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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • MONDAY, JUNE 4, 2018
editor@dailyastorian.com
KARI BORGEN
Publisher
JIM VAN NOSTRAND
Editor
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CARL EARL
Systems Manager
OUR VIEW
Wetland may be best use for Skipanon land
S
ome key points to consider in
deciding what to do with publicly
owned land on the Skipanon
Peninsula (“Port of Astoria ponders
wetland bank,” The Daily Astorian,
May 30):
• Around 80 percent of the Columbia
River estuary’s tidal wetlands — his-
torically dominated by Sitka spruce and
serving an important array of environ-
mental functions including salmon hab-
itat — has been destroyed or damaged
by development.
• We live in a time of rising sea lev-
els. Though counteracted here, for the
time being, by a swelling subduction
zone in the Earth’s crust, much low-ly-
ing land near the ocean will be subjected
to increasing flooding as this century
moves forward.
• Man-made dredge-spoils land is
particularly vulnerable to erosion and
liquefaction during earthquakes, making
it ill-suited for most forms of industrial
and residential building.
• Deciding where to best accommo-
date coastal development will increas-
ingly become a critical issue as the
U.S. population increases. Even in the
absence of climate change, the Pacific
Northwest can eventually expect a pop-
ulation density analogous to that in the
Northeast, which had a 200-year head
start on intensive settlement.
• Although somewhat remote from
local population centers, the public has
a surprising degree of interest in the
Skipanon Peninsula. It was the focal
point of years of heated controversy
after a former Port of Astoria commis-
sion wanted to lease part of it — which
it at the time leased from the state — for
a proposed liquefied natural gas termi-
nal that has since been rejected.
The Port owns the portion of the
peninsula closest to the historic shore-
line, while the state of Oregon owns its
northeastern tip. The Port is starting to
U.S. Coast Survey Historical Map & Chart Collection
A detail from an 1870 federal nautical chart shows the complex hydrology of the shoreline and land between Point Adams and the mouth
of the Lewis and Clark River. Interlaced with creeks and sloughs, the area was, in large measure, a tidal marsh. The chart indicates that
Fort Stevens land access was limited to a narrow track along the top of one of the elevated dunes stretching away to the southeast.
decide whether to flood more than 70
acres of dunes and shrublands it owns
for use as a wetland mitigation bank.
The two entities would be smart to work
together on an overall plan for the land.
As our story last week explained,
many construction projects affecting
watersheds require creation of new wet-
lands or purchase of credits to offset
adverse impacts of development. Banks
are large wetland restoration proj-
ects approved by the state to sell cred-
its within a certain area. They can be
source of considerable revenue for their
owners, while facilitating nearby eco-
nomic development by clearing the way
for building on other wetlands. The Port
itself 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.
Creation of a wetland bank may be
the highest and best use for this ephem-
eral land by the side of a dynamic river
mouth. Although there will be those
who grouse about loss of near-shore
land for hypothetical future industrial
development, it doesn’t make sense to
build much of anything on a sand bank
that didn’t exist a century ago and which
may disappear in coming decades.
Creating a wetland bank won’t be
cheap or easy, but there is good poten-
tial for partnerships with entities inter-
ested in habitat restoration. Writing
about a project elsewhere in the estu-
ary, Columbia Land Trust correctly
observed, “If the Columbia River is the
lifeblood of the region, then the lower
Columbia River may well be its heart.
By restoring tidal wetlands, swamps,
sloughs, and channels, we’re increas-
ing resilience in the ecosystem, and
we’re putting landscapes in a position
to recover some of our most threatened
and iconic wildlife species. The work is
muddy, slow, and at times daunting, but
when the fish arrive in places dormant
for centuries, it offers new hope. The
pulse quickens and the river stirs, thriv-
ing with life.”
This would be an excellent outcome
for the Skipanon Peninsula.
SOUTHERN EXPOSURE
Reimagining a historic Indian village
For sale: Abandoned 1950s wood-
framed schoolhouse in tsunami inundation
zone. On former site of historic Native Amer-
ican village; centrally located, ocean views.
Serious offers only.
S
o might the ad for the former Cannon
Beach Elementary School read when
it goes on the market this year.
Former Seaside School District
Superintendent Doug Dougherty proposed
the school’s closing in 2013, attributed to a
$1.5 million budget shortfall.
The location at 15 feet
above sea level — less
than half the predicted
38-to-40-foot wave
height expected in even
a small tsunami, and
more than a mile to high
ground — sealed the
R.J. MARX school’s fate.
A 2016 citywide
survey showed 77 percent favored devel-
oping the former elementary school into a
community center.
The Cannon Beach Chorus suggested a
concert hall. The Haystack Rock Awareness
Program expressed interest in an art and
ecology center.
Other potential uses? Survey respon-
dents imagined fairs, festivals, swap meets,
a kayak launch or a beer garden. While
uses are limited by the property’s institu-
tional zoning to a museum, educational or
cultural activity, a conditional use permit
could allow a parking lot, restroom or dog
impound facility.
“Some may say, ‘Why would you want
to buy an old gym building?’” Mayor Sam
Steidel, a longtime proponent of a city
purchase of the property, said in January. “It
used to be a very central part of the com-
munity. And it’s the entrance to our town.
People care about that, and I think there’s
been lots of efforts by citizens to say so.”
Heritage site
The city’s 2017 Parks and Trails Master
Plan listed NeCus’ Park and school site
Danny Miller/The Daily Astorian
Guy Capoeman, carver of the welcome pole, speaks during a dedication in 2016
at NeCus’ Park in Cannon Beach.
improvements a “high priority” to be
accomplished within five years. The park
holds “great importance to the community
in terms of its locational, historical, cultural
and ecological value,” the plan stated.
For no one more than the people who
lived here for centuries.
The former school sits on the former
site of NeCus’ village, a gathering point for
tribes and central location for generations.
The Clatsops occupied “a unique
pivot-point on the region’s historical
landscape,” author and research professor
Doug Deur, a tribal descendant, wrote in the
Oregon Historical Quarterly.
The Clatsop and their villages lined the
south bank of the Columbia River estuary,
the Chinooks and their villages the north.
“From those homelands, these tribes
dominated social and economic life at
the mouth of the river through the early
Northwest fur-trade era, as they had for
countless generations prior,” Deur wrote.
David Stowe, a representative of the
Clatsop-Nehalem Federated Tribes, said
there remains a “ton of interest” in the
former school.
“The site was one of our most important
village sites, and all of us on council and
most of us in the tribe had family members
born there, lived there and died there.”
The culture stretches 15,000 to 20,000
years for Indian settlement in North
America. “We say ‘time immemorial.’”
Stowe’s great-great-aunt and great-great-
uncle were the last two Indian people to live
there.
To say that the site has meaning for the
tribe is “an understatement,” he said.
Underground radar maps show under-
ground longhouses, pit-houses and a trove
of archaeological data remaining.
“One of the important things for us is to
not disturb that,” Stowe said. “We hope that
the integrity of the site will be maintained
and honored.”
While interested in providing input, the
tribe will not be among the bidders.
“We had been trying to protect the site
for a long time, but the logistics are chal-
lenging for a small group and we thought
this was really a little more than we could
take on,” Stowe said.
What would he like to see at the school
location?
“I’d love to see a longhouse, personally.”
What it’s worth
In September 2016, the land at the
former school property was valued at
$450,000.
While most of the classrooms in the
1950s-era building would be unusable,
Coaster Construction contractor John
Nelson concluded the gym was in good
condition. The cost of interior and exterior
renovations, including a 25 percent contin-
gency, was estimated at $371,000.
The city and the school district were
unable to come to an agreement during
preliminary negotiations, and the project
shifted to the backburner.
For the school district, the elementary
school remains another piece in a budding
North Coast real estate portfolio, along with
Seaside High School, Broadway Middle
School and Gearhart Elementary School.
In May, Sheila Roley, superintendent of
the Seaside School District, said the district
had received appraisals for replacement
value of the building and property value if
there were no building on it.
A third appraisal will offer “what would
be a reasonable cost if you sold the building
as is,” Roley said.
“We’re happy to talk to the city about
any interest in the school,” she added. “We
haven’t had any recent conversations, but
we would love to have that building as a
Cannon Beach community facility.”
Steidel remains committed to a possible
acquisition, but said interest from the City
Council has waned.
“I’m the proponent, and I can’t seem to
get a council majority to be forthcoming or
proactive,” Steidel said. “They keep saying
it’s going to be too expensive and has too
many problems. I don’t think they’re seeing
the vision that it could be.”
The mayor will have an ally in the tribal
council.
“We’re very much looking forward
to participating with the planning and
seeing how things develop there,” Stowe
said. “I have a feeling there can be a good
outcome for everybody there. That would
be awesome.”
R.J. Marx is The Daily Astorian’s South
County reporter and editor of the Seaside
Signal and Cannon Beach Gazette.