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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.