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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (May 30, 2018)
7A THE DAILY ASTORIAN • WEDNESDAY, MAY 30, 2018 Edward Stratton/The Daily Astorian The shrubland on the Skipanon Peninsula is populated by shotgun shells, the burned-out husks of cars and the occasional homeless camp. Port: ‘This project is one that makes a lot of sense’ Continued from Page 1A the failed LNG project. But the land has largely remained an unofficial dumping ground and off-road course surrounded by dikes that connect Warrenton’s trail system. The Port shut off access to King Ave- nue, the main access road, in 2015 to cur- tail trespassing in the wake of multiple fires. Tessa Scheller, a member of the Ski- panon River Watershed Council, said the group had the land surveyed more than a decade ago. The council recently rec- ommended the concept of flooding as a way to restore about 75 acres of prime off-channel salmon habitat while provid- ing the Port and other agencies a badly needed wetland mitigation bank. “The last time the Port used this for commercial uses was in 1985,” she said. “They assembled oil derricks there, then put them on ships. The Port hasn’t had anything commercial going on there for a long, long time.” The Port’s budget committee, in the process of crafting the agency’s budget for the coming year, could allocate money for a feasibility study of the project. The watershed council is also considering paying for part of the study, Scheller said. The feasibility would be studied by the Columbia River Estuary Study Taskforce, a group that works with willing landown- ers on projects to rehabilitate wetlands. “This project is one that makes a lot of sense, but it’s going to be expensive and it’s going to be a long process,” said Denise Lofman, the director of the task force. The task force would look at the costs of flooding the land while building up levees to protect surrounding property owners. Most of the task force’s proj- ects are funded by the Bonneville Power Administration to offset the impact of hydroelectric dams on the Columbia and Snake rivers, but a mitigation bank for the Port would require alternative funding. The project could be expensive, but could also be a moneymaker for the Port, which recently paid more than $260,000 for 1.5 acres worth of wetland mitiga- tion credits from Warrenton Fiber to off- set runway work at the Astoria Regional Airport. The Port has also used credits from the Airport Mitigation Bank, cre- ated in the 1980s near the mouth of the Lewis and Clark River, to offset other developments. The project could also help improve surrounding levees, Knight said, while leaving the Port land to develop along Harbor Drive and fronting the eastern bank of the Skipanon River. The Port and the task force have previously discussed similar Bonneville-funded projects. For her part, Scheller thinks commer- cial development, wetlands and trails can all coexist on the peninsula, providing a multifaceted public benefit. “As far as I know, this is the larg- est piece of publicly owned land (on the lower Columbia) that can be restored to what it once was,” she said. The Port of Astoria in 2015 blocked access to King Avenue and the land it owns on the Skipanon Peninsula. The Daily Astorian Painter: Was a second- generation fisherman Continued from Page 1A He was arrested in Janu- ary for possession of heroin, tampering with physical evi- dence, driving under the influ- ence of intoxicants and reck- less driving. An Astoria police officer allegedly saw Painter smoking heroin while driv- ing, and he later attempted to hide the paraphernalia when pulled over. Last year, he was charged with heroin and cocaine possession, DUII and reckless driving for a 2016 crash. An Astoria native, Painter was a second-generation fish- erman who worked on a num- ber of fishing boats, including as a captain. He was featured in several seasons of the Dis- covery Channel’s “Deadli- est Catch,” during which he became skipper of the F/V Maverick. The popular show documents the lives of crab fishermen in the Bering Sea off Alaska. “It’s a crab boat. It’s not a democracy. There’s one guy in charge and now I’m that guy,” he said at one point during the show, according to the “Dead- liest Catch” fan site. A host of fishermen weighed in on social media about Painter’s death. “My sincerest condo- lences to Capt. Blake’s fam- ily, friends, crew, and all who loved him,” Keith Col- burn, captain of the F/V Wiz- ard, wrote Tuesday on Twit- ter. “Fair winds and following seas, Captain. Rest easy; we have the watch.” Vaccinations: Reason for objection not required Continued from Page 1A disease. More than a dozen students in Lane County, including two at the Univer- sity of Oregon in Eugene, con- tracted whooping cough ear- lier this spring, according to media reports. In December, about a dozen cases of the dis- ease were reported at schools in Clark County, Washington, across the Columbia River from Portland. The Oregon law requires parents who seek a nonmedi- cal exemption to receive edu- cation about the risks of fore- going immunization from one of two sources. They can opt to submit documentation that they have watched an edu- cational video on the health authority’s website or have consulted with a health care provider. About 95 percent of parents choose to provide doc- umentation of watching the online video, de Assis Mat- thews said. “That is not to say parents aren’t talking to health care providers,” she said. “Anec- dotally, we are hearing from health care providers that they do have discussions with par- ents and if parents are still wanting to claim an exemp- tion, the providers ask them to watch the online video.” Parents are not required to give a reason for their objec- tion to immunizations. The anti-vaccination move- ment dates back to 1998 when a reputable medical journal, The Lancet, published a study by British physician Andrew Wakefield who claimed there might be a link between the measles, mumps and rubella vaccination and autism, though the study was subse- quently and overwhelmingly debunked by the vast majority of researchers, according to a 2013 history by the Columbia Journalism Review. Rates of autism continue to rise every year. The most recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Pre- vention showed the develop- ment disorder affects 1 out of every 59 children in a count of 11 communities across the United States. The scare over vaccinations started to gain momentum in 1999 when the Food and Drug Administration found that there was no evidence that thimerosal in vaccines was harmful but, as a precaution, recommended removing the ingredient from vaccines given to infants. The panic intensi- fied in 2000 when former Brit- ish Prime Minister Tony Blair and his wife declined to dis- close whether their son, Leo, had been immunized, accord- ing to the Columbia Journal- ism Review. Years later, the couple said he had, in fact, been vaccinated on schedule, the CJR reported. Subsequent studies by the CDC have found no evidence to support a link between vac- cines and autism. In 2015, Oregon state Sen. Elizabeth Steiner Hayward, D-Beaverton, proposed a law to eliminate philosophical exemptions to mandatory vac- cines, but she later withdrew the legislation after hearing opposition from both Demo- crats and Republicans. The Capital Bureau is a collaboration between EO Media Group and Pamplin Media Group.