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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (June 28, 2018)
BEAVERS’ RALLY FORCES GAME 3 COLLEGE WORLD SERIES FINALS • 10A FIRE IN THE SKY COAST WEEKEND • INSIDE DailyAstorian.com // 145TH YEAR, NO. 258 Mental health experts to advise police THURSDAY, JUNE 28, 2018 ONE DOLLAR Cannon Beach reviews thinning in Ecola Creek reserve County rolls out 24/7 crisis response By DERRICK DePLEDGE The Daily Astorian Police and sheriff’s deputies in Clatsop County who have to make life-and-death decisions about people in mental health cri- sis will get some backup. Mental health experts will be on call around the clock to advise law enforcement about whether someone who is acting out can be contained or needs to go to the hos- pital. The guidance could defuse often fran- tic, emotional confrontations in the commu- nity and avert unnecessary hospitalization or arrest. “We really want to do as much as we pos- sibly can to keep people out of the emer- gency room,” said Amy Baker, the executive director of Clatsop Behavioral Healthcare, the county’s mental health contractor. See EXPERTS, Page 5A D.B. Cooper letter may reveal ID of skyjacker Cracked code seems to point to suspect By ERICK BENGEL The Daily Astorian D.B. Cooper, the mysterious outlaw who seized a commercial flight from Portland to Seattle in 1971 and ransomed $200,000, may have revealed his true identity, in mil- itary code, in a letter an investigative team believes came from the skyjacker. The letter — an unpublished note to The Oregonian dated March 28, 1972 — recently came to light through a Freedom of Informa- tion Act request filed by Thomas Colbert, a private sleuth whose quest to find the crimi- nal took him to the North Coast and became the subject of a History documentary. Colin Murphey/The Daily Astorian The Ecola Creek Forest Reserve near Cannon Beach remains off-limits to traffic. Projects have not been a significant revenue source By BRENNA VISSER The Daily Astorian C ANNON BEACH — The parks committee in Cannon Beach is hoping a road evaluation in the Ecola Creek Forest Reserve will help determine whether thinning operations should continue. The evaluation is the beginning of a larger, five-year review the committee plans to do of the stewardship plan for the 1,040-acre parcel in the city’s watershed. The public will be invited to suggest updates to policies concerning manage- ment and recreation access later this year. The majority of the reserve was estab- lished with a $4 million bond in 2010 with the goal to enhance forest health, protect municipal water quality, enhance salmon habitat and foster community involvement. While major changes have not been proposed, several elements concerning tree removal policies, signage and how trails and roads should be maintained have been points of discussion since the plan was last adopted in 2013. Committee members are looking to a report on the state of the former logging roads in the area — left over from when the land was industrially harvested — to decide whether thinning projects are cost-effective. Signs at the reserve clearly indicate restrictions within the protected area. After the city acquired 800 acres from the state Department of Forestry, Barry Sims, a consultant from Trout Mountain Forestry, recommended limited portions of the forest that were dense with simi- larly aged hemlock trees could be thinned to improve forest health. Doing so would encourage the development of new and different trees hidden under the canopy of these conifers. Thinning projects were seen as a way to achieve the plan’s goal of restoring the forest, as well as a revenue source that could be reinvested back into maintain- ing the reserve. But the policy is being questioned after the city had to haul in loads of rock five years ago to reinforce logging roads after an unusually rainy summer made them too unstable to safely use. After having to pay fees to use neighboring log- ging roads and road improvements, what was estimated to be $20,000 in revenue turned out to be closer to only $6,000, according to Sims. While the weather was an anomaly and made the endeavor especially diffi- cult, City Planner Mark Barnes said, the city has not done work to maintain the roads since. “And they probably haven’t gotten better,” he said. See RESERVE, Page 7A See D.B. COOPER, Page 7A Historical magazine highlights Beeswax wreck A local mystery inspires author By EDWARD STRATTON The Daily Astorian The Beeswax shipwreck, a local mystery born from blocks of beeswax and shards of Chi- nese porcelain found along the shores of the Nehalem Spit, is the subject of the Oregon Historical Society’s newest quarterly journal, “Oregon’s Manila Galleon.” The first article, by author Cameron La Follette and a team of archivists, takes a deep dive into the Santo Cristo de Burgos. The Spanish galleon left Manila in 1693 loaded with Asian trade goods headed for Acapulco, Mexico. Research- ers have long theorized the ship, which disappeared, is the wreck near Nehalem Spit. La Follette had been search- ing the Tillamook County Pio- neer Museum’s website for something else in 2015 when she came across a talk about the Beeswax wreck and looked it up. She later connected with the Beeswax Wreck Project, an archaeological study of more than 10 years looking for the shipwreck. Fascinated by the Span- ish galleon trade and the peo- ple who risked their lives to bring goods across the Pacific Ocean, she started an archi- val study of records in Spain, Mexico and the Philippines related to the Santo Cristo de Burgos. “Archives often have the most surprising things,” she said. “Documents get depos- ited there, and then all knowl- edge gets lost over time.” Her team’s research uncov- ered information about the cap- tain, Don Bernardo Iniguez del Bayo, from the Basque region of Spain. The General Archive of the Indies in Seville, Spain, See BEESWAX, Page 7A A new edition of the Oregon Historical Quarterly focuses on the Beeswax shipwreck thought to be some- where near the Nehalem Spit and Neahkahnie Mountain. Oregon Historical Society
