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
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CITY OF CANNON BEACH
City Attorney Services
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proposals to provide City Attorney Services based upon the scope of work
contained in the Request for Proposals. The intent is to select one individual
or firm to provide services with the probable exception of bond counsel
services. Sealed proposals, in writing, will be received by Colleen Riggs,
Assistant City Manager, City of Cannon Beach, until Friday, June 1st, 2018
at 3:00 pm local time. Facsimile or electronically transmitted proposals will
not be accepted.
at the Hammond Church
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8052. The Request for Proposal can also be obtained
from the City of Cannon Beach’s website
https://www.ci.cannon-beach.or.us
The City of Cannon Beach’s programs, services,
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