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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 2018
Astoria to close free
RV dump station
Wastewater
treatment at risk
By KATIE
FRANKOWICZ
The Daily Astorian
Astoria will close a free
RV dump station near the
New Youngs Bay Bridge by
the end of the year due to staff
concerns that the unmonitored
site could put the city’s waste-
water treatment system at risk.
The dump station is a vul-
nerability in a wastewater
system experiencing higher
annual loads, Public Works
Department staff told the City
Council Monday. The city
does not monitor the station
and does not track what gets
dumped there.
If the wastewater system
were deemed unable to han-
dle these higher loads overall,
the state could require a new,
technical plant estimated to
cost around $50 million.
Staff, hoping to extend the
useful life of the system, are
identifying problem spots like
the dump station. They have
sent flyers out to residential
customers, reminding them
of what should and should not
be flushed down a toilet — “a
toilet is not a trash can!” —
and working with large indus-
trial users like local breweries.
Fort Stevens State Park
also provides RV dump ser-
vices. After the Astoria dump
station closes on Dec. 31,
users will be able to go there
instead, staff said.
City councilors voted 4-1
to close the dump station.
Councilor Tom Brownson
was the sole “no” vote. He
advocated for delaying a deci-
sion to give staff more time to
study the issue and investigate
a “pay to dump” solution.
A handful of residents
also asked the City Council to
keep the dump station open.
It’s not just for tourists pass-
ing through, they said.
Dan Sealy, who lives in
city limits, uses the dump sta-
tion occasionally and opposed
the closure. He pointed out
that public restrooms are
“open portals, too.”
The dump station is a
small entry into the larger
system, he said.
“I appreciate their concern
about keeping our system in
good shape,” he added. “I
don’t want to see us have to
spend $50 million but I can’t
imagine this one little RV sta-
tion is what’s going to cause
us to have to build the new
system.”
William Olson, from
Svensen, also wondered what
homeless people living out of
their RVs will use, arguing
that they will dump where
it is convenient if the station
isn’t open. The Fort Stevens
dump station is not open all
day, he said. The next clos-
est public dump stations are
in Rainier and Wheeler, both
almost 60 miles away from
Astoria.
He argued that the influx
of tourists in the summer
and their use of restrooms in
town probably has more of
an overall impact than the RV
dump station.
But City Councilor Zetty
Nemlowill was not con-
vinced. She said she was
speaking up for the people
“who would like to be able to
affordably flush their toilet in
Astoria.”
“It’s going to be a terri-
ble inconvenience to some
of the people who came here
tonight and spoke very well
trying to defend the closure of
the dump station,” she said.
“But for the greater good of
Astoria, we need to do what
our public works staff is rec-
ommending and extend the
life of our sewage treatment
plant.”
“I don’t think that we
should continue to have an
unchecked, free RV dump
station so tourists can come
and dump their crap so the
ratepayers in Astoria have to
pay more money,” she added.
“That’s ridiculous.”
Oregon gubernatorial campaign
fundraising continues torrid pace
Double the
previous record
By JEFF MAPES
Oregon Public Broadcasting
Final disclosure reports
filed before today’s election
show that the two major can-
didates for Oregon gover-
nor are continuing their torrid
fundraising.
Democratic
incumbent
Gov. Kate Brown raised more
than $17 million. Republi-
can challenger Knute Buehler
raised $18.5 million.
So far, the two have dou-
bled the previous record for
an Oregon governor’s race,
Knute
Buehler
Kate Brown
set in 2010. The reports cover
money raised and spent up to
eight days before the election.
In that period, Buehler
received several business-re-
lated donations of up to $10,000.
Brown received $100,000 from
the Planned Parenthood PAC of
Oregon. Abortion rights advo-
cates have staunchly backed her
re-election campaign.
During the campaign, both
candidates were heavily sup-
ported by the partisan guber-
natorial associations that are
funded by numerous spe-
cial interests. The Republican
Governors Association gave
Buehler nearly $3.4 million
while the Democratic Gover-
nors Association sent $2 mil-
lion to Brown.
Nike co-founder Phil
Knight attracted national atten-
tion by giving a total of $2.5
million to Buehler over the
course of his campaign. Knight
also gave another $1 million
to the Republican Governors
Association. Buehler was also
heavily backed by the timber
industry and several other busi-
ness interests.
Brown received more than
$2 million from organized
labor as well as hefty contri-
butions from a Democratic
women’s group, environmental
organizations and a gun-con-
trol group.
The tally for Brown and
Buehler together tops $35
million. The previous Ore-
gon record for gubernatorial
election fundraising pales in
comparison.
In 2010, Republican Chris
Dudley and Democratic incum-
bent John Kitzhaber together
raised more than $17.7 million
for their campaigns. Kitzhaber
edged Dudley by a small mar-
gin in the election.
Supreme Court justices sound favorable
to Alaska hunter with hovercraft
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The
Supreme Court sounded skep-
tical Monday of the National
Park Service’s authority to pre-
vent an Alaskan moose hunter
from using his motorized rub-
ber boat to access remote areas
of the state.
The justices heard argu-
ments in a case that tests the
limits of the federal govern-
ment’s authority in a state in
which more than 60 percent of
the land is federally owned.
The state and moose hunter
John Sturgeon are arguing that
the National Park Service can-
not enforce a national ban on
amphibious vehicles known as
hovercraft on a river in Alaska
for which the state claims own-
ership, even though it runs
through a national conservation
area.
Sturgeon won an earlier
round at the Supreme Court.
The case stems from Stur-
geon’s 2007 encounter with
three park rangers who ordered
AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais
Alaska resident John Sturgeon walks outside the Su-
preme Court on Monday.
him off the Nation River within
the Yukon-Charley Rivers
National Preserve in northeast
Alaska. The rangers told him it
was illegal to operate the noisy
craft that can navigate shallow
water or even mud. He sued in
2011.
The issue is whether a fed-
eral law enacted in 1980 to pro-
tect undisturbed land but also
allow Alaska residents to main-
tain their way of life provides an
exception to National Park Ser-
vice’s regulation of rivers that
pass through national parks.
“Well, but, I mean, the
waters are very important to
Alaskans’ way of life in the
way they aren’t elsewhere,”
Chief Justice John Roberts said,
voicing doubt about the Trump
administration’s reading of the
law that gives the federal gov-
ernment sweeping control of
the waterways.
Justice Department lawyer
Edwin Kneedler told the court
that the 1980 law is a compro-
mise because it allows hunt-
ing and airplane use in areas
that usually are closed to those
activities in national parks in
other states.
But Congress did not intend
to allow hovercraft to be used,
Kneedler said, calling them
very loud and unsightly.
Roberts didn’t sound per-
suaded by that argument.
“While you may think a hov-
ercraft is unsightly, I mean, if
you’re trying to get from point
A to point B, it’s pretty beauti-
ful,” he said.
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