WARRENTON | WARRIORS SPRING SPORTS PREVIEWS PAGE 12
DailyAstorian.com // TUESDAY, APRIL 3, 2018
145TH YEAR, NO. 196
Court
sides
with
salmon
ONE DOLLAR
LAND CONSERVANCY RESTORES CLEAR LAKE
Army Corps must spill
more water over dams
By STEVEN DUBOIS
Associated Press
PORTLAND — A federal appeals court
on Monday affirmed an order to spill more
water over Columbia and Snake river dams
to help protect salmon and steelhead and aid
their migration to the sea.
The decision came after U.S. District
Court Judge Michael Simon of Oregon ruled
last spring that the U.S. Army Corps of Engi-
neers must spill more water through spill-
ways rather than turbines that pose a danger
to the fish.
He sided with conservationists who say
allowing extra water to flow between April
and mid-June will help young salmon.
The Army Corps, National Marine Fish-
eries Service and another federal agency
appealed Simon’s ruling.
A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Cir-
cuit Court of Appeals said Monday that
Simon rightly concluded that the salmon and
steelhead are imperiled and will remain so
without further conservation efforts.
The judges also pointed to decades of
studies that show higher spill volumes lead
to increased survival rates.
“At best, federal defendants establish
uncertainty about the benefits of increased
spill, but the existence of scientific uncer-
tainty does not render the district court’s
findings clearly erroneous,” Chief Judge Sid-
ney Thomas wrote in the opinion.
See SALMON, Page 3A
Photos by Colin Murphey/The Daily Astorian
Eric Owen shows Vernon Montgomery and Eric Halperin how to plant trees at the Clear Lake wetland restoration site.
A WETLAND
RETURNS IN
WARRENTON
By KATIE FRANKOWICZ
The Daily Astorian
Astoria backs
rural grant for
homeless youth
W
ARRENTON — Faced with
a heart transplant and not
knowing what might hap-
pen next, a Warrenton res-
ident set in motion a land transfer that has
resulted in restored wetland habitat not far
from downtown.
The North Coast Land Conservancy
acquired the Clear Lake property in 2013 from
Rod Gramson. It was the last lake in War-
renton that hadn’t already been conserved or
developed.
In the years since, the organization has
excavated a sand dune and removed ditches
that drained the surrounding wetland. The
water is back, and so are the plants, helped
along by infusions of seedlings planted by
hand. Elk roam through, ducks cackle from
behind long grasses, tree frogs are everywhere
and someone even spotted a great horned owl.
Last week, staff and volunteers with the
land conservancy finished the last active push
to bring the land back to what it was before
human development began to encroach and
transform it. Eric Owen, a land steward, headed
up the effort, planting more than 3,000 native
plants at the 47-acre property, from elderberry
and sedges to Sitka spruce and salal to place
the wetland on a good trajectory.
Federal money for
outreach programs
By KATIE FRANKOWICZ
The Daily Astorian
The Astoria City Council has thrown its
support behind a federal grant to help home-
less youth.
Clatsop Community Action and the Rural
Oregon Continuum of Care plan to apply
for money through the youth homelessness
demonstration program administered by
the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban
Development.
The groups have not outlined a specific
project yet, but they are looking to pull from
$43 million that has been set aside to serve
homeless youth.
The federal money will be available to
11 communities across the country, five of
which must be rural. A community can apply
for between $1 million and $15 million.
Above: Eric Halperin
tamps down the dirt
around a newly planted
tree near Clear Lake as
Vernon Montgomery
prepares to do the same
in the background.
Right: Eric Owen,
center, with the North
Coast Land Conser-
vancy demonstrates to
volunteers the proper
way to plant seedlings.
See WETLAND, Page 3A
See YOUTH, Page 4A
Local activist, advocate begins state House campaign
Mitchell running
for Boone’s seat
By EDWARD STRATTON
The Daily Astorian
Edward Stratton/The Daily Astorian
Tiffiny Mitchell, center, stands with supporters Monday during a kickoff to
her state House campaign at Buoy Beer Co.
When Melissa Ousley dropped
out of the state House race to replace
retiring state Rep. Deborah Boone,
Tiffiny Mitchell said she felt like
there was no longer a candidate quite
representing her views.
So Mitchell became the third to
file in the Democratic primary in May
for state House District 32, along with
Tillamook County Commissioner
Tim Josi and local attorney John Orr.
She kicked her campaign off Mon-
day amid a packed taproom at Buoy
Beer Co.
“When she dropped out of the
race, I felt this void that really needed
to be represented,” Mitchell said of
Ousley. “I listened to the other two
candidates, and it’s not that they’re
not good people. They just didn’t rep-
resent my values or the values of so
many other people that I had talked
to that had also expressed that same
regret that Melissa dropped out.”
Mitchell is a case management
coordinator for the state Depart-
ment of Human Services who moved
to Oregon from Utah in 2015 with
her husband, who works for Pacific
Power. She is an organizer with pro-
gressive activist group Indivisible
North Coast Oregon and has focused
her campaign on broader social pol-
icies such as affordable housing,
health care, reproductive health, sta-
See MITCHELL, Page 3A