” Morgans said. “We
could have opened up a week
during bow hunting season.
There’s a significant portion
of our county where that’s
what they do. That’s their
sport, they wait all year for
it.”
Providing a larger feel-
ing of community and sense
of security is another bene-
fit to asking people to sign up
for the annual permit, Mor-
gans said. Someone will be
hired to patrol the 140,000
acres of timberland in Ore-
gon to enforce the new permit
system.
While as area manager he
rarely receives complaints
about suspicious or ille-
gal behavior on the property,
Morgans said many users
have said they would appreci-
ate the oversight.
“People were saying they
would feel more secure out
there, knowing we know who
is out there,” he said.
Though 140,000 acres is
a hefty amount of acreage to
patrol, Morgans said outside
of hunting season most visi-
tors stay around the perimeter
within a couple of miles, mak-
ing the task more manageable.
Morgans said the permit
application is not intended to
be “intrusive.” Outside of pro-
viding a working email or tex-
table phone number, people
should feel at liberty to share
however little or as much as
they want on the application.
Anyone caught without a per-
mit, however, will be barred
from ever receiving one in the
future, Morgans said.
But getting a permit
shouldn’t be much of a hassle,
he said. People can sign up for
free online on the Greenwood
Resources website once the it
launches in May, or scan a QR
code with a smartphone at any
of the property entrances to
get a permit on site.
“Forest landowners have
a responsibility, unwritten or
not, to benefit the community
by allowing legal use of their
timberland,” Morgans said.
“It’s a philosophical thing.”
Washington phases out Atlantic salmon farming
By PHUONG LE
Associated Press
SEATTLE — Washing-
ton state will phase out marine
farming of Atlantic salmon and
other nonnative fish by 2022
under legislation signed Thurs-
day by Gov. Jay Inslee.
Net pens growing Atlan-
tic salmon in state waters have
operated for several decades but
the practice came under heavy
criticism after tens of thousands
of nonnative fish escaped into
waterways last summer.
Inslee has said the risks are
not acceptable given the high pri-
ority — and hundreds of millions
of dollars spent — on bringing
back declining populations of
native Pacific salmon runs.
The legislation sponsored
by state Rep. Kristine Lytton,
an Anacortes Democrat, would
end state leases and permits for
operations that grow nonnative
finfish in state waters when cur-
rent leases expire.
It targets Canada’s Cooke
Aquaculture Pacific, the larg-
est producer of farmed Atlantic
salmon in the U.S., whose net
pens in northwest Washington
collapsed Aug. 19.
“While our company and
our rural sea farming employ-
ees are deeply disappointed
by the governor’s decision to
ignore the science and sign the
bill, we will certainly respect
the wishes of the Legislature,”
Cooke’s vice president Joel
Richardson said in an emailed
statement Thursday.
He added that the company
will “take the time we need to
fully evaluate our operations
and investments in Washing-
ton and explore all our avail-
able options.”
State officials in January
blamed Cooke’s negligence for
failing to maintain its net pens.
They said the escape of the
salmon put the state’s ecosys-
tem at risk and fined the com-
pany $332,000. Up to 263,000
invasive Atlantic salmon
escaped into Puget Sound, rais-
ing fears about the impact to
native Pacific salmon runs.
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