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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (May 15, 2018)
3A THE DAILY ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, MAY 15, 2018 Umatilla group wants to reclaim chunk of Columbia shoreline Wrestling with the Army Corps Jeff Ter Har By JADE McDOWELL East Oregonian Golf balls are dropped from a helicopter for charity. Golf ball drop helps Assistance League The Daily Astorian The Assistance League of the Columbia Pacific’s 11th Annual Golf Ball Drop took place Saturday at the Astoria Golf and Country Club. The charity event pro- vided funds for programs in Clatsop County, including Operation School Bell, Cin- derella’s Closet and the Duf- fel Bag program, designed to provide clothing and supplies to children for the school year. Raffle numbers were matched to golf balls. Win- ning tickets went to the num- bered golf balls dropped from a helicopter closest to the tee. Oregon State University Forest thinning, such as this work done in the Umpqua National Forest in Oregon, may be of value for some purposes, but will also increase carbon emissions to the atmosphere, researchers say. Western senators look to expand thinning work in national forests By TONY SCHICK Oregon Public Broadcasting A group of senators from western states want to expand a national effort to boost timber production and restore natural condi- tions on overstocked forests using thinning and other restoration work. Legislation sponsored by U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Oregon, and Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, would extend the Forest Service’s expiring Collaborative For- est Landscape Restoration Program for the next 10 years and double its annual budget to $80 million. “It makes our forests healthier, more fire resis- tant. It creates jobs, creates saw logs. This is a really valuable program,” Merk- ley said. The projects under this program pair timber com- panies with local commu- nities to do work in forests that became overstocked after decades of suppressing natural fires. Those tightly packed trees and brush can increase the risk of for- est diseases and for larger, more severe wildfires. The bill has the backing of a wide array of environ- mental and timber groups. “In these collaboratives, they are working side by side to plant for the thinning of the forest, which pro- duces the saw logs that the timber community wants to see, and the better environ- ment that the environmental community wants to see,” Merkley said. So far, the program has funded 23 projects in 14 states. The projects have generated 2.5 billion board feet of timber. Support- ers credit the program with supporting more than 5,000 rural jobs. Bruce Daucsavage, pres- ident of the Ochoco Lum- ber Co. based in Bend, said in a statement that the pro- gram “has sustained jobs at our mill, brought diverse stakeholders together and resulted in significant res- toration on the Malheur National Forest.” Those 23 projects have also reduced the fuel load on nearly 3 million acres. That represents a little more than one percent of all the acreage in national forestlands. Fifty years ago, construction of the John Day Lock and Dam east of The Dalles changed the city of Umatilla forever. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, acting on flood pre- dictions, acquired the city’s land along the banks of the Columbia River, requiring everyone north of Fifth Street to move to higher ground. Much of the site never did flood, but the Army Corps of Engineers still owns hundreds of acres of land within Umatil- la’s urban growth boundary. A group of Umatilla citizens believes it’s time to return the shoreline to local control. “The land is just sitting there idle, and it’s been idle for 50 years,” Mark Ribich said. “It’s a major attraction for the city and they need to be able to uti- lize that.” Ribich has put together a pri- vate group called the Umatilla Riverfront Advisory Council with two stated goals: educate the citizens of Umatilla about the issue, and lobby for legis- lation that would compel the Army Corps of Engineers to reconvey land within Umatilla’s urban growth boundary back to the city of Umatilla. So far the advisory council’s members include Ribich, Rae- lynn Gallegos, Mel Ray, Dave Meade and Kelly Nobles. They hope to recruit someone con- nected to the Port of Umatilla as well. The problem According to Umatilla City Planner Brandon Seitz, about 39 percent of the 6,756 acres within Umatilla’s urban growth bound- ary are federally owned, with a majority owned by the Army Corps of Engineers. Beyond the roughly 130-acre Old Town Site, the Corps’ property also includes space along the Uma- tilla River, a long stretch of land north of Third Street and the Umatilla RV Park & Marina, which the city operates under a lease from the Corps. “It’s a unique challenge,” City Manager Russ Pelleberg said. Pelleberg said the city hopes to someday create a “Central Park” project along the Corps- owned strip of land along Third Street, expanding the current lease for a community soccer field there to include permis- sion for a new four-field soft- ball complex, picnic shelters and more. The city has also been working for years with the Corps and the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation on trying to craft an agreement that would allow the city to add trails and inter- pretive panels to Old Town Site and remove some invasive plant species before opening it to the public. The site contains archae- E.J. Harris/East Oregonian The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers owns most of the riverfront property in Umatilla. ological features significant to the tribes. Pelleberg said while the Army Corps of Engineers staff are “great to work with,” as with any federal agency there are a vast number of boxes to check for any project, slowing down timelines considerably. That’s complicated by the fact that the dividing line between the Army Corps of Engineers’ Portland District and Walla Walla District runs along the Columbia River bridge, dividing Umatilla in half. The city has to deal with two com- pletely different sets of Corps staff on either side of the line. The proposed solution Such complications are the reason the Umatilla Riverfront Advisory Council would rather do away with leases and jump straight to city ownership. Ribich was inspired to pur- sue that course after learn- ing about similar efforts being undertaken in the Tri-Cit- ies area, where the Corps pur- chased via condemnation about 34 miles of shoreline after major floods in 1948. The Tri-City Development Council, known as TRIDEC, has retained legal counsel to argue that the addi- tion of six U.S. dams upstream since then has negated the Corps’ reason for ownership of those properties. U.S. Rep. Dan Newhouse, R-Washington, introduced lan- guage in the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act requiring an inventory of shore- line properties in the McNary Pool of the Columbia River and the cost for acquiring them. “What we need to do now is ask for the same thing on the downstream side, in the John Day pool,” Ribich said. He said the Corps-owned land in Umatilla means “noth- ing” to the Army Corps of Engi- neers but is “vital” to the city’s growth and development. New softball fields could draw ath- letic tourism, reopening the beachfront to public access could be a recreational draw and historical Old Town Site tourism could bring new dollars into the city. Kelly Nobles, one of the Umatilla residents who has joined the newly formed effort, said the Corps also owns lands along the Umatilla River, near property owned by the Nobles family. Nobles had been pursu- ing a project that envisions an eventual pedestrian/bicycle trail from the mouth of the Umatilla River to the city of Echo. “There’s just a lot of oppor- tunity for future development,” he said. Challenges Transferring land from the federal government isn’t usu- ally a simple or quick process (just ask the Columbia Devel- opment Authority, which has been trying to complete a recon- veyance of the former Umatilla Chemical Depot from the Army to local control for years). Gina Baltrusch, a spokes- woman for the Army Corps of Engineers’ Walla Walla district, said reconveyance of any of the properties within Umatilla’s urban growth boundary would be a long, complex process. “When the government dis- poses of property it has to go through all sorts of inspections,” she said. Environmental laws would still apply, cultural resources would have to be protected and the new owner would still be restricted by rules about the type of use and infrastructure allowed on the property. Happy Birthday Pat Hope WANTED Alder and Maple Saw Logs & Standing Timber Northwest Hardwoods • Longview, WA Contact: John Anderson • 360-269-2500 CITY OF CANNON BEACH City Attorney Services REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS The City of Cannon Beach invites qualified individuals or firms to submit proposals to provide City Attorney Services based upon the scope of work contained in the Request for Proposals. 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