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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • WEDNESDAY, MAY 30, 2018
editor@dailyastorian.com
KARI BORGEN
Publisher
JIM VAN NOSTRAND
Editor
Founded in 1873
JEREMY FELDMAN
Circulation Manager
DEBRA BLOOM
Business Manager
Water
under
the bridge
JOHN D. BRUIJN
Production Manager
CARL EARL
Systems Manager
plant site at Warrenton. Work halted Thursday for Memorial
day but will resume Friday, weather permitting.
Compiled by Bob Duke
From the pages of Astoria’s daily newspapers
An advertisement from 2008.
10 years ago
this week — 2008
Akio Egawa, consul general of the Japanese Consulate in
Portland, paid his second visit to Astoria in two years.
And this time he wasn’t forced to leave quickly to avoid an
impending storm. His visit in February 2006 was cut short by
the threat from an Oregon Coast squall.
Egawa was here Thursday to help celebrate the Feb. 3 anni-
versary of the 1824 birth of Ranald MacDonald, the Astoria
native who is believed to be the first English teacher in Japan
— the town was then known as Fort George.
Egawa said his job is to promote Japanese interests in Port-
land, and he was delighted to attend the gathering.
Plans for a four-story hotel on the riverfront
between 38th and 39th streets cleared another hur-
dle Tuesday.
On a 4 to 2 vote, the Astoria Planning Commission
gave final approval for a height variance request from
developer Floyd Holcom that will allow the proposed
hotel to be considerably taller than the maximum 28
feet allowed in the tourist-oriented Shoreland zone.
The variance had received tentative approval at the
May 6 meeting.
The National Park Service is sprucing up Lewis and Clark
National Historical Park.
After all, how often do you have a 50th anniversary
celebration?
The park celebrates its 50th this weekend.
Park employees have mowed grass along the highway lead-
ing up to the park’s entrance, creating a refined look in sharp
contrast to the acres of trees blown flat beyond the road.
David Szymanski, the superintendent, said help from the
public has played an important role in preparations for this
weekend’s celebrations.
He said following the Dec. 2-3 storm that blew down hun-
dreds of trees in the park many people called offering their help
for the cleanup. But conditions were too dangerous for the park
to allow people to help.
50 years ago — 1968
Presidential candidate Robert Kennedy invoked
the spirit of Lewis and Clark and lashed at the “pol-
itics of joy” preached by Herbert Humphrey as he
addressed more than 2,000 people in the Safeway
parking lot Friday.
This was the major public appearance of a morn-
ing’s visit in Clatsop County in which the candidate
also hiked on the Clatsop beach and splashed briefly
in the surf for national network television cameras.
Approximately 100 small boats, about evenly divided
between pleasure and commercial craft, were reported out
across the Columbia River bar early Thursday by Cape Disap-
pointment Coast Guard station.
Crewmen were alerted for possible accidents at sea over the
long holiday weekend as were airmen at Astoria Coast Guard
Air station, a spokesman said.
Coast Guard patrols by air and sea observed 37
Russian trawlers and one Japanese vessel operat-
ing off the Oregon and Washington coast during
the week ending May 23, according to the Bureau of
Commercial Fisheries.
Construction West, Inc., resumed work Wednesday on grad-
ing 200 cleared acres of the Northwest Aluminum company
Consumption of fish in the United States has almost
doubled in 10 years, but the American fisherman’s
share of the domestic market has plummeted from
about 60 percent to 29 percent.
The United States has dropped from second to sixth
among the world’s fish-producing nations.
“This is a tragedy of our times,” says Sen. Warren
G. Magnuson, D-Wash.
“And there is no indication that this downward
trend will be reversed,” said Sen. Edward M. Kennedy,
D-Mass.
75 years ago — 1943
First shipment of 11 cases of cigarettes, consigned to Co. L of
Astoria, New Guinea, will go forward this week, contributions
to the Overseas Cigarette Fund having reached the $250 neces-
sary for the purchase of 110,000 cigarettes at 5 cents a package.
The company adds one case for each 10 purchased. The ciga-
rettes will be distributed free to the overseas men through army
service officers.
Much has been heard here about the mosquito pest
of New Guinea, where many Astoria young men are
fighting with the 41st Division and the “mossies” seem
to be a topic of quips among the men over there. A cou-
ple of the tall tales which have gained currency among
the troops are contained in a recent letter written home
by Sgt. Bob Chessman of Co. L. One has it that a sol-
dier woke up in the middle of one night and heard the
“dog tags” about his neck jingling. Looking down he
was amazed to see two mosquitoes turning them over
and reading the inscriptions. They shook their heads in
disgust as they winged off to another cot, one of them
remarking, “wrong type blood.” The other is to the
effect that one species of mosquito is so large that, when
one alighted on an airdrome, the ground crew filled it
half full of gas before discovering it was not a bomber.
Rear Adm. Ross F. McIntyre, surgeon general of the Navy,
and President Roosevelt’s personal physician, said in San Fran-
cisco Wednesday that the navy will start soon on construction of a
500-bed temporary hospital at Tongue Point to handled wounded
servicemen moved here from the San Francisco bay area and
Seattle.
LETTERS WELCOME
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Box 210, Astoria, OR 97103.
GUEST COLUMN
Oregon must take action to fight climate change
C
latsop County is unique — 94 percent
of its total acreage is covered in forests,
whereas the percentage statewide is
about 48 percent.
It is also unique in another way. — ours is
the only county along the Oregon Coast that
has virtually no federal forests. Because of
multiple favorable factors, it
is widely regarded as one of
the best places in the country
for growing trees.
The forests here have
always been very important to
the residents. They provide
CAROLYN needed wood products and
EADY
jobs, a beautiful backdrop to
the east as you walk along the
ocean, and countless opportunities for activities
such as camping, fishing, hiking and hunting
that are appealing to us and many tourists.
What’s becoming increasingly apparent is
that the forests also provide another significant
benefit we have always taken for granted —
their ability to remove or sequester carbon
dioxide from the atmosphere. This is vitally
important now because of the unanimous con-
clusion by the best climate scientists around the
globe that not only is climate change real, it is
happening right now. The pace is accelerating
due to the rapid increase in carbon dioxide and
other chemicals in the atmosphere, collectively
called greenhouse gases.
Although this region has not been as
severely impacted as many others, anybody
who reads newspapers or watches the daily
news is aware of the impacts of climate
change, including more frequent and severe
storms, highly unusual weather patterns and
rising ocean levels causing frequent flooding.
The oceans have also become more acidic
as they absorb more carbon dioxide from the
atmosphere, disrupting marine life.
The scientists are warning us that we must
take positive steps over the next 10 years to
slow down or reverse these trends. The global
community’s efforts to reduce or eliminate
fossil fuel emissions are essential, but will not
be sufficient if we want future generations to
enjoy the quality of life that approaches what
we have enjoyed. Our best hope for reining in
climate change is the so-called “natural solu-
tion.” This requires that the sequestering capac-
ity of forestry and agriculture be maximized by
reforming longstanding practices.
In the face of these sobering facts, we need
to know if our government leaders and other
private forest and agricultural owners are doing
their part to advance this crucial goal by imple-
menting and/or enforcing the best management
practices.
The state needs to begin by reforming the
destructive practices of so-called “invest-
ment-type” owners. These companies have
acquired many millions of acres throughout the
state over the past 15 years, but primarily along
the Oregon Coast. Since it became widely
known that Oregon has the weakest private for-
est regulations along the West Coast, there has
been a global land rush reminiscent of the gold
rush in the mid-1800s. These absentee owners’
overriding concern is to get a favorable return
on investment; they have little or no concern
for the land itself. To reduce labor costs while
clearcutting the trees, they use heavy equip-
ment that is degrading the forests and streams
and compacting the soil. They poison the
water, air and all forms of life with excessive
and careless aerial spraying of pesticides and
fertilizers.
With harvest rotations as short as 25 years,
they have reduced forest cover, a major con-
tributor to greenhouse gas emissions. (Cover
is defined as sufficient growth in the canopy as
seen from the air to cover or shade one-third
of the ground. That takes about 15 years for
the trees in this county. This is also the age at
which trees can begin to build their sequester-
ing capacity.) They have been clearcutting 45
percent faster than new replacement plantings
can grow, creating one million fewer acres of
forest cover in Oregon over the last 15 years.
A recent study documented how the
practices of both investment-type logging and,
to a lesser extent, the state are contributing
one-quarter of all state greenhouse gas emis-
sions, exceeded only by the transportation
sector. Due to an accounting trick in effect
since 2002, their impact on emissions is not
counted, though these damaging practices cost
the people of the state many billions of dollars.
The contribution of Oregon’s forestry
practices to climate change must be prioritized
as one of the state’s most urgent issues. Prompt
action could result in a 90-95 percent reduction
in greenhouse gas emissions. That in itself
would be a tremendous achievement.
The state should require that every large
industrial timber company’s logging books be
available for periodic state audits, to ascertain
the acreage of young trees at least 15 years or
older that have not been previously credited to
an earlier operation. Unless they have acreage
of this type that equals or exceeds the acreage
of the operations planned for the coming year,
they must cease all planned logging operations
until a re-audit shows there have sufficient
acreage to balance these planned operations.
Under these rules, I believe most owners
would simply walk away and seek a compara-
ble return on investment elsewhere around the
globe. I also think many large industrial own-
ers who practice responsible and sustainable
forestry may actually welcome these restraints
on investment owners who are tarnishing all of
their reputations.
Clearly the land that has been severely
degraded needs to be restored. Legal review
would determine if the investment owners
have a liability for restoring and replanting
these damaged holdings, but, meanwhile, state
authorities should move promptly to prevent
further degradation and emissions while
they seek funding to restore these degraded
ecosystems. Restoration operations could also
foster rural economic growth by creating many
additional jobs to do this essential work.
Prompt action to fight climate change is a
way for Oregon to re-establish its reputation as
a national leader in environmental policies.
Carolyn Eady, an Astoria resident, has been
involved in or tracked forestry issues for 20
years. She is involved in Indivisible North Coast
Oregon and the Columbia River Estuary Action
Team.