4A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • WEDNESDAY, JUNE 13, 2018
editor@dailyastorian.com
KARI BORGEN
Publisher
JIM VAN NOSTRAND
Editor
Founded in 1873
JEREMY FELDMAN
Circulation Manager
DEBRA BLOOM
Business Manager
JOHN D. BRUIJN
Production Manager
CARL EARL
Systems Manager
PUBLISHER’S NOTEBOOK
Working together as responsible stewards
I
tell my friends that one of the best things
about living in Astoria is the great seafood.
What makes it great is not just what’s
for dinner. Our character is provided by ports
and piers. We all benefit from the generations
of Astorians who came before us to make their
livelihood from the land and water — those are
the jobs that built our community.
Coming from generations of miners and
ranchers and marrying into a family of loggers,
I share the sense of history and pride that
comes with working in natu-
ral resources. Nowhere will
you find a stronger shared
sense of stewardship of the
earth’s gifts than from the
people who make their living
from them.
So when I attended the
KARI
Clatsop Commercial Fisheries
BORGEN
tour recently, it was with great
curiosity about these people
who make their living from the sea. There’s
a sense of romance, adventure and danger in
fishing lore that belies the fact that it’s just
damn hard work.
And getting harder. The regulatory chal-
lenges facing natural resource-based industries
today have come about because of overhar-
vesting in past generations, a time when the
sea’s bounty seemed infinite. Current practices
use historic, scientific, climactic and hands-on
observation to understand each fishery.
The scientists, fishermen and processors
represented at the fisheries tour, organized by
OSU Extension, are working together to be
responsible stewards of our oceans, in hopes
that good practices can both create sustain-
ability and offset the need for costly increased
regulation.
Limits for each species
Amanda Gladics, assistant professor of the
OSU Coastal Fisheries Extension in Clatsop
County and tour organizer, explained the
groundfishing challenges to me this way: “In
2011, the fleet moved to a system called ‘Catch
Shares’ or Individual Fishing/Tradable Quotas
(IFQs or ITQs). The idea here is that each
fishermen has a limit for each species based on
their historical catch records, and is account-
able for everything they catch going forward.
To provide oversight for that accountability,
vessels have to carry a fisheries observer on
every trip — a biologist who keeps track of
everything the vessel catches.
“If a vessel catches more of a species than
they have quota for, they have to lease that
quota from another fisherman, sometimes at
great cost. If they can’t find anyone to lease it
from, they might have to just tie up and stop
fishing for that season. That is sometimes
called a ‘lightning strike’ within the industry
Kari Borgen/The Daily Astorian
A trawl net from the inside. If you were a fish, you’d be swimming into it right now.
— a single trawl tow that catches most of
the entire fleet’s allocation of a rare species.
It’s almost impossible for that vessel to lease
enough quota to cover that kind of event.”
One of the ways to reduce the chances of
such an event is through innovative trawl net
design. To the uninitiated, (that would be me)
a net looks like a net. It’s spooled into the sea,
and when it’s reeled back in on the boat it’s full
of fish.
But to Kevin Dunn, who makes his
living trawl fishing and has a passion for
science-based, artful net design, each net is
crafted specifically for the species it is to catch,
with trapdoors and escape hatches for the
unwanted sea life likely to be swimming with
them. The weights that drag the net bottom
down, the floats that pull the top of the sock
open, and the passageways of red and blue
squares tied off with turquoise ropes look more
like a tike’s climbing gym than a well-made
piece of industrial equipment.
The squares are carefully crafted and
aligned based on the catch that should pass
through the net maze and the bycatch that
shouldn’t. Four-inch or six-inch square? The
nets are crafted, then tested to make sure that
the size fits the fishery, releasing the bycatch to
the sea.
Reducing bycatch
The goal is to reduce the catch of non-fished
species. The idea of reducing bycatch is to
minimize killing fish you don’t want to catch
while keeping those that you do.
As Gladics said, “That’s why there is so
much motivation for building more selective
trawl nets. If (fishermen) can catch the fish they
want, and avoid the rare fish, then they will be
able to harvest closer to the amount they are
now allowed to catch.”
The result? Fewer inadvertent kills, more
fish in the ocean and better selective fisheries.
The hope? Demonstrated best practices that
75 years ago — 1943
Water
under
the bridge
One of the oldest dairy cooperatives in the west
— the Skamokawa Farmers’ Creamery — has been
absorbed by the Lower Columbia Dairy coopera-
tive, which has completed negotiations for purchase
and is awaiting WPB priorities to complete the deal,
it was learned today.
The Skamokawa cooperative was organized in
1894 and at time of its purchase late last month had
about 150 members. The company was manufactur-
ing between 300,000 and 400,000 pounds of butter a
year, with its byproducts from skimmed milk going
largely to casein until recently.
Compiled by Bob Duke
From the pages of Astoria’s daily newspapers
10 years ago
this week — 2008
The Daily Astorian
Senior class president Anthony Kustura stood before a
standing-room-only crowd and addressed those gathered in
the Astoria High School gym.
“It has been a long time coming,” he said, “and now our
time is here.”
The Class of 2008 graduated Saturday afternoon, mark-
ing not only a bittersweet end of 139 students’ time in Astoria
schools, but of a nearly decade-long series in The Daily Asto-
rian tracking their progress.
The Daily Astorian undertook a major project in 1998
when it adopted the third-grade classes at John Jacob Astor
Elementary, pledging to follow them through their high school
graduation.
Few modern mariners can claim they’ve traveled
the seas in a square-rigged tall ship.
But Coast Guard Lt. J.G. Ben Lee sailed across
the Atlantic Ocean to visit seven European countries
during his time on the cutter Eagle — not counting a
tour of the Caribbean — as have many others train-
ing for maritime service on the stately barque.
While travel is a side benefit, life aboard the
Eagle “is also a lot of hard work,” said Lee, who now
works in engineering on the Astoria-based Coast
Guard cutter Steadfast.
Even with sails furled, running on engine power,
the ship was tough to miss Thursday as a Columbia
River bar pilot steered her up the channel toward
the 17th Street Pier, where the Eagle docked for four
days of free public tours.
50 years ago — 1968
Descended from a lowly chicken feeder, a 50-inch bundle
may offset expensive regulatory compliance.
What does it mean for you and me? If
fishermen don’t have to tie up their boats
mid-season, they continue to provide jobs, buy
fuel and parts, and bring in fish to processors,
who are also able to provide jobs and buy
supplies. Those dollars continue to roll through
our communities as employees buy groceries,
clothes, housing and … newspapers.
Since I’m still six months new to Astoria, I
learn something new about this place and the
people who live here every day. The fisheries
tour was a great crash course in the issues that
face one of the biggest segments of our econ-
omy. Oh, and did I mention that the Oregon
Trawl Commission donated rockfish for lunch?
Great seafood.
What do you think I need to learn about
the North Coast? Let me know: kborgen@
dailyastorian.com.
Kari Borgen is publisher of The Daily
Astorian.
The Coast Guard cutter Eagle is escorted up the Co-
lumbia River into Astoria in 2008.
of energy called the Lektro forklift is rolling out of the assem-
bly room at Wilt Paulson’s factory at Clatsop airport.
The bright orange and blue lifts, operated by power from
a self-contained battery unit, are designed to pick up a 1,500-
pound load, raise it to a height of 10 feet and hustle it around
the floor of a small factory.
“It’s designed for the small businessman who can’t afford
to spend $6,000 for a lift,” Paulson said.
The units are expected to sell in the $3,000 range.
Designed in the Lektro factory, the lift has been in pro-
duction about two months. The basic power plant is patterned
after one used by the firm in manufacture of a battery-operated
chicken feeder. Lektro Inc. also makes a golf cart.
Paulson, president of the firm, recalled that the organiza-
tion will be 21 years old Aug. 8 and for the past 21 years has
specialized in battery-operated machines.
Port of Astoria commissioners agreed Tuesday
night to a joint venture with Port of Portland to
lease the former maritime administration reserve
fleet base and convert it to some useful maritime
purpose.
The maritime administration has given up the
base, moving all the ships out to Suisun Bay and
Olympia reserve fleet bases.
Full utilization of present fish hatchery facilities might tri-
ple future production of the silver salmon “farms.”
This fact was brought out Wednesday at a meeting of fed-
eral and state fishery officials with representatives of Astoria
packing plants and the Columbia River Fishermen’s Protec-
tive Union.
McDannell Brown, chief enforcement attorney for the dis-
trict office of price administration, said here in explanation of
the current checking of cars at fishing streams and summer
resorts, “No one has a moral right to do any pleasure driv-
ing at all.”
He added that the 90 miles of gasoline a month A, B, or
C card holders are allowed for family driving is not for plea-
sure trips but for necessary errands. He said penalties for plea-
sure driving will be imposed by ration boards to the extent of
revoking a gasoline ration entirely.
Two women employees at the Astoria airport
really know now what it means to be taken for a
ride. Better than the familiar ditty “I’m a specialist
and gosh darn good one too” is the story being told
today by the Lewis and Clark correspondent of this
newspaper.
It all happened a few days ago when the two
women were in a restroom at the airport con-
struction project. They heard a caterpillar tractor
stop outside and driver hop off. There was a rat-
tle of chains and to the women’s amazement their
restroom began to move.
The “cat” gained speed and the two women in
their most unusual conveyance bounded merrily
along for some distance to the new spot consid-
ered desirable for the location of the institution that
made the WPA boys famous.
When the two women emerged, indignant and
disheveled, from their traveling restroom, the “cat”
driver hastily beat a strategic retreat, turning the
situation over to his immediate superior, the fore-
man of the moving job.
“Boy, was his face red,” the women said in telling
of the attempt of the foreman to explain and apolo-
gize to them.