7A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 2018
Road rage:
Judge set
Stone’s bail
at $500,000
Continued from Page 1A
Russell passed Stone one
more time after he turned
onto Old Mill Town Road
and stopped his car. The
Longview man got out of
the car with a small base-
ball bat in hand and walked
toward Stone’s truck with
three other people around
him. The truck was struck
during the altercation, Mar-
quis said, leading Stone to
allegedly accelerate around
the car and hit Russell.
Stone allegedly fled the
scene before returning. He
admitted to drinking five
beers during the day, smelled
like alcohol and appeared
intoxicated, according to
court records.
Stone was arrested and
taken to Clatsop County
Jail. He was charged with
first-degree manslaughter,
failure to perform the duties
of a driver to an injured per-
son, reckless driving and
driving under the influence
of intoxicants.
During Stone’s first
hearing Thursday in Cir-
cuit Court, Marquis men-
tioned his 2004 convic-
tion for first-degree arson
and first-degree aggravated
theft. Stone, then the chief
of the Westport Volunteer
Fire Department, tried to set
fire to business records after
being accused of embezzle-
ment. He was sentenced to
17 months in prison.
Stone’s bail was set at
$500,000 Thursday by Judge
Paula Brownhill. Marquis
initially asked for it to be set
at $1 million.
The Clatsop County
Major Crimes Team is inves-
tigating the altercation.
First-degree manslaugh-
ter carries a prison sentence
of at least 10 years. Stone
could face lesser charges
— like second-degree man-
slaughter — or more severe
ones — including murder —
once prosecutors bring the
case to a grand jury.
“Generally we charge low
and then go up from there,”
Marquis said. “A murder
is an intentional act inten-
tionally causing the death
of another. Manslaughter in
the first degree is recklessly,
under circumstances mani-
festing extreme indifference
to the value of human life.”
If a defendant does not
display extreme indifference
to human life, a second-de-
gree manslaughter charge
could be appropriate, Mar-
quis said.
The district attorney
doubted that self-defense led
Stone to run over Russell.
“The only justification
for inflicting this much dam-
age on this victim would’ve
been a reasonable belief by
the defendant that he was
about to be killed and the
only reasonable thing he
could do was to drag him
1,000 feet,” Marquis said.
“That sounds like a very
unrealistic scenario.”
Gillnets: This work is
still a ‘two state issue’
Continued from Page 1A
Otherwise, Brown wrote,
the commission’s diver-
gence “will make enforce-
ment complicated, confusing
and untenable and put at risk
ongoing funding and bistate
cooperation necessary for
fishery reforms.”
However, recent staff
reports from both states
noted that the Columbia
River Reform Policy — also
known as the Kitzhaber Plan
after its champion, former
Gov. John Kitzhaber — has
failed to meet many of the
original expectations.
The policy was intended
to phase gillnets off the riv-
er’s main stem entirely by
2017 and replace the vertical
nets with other types of gear.
Washington tested purse and
beach seine nets, but has not
found a suitable replacement
for gillnets, according to a
recent staff report.
Nor have recreational
or commercial fishermen
seen expected economic
benefits. Gillnetters have
been relegated to off-chan-
nel select areas like Youngs
Bay, Tongue Point and Blind
Slough in Oregon. No select
areas have been identified in
Washington yet.
The need for an agree-
ment on river management
stretches beyond the question
of gillnets, Washington Com-
missioner Barbara Baker
noted. To meet long-reaching
conservation goals, it makes
little sense to manage a river
with two sets of rules, she
said.
Concurrent rules pro-
mote orderly, well-reg-
ulated fisheries, Tucker
Jones, ocean salmon Colum-
bia River program manager
for the Oregon Department
of Fish and Wildlife, told the
commissions.
“Not having concurrency
is a really tough situation
from a management stand-
point,” he said. It has a high
impact on both commercial
and recreational fisheries.
“The border is pretty well
set on a map, right? But the
map is harder to find when
you’re on a boat on the
water,” he added. “Things
move. So that would make it
difficult for us to manage. It
will make it difficult for law
enforcement to enforce. It
will make it difficult for our
customers, the anglers and
commercial fishermen, to
figure out what they’re going
to be doing and how they’re
going to be doing it in a way
that fits within the bounds of
what they want to do.”
Staff had discussed estab-
lishing thermal refuges, or
cooler-water sanctuaries, for
heat-stressed salmon where
fishing opportunities may be
restricted. This work is still
a “two state issue,” said Bill
Tweit, special assistant to
the director for the Washing-
ton Department of Fish and
Wildlife. If Washington is
considering a cold-water ref-
uge, Oregon anglers need to
know that.
For Oregon commission-
ers, there is some urgency,
especially when it comes to
planning around the Colum-
bia River Reform Policy and
other concurrency issues for
the long term. Oregon Fish
and Wildlife Commissioner
Holly Akenson pointed out
that many of their terms
will expire next spring and
summer.
“I feel it’s important for
us to address it while we
have a somewhat similar
commission to what we have
right now because in two
years only one person on this
commission will still be part
of the commission,” she said.
“So we will have all new
people.”
“I’m concerned that with
the complexity of this topic,
better to just deal with it
while we have a contingent
of commissioners on both
sides that have the back-
ground knowledge to make
that decision.”
The Washington Fish and
Wildlife Commission plans
to discuss how its commis-
sioners might be involved
with Oregon on the next
steps at a meeting Saturday.
Climate: Seasons continue to open late
Continued from Page 1A
closing or opening areas along
the coast in response to events
like harmful algal blooms.
Meanwhile, the industry
is grappling with issues like
how to best address the entan-
glement of whales in crabbing
gear along the West Coast, as
well as the rise of ocean acid-
ification and low-oxygen con-
ditions — hypoxia — that
threaten both the Dungeness
fishery and the shellfish indus-
try as a whole.
It’s a lot.
Challenges
The industry-funded Ore-
gon Dungeness Crab Com-
mission is well aware of
all the challenges the fish-
ery faces. Among the com-
mission’s top priorities are to
find ways for the industry to
reduce the chances of whale
entanglements and to support
research into why Oregon is
seeing increased occurrences
of hypoxia, said Tim Novotny,
the commission’s spokesman.
But by the numbers, Ore-
gon’s Dungeness crab fisher-
men had a great last season.
The season, which tradi-
tionally starts Dec. 1, got off
to a rocky start, delayed first
by crabs that didn’t pass state
“meat fill” tests and then by
price negotiations and bad
weather. However, when
crabbers finally hit the water
in late January, they landed
23 million pounds in Oregon
for a total ex-vessel value of
$74 million, according to pre-
liminary data collected by the
state.
For comparison, fishermen
landed 20 million pounds for
$62 million in the 2016-17
season, and only 14 million
pounds for $51 million in the
2015-16 season.
Last season’s record land-
ings far exceeded Alan
Shanks own predictions —
and he isn’t sure if that’s a
good thing.
Shanks, a professor at the
University of Oregon’s Ore-
gon Institute of Marine Biol-
ogy, has been predicting
Dungeness crab abundance
season to season for 18 years.
He looks at the abundance of
megalopae — Dungeness in
Photos by Colin Murphey/The Daily Astorian
Brian Boudreau heat treats the plastic material encasing his crab boat while at the Port
of Astoria for modifications.
meteorologists, definitely the
result of climate change and
the strong El Nino was prob-
ably strengthened due to cli-
mate change.
“So this is the first pretty
clear indication that climate
change is starting to affect the
crab pot fishery and the crab
population.”
Going bigger
Members of the F/V Pacific Pacer crew remove parts of
the boat to prepare for crab season.
one of its larval stages — to
help predict the size of the
commercial catch four years
later. Up until this last season,
his predictions were more or
less correct.
“I was within plus or minus
12 percent, which for a fishery
prediction is really good,” he
said.
Shanks theorizes, though
he can’t be sure, that several
years of warm ocean condi-
tions — the anomalous warm
water, nicknamed “the Blob,”
that persisted off the West
Coast in 2013 through 2015,
followed by a massive El
Nino in 2016 — created a sit-
uation where crab larvae grew
very quickly.
Last season, it is likely
fishermen caught a mix of the
usual 4-year-old crabs, as well
as a bunch of 3-year-olds that
looked like they were older.
“Now if that actually hap-
pened, there’s a good chance
my prediction for this upcom-
ing fishing season will be too
high,” Shanks said.
But he can’t say for sure.
What he can say is this:
“I think a more important
way of looking at this is the
Blob was, according to the
Crabber Brian Boudreau
isn’t taking last season’s num-
bers for granted, either. He is
lengthening and widening his
boat, changes that will dou-
ble what the boat can carry in
landed crab.
And where Boudreau
could comfortably fit 150 crab
pots before, he estimates he
will now be able to carry 400
to 500.
Other fishermen he knows
are doing the same, coming to
a similar conclusion as Bou-
dreau did after his crew strug-
gled to get gear out last season
because of the bad weather.
If Dungeness seasons con-
tinue to open late — as they
have for several years now
— fishermen are calculating
their chances of heading out
in worse weather.
“Who knows when we’re
going to go off this year,”
Boudreau said.
Letter: Prosecutors worry about early prison release
Continued from Page 1A
In the letter, the district
attorneys express concern that
the potential bill may allow all
inmates to leave prison early.
“Our citizens have repeat-
edly voted for strong sen-
tences for serious crime,” the
letter states. “We believe any
attempt to hide plans to cut
sentences after the election is
both duplicitous and undem-
ocratic and would be rejected
by Oregon voters.”
Brown, a Democrat, is in
a close re-election campaign
against state Rep. Knute Bue-
hler, a Republican who has
faulted her on transparency.
Marquis, a Democrat, has
endorsed Buehler, but he said
the letter is not meant to influ-
ence the election.
The district attorney, who
is retiring in January, has long
opposed major reductions in
prison sentences, preferring
“truth in sentencing.”
Brown’s
administration
should, “immediately release
any legislative concepts that
change voter approved limits
on the early release of violent
felons or others serving sen-
tences handed down by judges
in open court,” Marquis said
in a statement.
The letter from prosecu-
tors claims they have reached
out to the governor’s office
and that a staffer assured them
that no legislation to reduce
prison sentences would be
proposed in 2019. “However
this message was not public
and not from our governor,
only from one of her staff,”
the letter states. “Therefore,
we remained very concerned.”
Other prosecutors who
signed the letter to Brown
include Clackamas County
District Attorney John Foote
and Linn County District
Attorney Doug Marteeny,
who, like Marquis, have
been critical of new laws that
reduce sentences for drug and
property crimes.
A Marion County judge
Colin Murphey/The Daily Astorian
District Attorney Josh Marquis and other prosecutors have criticized Gov. Kate Brown
over transparency.
ruled in October that the
administration could not rely
on its attorney-client privi-
lege argument and ordered
the public release of the bill
proposals.
But the administration
appealed, and shortly before
the deadline to release the
documents, the Oregon Court
of Appeals granted a stay on
the release until a final ruling.
The court has said that the rul-
ing will not come until after
the election.
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