3A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 2018
‘World’s Smallest Harbor’ could shrivel unless dredged
Silt building up
at Depoe Bay
By TOM BANSE
Northwest News Network
If you’ve traveled the Ore-
gon Coast, you might remem-
ber the signs marking Depoe
Bay’s claim to fame: the
“World’s Smallest Harbor.”
But now that harbor is getting
even smaller because of accu-
mulating silt.
City officials in Depoe Bay
are on tenterhooks because of
the problem. Silt buildup ren-
ders the fuel dock inaccessi-
ble at low tide. And launching
a boat that draws more than 2
feet of water is becoming diffi-
cult at low tide, too.
Now officials are wait-
ing to hear if the U.S. Army
Corp of Engineers will dredge
the harbor next season so that
the local charter fishing and
whale watching economy can
survive.
The harbor urgently needs
dredging so recreational fish-
ermen can launch and fuel up
reliably, said Mayor Barbara
Leff.
“If the timing of the tides
isn’t exactly right and they
can’t get in the water and the
silt is a problem, they’re going
to miss out on fishing,” Leff
said. “If they miss out on fish-
ing that is lost income to the
harbor, to the restaurants and
very probably to an inn up
there too.”
One of the reasons city offi-
cials express a high level of
urgency is that recent clearcut
logging in the hills behind the
harbor is likely sending more
silt down creeks toward the
harbor than usual.
“We’re really, really try-
ing to push this as an emer-
gency,” said Brady Weidner,
city superintendent. “We don’t
want a world’s smallest beach.
That would be a travesty.”
A fact sheet carried to
Washington, D.C., by a
two-member delegation from
the city last month character-
ized the harbor as “paramount
to the community’s economic
Depoe Bay
City leaders in Depoe Bay are anxiously awaiting word if silt accumulating at the south side of their harbor will be dredged in 2019.
vitality and for ensuring pub-
lic safety.”
Depoe Bay is home to a
large charter fishing fleet. It’s
also become a popular port
for whale watching tours.
However, the harbor does not
record much in the way of
commercial fish landings, nor
does it handle maritime cargo,
which are primary metrics the
federal government weighs
when allocating harbor main-
tenance funds.
The Army Corps of Engi-
neers said Depoe Bay is com-
peting for a limited pool of
funding with almost 900 other
small or low-use harbors
around the country. The Army
Corps’ 2019 work plan is now
being finalized at headquarters.
“We’re hoping to know if
Depoe Bay competed success-
fully by the end of Novem-
ber,” said Corps of Engineers
spokeswoman Kate Groth
by phone from Coos Bay.
“There’s a lot of competition.”
The last time the port was
dredged was in 2014. The
Corps of Engineers had the
harbor on an every-five-years
dredging cycle, which would
mean its turn would normally
come in 2019.
The city of Depoe Bay has
a small tax base and population
— around 1,500 residents. The
funding request to the Corps of
Engineers for harbor dredging
totals $878,000.
Mars getting 1st US visitor
in years, a 3-legged geologist
Tom Banse/Northwest News Network
The ‘World’s Smallest Harbor’ at Depoe Bay is 6 acres in size.
&450&"2,97*4)"../.&"$)'/2"5.*15&,9%*''&2&.4,"$+2*%"93)/00*.(&80&2*&.$&
&450&"2,97*4)"../.&"$)'/2"5.*15&,9%*''&2&.4,"$+2*%"93)/00*.(&80&2*&.$&
Be “One of a Kind” not one of the crowd. Celebrate the day after Thanksgiving in our small
Be #&"$)4/7./''&2*.(#*(&8$*4&-&.40&23/.",3&26*$&".%2&'2&3)-&.437)*,&9/53)/0
“One &450&"2,97*4)"../.&"$)'/2"5.*15&,9%*''&2&.4,"$+2*%"93)/00*.
of a Kind” not one of the crowd. Celebrate the day after Thanksgiving in our small
#&"$)4/7./''&2*.(#*(&8$*4&-&.40&23/.",3&26*$&".%2&'2&3)-&.437)*,&9/53)/0
Be “One of a Kind” not one of the crowd. Celebrate the day after Thanksgiving
By MARCIA DUNN
Associated Press
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla.
— Mars is about to get its first
U.S. visitor in years: a three-
legged, one-armed geolo-
gist to dig deep and listen for
quakes.
NASA’s InSight makes its
grand entrance through the
rose-tinted Martian skies on
Monday, after a six-month,
300 million-mile journey.
It will be the first American
spacecraft to land since the
Curiosity rover in 2012 and
the first dedicated to exploring
underground.
NASA is going with a tried-
and-true method to get this
mechanical miner to the sur-
face of the red planet. Engine
firings will slow its final
descent and the spacecraft will
plop down on its rigid legs,
mimicking the landings of ear-
lier successful missions.
That’s where old school
ends on this $1 billion
U.S.-European effort.
Once flight controllers
in California determine the
coast is clear at the landing
site — fairly flat and rock free
— InSight’s 6-foot arm will
remove the two main science
experiments from the lander’s
deck and place them directly
on the Martian surface.
No
spacecraft
has
attempted anything like that
before.
The firsts don’t stop there.
One experiment will
attempt to penetrate 16 feet
into Mars, using a self-ham-
mering nail with heat sensors
to gauge the planet’s internal
temperature. That would shat-
ter the out-of-this-world depth
record of 8 feet drilled by the
Apollo moonwalkers nearly a
half-century ago for lunar heat
measurements.
The astronauts also left
behind instruments to measure
moonquakes. InSight carries
the first seismometers to mon-
A Coast Guard lifesav-
ing station on the harbor is
well-positioned so its motor
lifeboats can get out on any
tide. But the senior officer for
Coast Guard Station Depoe
Bay nevertheless wrote a letter
of support last month in favor
of dredging.
Officer in Charge C.R.
Hinote said while the Coast
Guard station has its own
fuel tank, it would like to
have unhindered access to the
city fuel dock for emergency
occasions.
“Due to the current state of
depth of water at low tide in
Depoe Bay Harbor, the Coast
Guard cannot safely utilize this
fuel pier,” Hinote wrote.
#&"$)4/7./''&2*.(#*(&8$*4&-&.40&23/.",3&26*$&".%2&'2&3)-&.437)*
"3+&4$"3&
*3$/6&2*.(2&"352&34/(*'4".%+&&0
"3+&4$"3&
*3$/6&2*.(2&"352&34/(*'4".%+&&0
!/52,/2*34
0&$*",/''&23'2/-"- "-
!/52,/2*34
0&$*",/''&23'2/-"- "-
"3+&
*3$/6&2*.(2&"352&34/(*'4".%+&&0
)/03/0&.",,%"9
Bruce’s Candy
)/03/0&.",,%"9
!/52
Bruce’s Candy
*4$)&.
0&$*",/''&23'2/-"- "-
&450&"2,97*4)"../.&"$)'/2"5.*15&,9%*''&2&.4,"$+2*%"93)/00*.(&80&2*&.$&
*4$)&.
Be “One of a Kind” not one of the crowd. Celebrate
the day after Thanksgiving
in our small Bruce
)/03/0&.",,%"9
"../.&"$)0"
"../.&"$)0"
#&"$)4/7./''&2*.(#*(&8$*4&-&.40&23/.",3&26*$&".%2&'2&3)-&.437)*,&9/53)/0
2*%"9 B. BOUTIQUE
2*%"9
Dena’s Shop on
Dena’s Shop on
/6&-#&2 2%
4)&/2.&2
/6&-#&2 2%
4)&/2.&2
"3+&4$"3&
*3$/6&2*.(2&"352&34/(*'4".%+&&0
2*%"9
/(3,,/7&%
!/52,/2*34
/(3,,/7&%
/6&-#&2 2%
/5.%
/5.%
Bruce’s
Candy
0&$*",/''&23'2/-"- "-
)/03/0&.",,%"9
NASA
Illustration shows the InSight lander drilling into the sur-
face of Mars.
itor for marsquakes — if they
exist. Yet another experiment
will calculate Mars’ wob-
ble, providing clues about the
planet’s core.
It won’t be looking for
signs of life, past or present.
No life detectors are on board.
The spacecraft is like a
self-sufficient robot, said
lead scientist Bruce Banerdt
of NASA’s Jet Propulsion
Laboratory.
“It’s got its own brain. It’s
got an arm that can manipu-
late things around. It can lis-
ten with its seismometer. It
can feel things with the pres-
sure sensors and the tempera-
ture sensors. It pulls its own
power out of the sun,” he said.
By scoping out the insides
of Mars, scientists could learn
how our neighbor — and other
rocky worlds, including the
Earth and moon — formed
and transformed over billions
of years. Mars is much less
geologically active than Earth,
and so its interior is closer to
being in its original state — a
tantalizing time capsule.
InSight stands to “revo-
lutionize the way we think
about the inside of the planet,”
said NASA’s science mission
chief, Thomas Zurbuchen.
But first, the 800-pound
vehicle needs to get safely to
the Martian surface. This time,
there won’t be a ball bounc-
ing down with the space-
craft tucked inside, like there
were for the Spirit and Oppor-
tunity rovers in 2004. And
there won’t be a sky crane to
lower the lander like there was
for the six-wheeled Curios-
ity during its dramatic “seven
minutes of terror.”
“That was crazy,” acknowl-
edged InSight’s project man-
ager, Tom Hoffman. But he
noted, “Any time you’re try-
ing to land on Mars, it’s crazy,
frankly. I don’t think there’s a
sane way to do it.”
No matter how it’s done,
getting to Mars and land-
ing there is hard — and
unforgiving.
Earth’s success rate at
Mars is a mere 40 percent.
That includes planetary flybys
dating back to the early 1960s,
as well as orbiters and landers.
While it’s had its share of
flops, the U.S. has by far the
best track record. No one else
has managed to land and oper-
ate a spacecraft on Mars. Two
years ago, a European lander
came in so fast, its descent
system askew, that it carved
out a crater on impact.
This time, NASA is bor-
rowing a page from the 1976
twin Vikings and the 2008
Phoenix, which also were sta-
tionary and three-legged.
“Mimosa Madness”
“Mimosa
Madness”
2*%"9
/6&-#&2 2%
Josephine’s
*4$)&.
Josephine’s
*4$)&
"../
Dena’
4)&/
/(3
"5."/$"
/5.%
"5."/$"
"../.&"$)0"
"((*&".%&.29
"((*&".%&.29
Josep
“Mimosa
Madness”
Dena’s Shop on
"$)&,,&534*$
"$)&,,&534*$
4)&/2.&2
/53&/'"3)*/. "5
/53&/'"3)*/.
&"/,&3)/&
/(3,,/7&%
"((*
&"/,&3)/&
/54*15&
/54*15&
/,,/753/."$&#//+
/,,/753/."$&#//+ /5.%
)& *.&)"$+
*-/3""%.&33
)& *.&)"$+
*-/3""%.&33
"934"$+/,*%"93"../.&"$)
"934"$+/,*%"93"../.&"$)
/9"(&3/93
Josephine’s
“Mimosa
Madness”
/2"'5,,,*34/'"934"$+/,*%"93&6&.43 /9"(&3/93
/-*$3".%
/2"'5,,,*34/'"934"$+/,*%"93&6&.43
/-*$3".%
6*3*4777$"../.#&"$)/2(&6&.43
"-&3
6*3*4777$"../.#&"$)/2(&6&.43
"5."/$"
"-&3
/,,/753/."$&#//+
"((*&".%&.29
*-/3""%.&33
"934"$+/,*%"93"../.&"$)
"$)&,,&534*$
"$)&
/53&
&"/
/54*1
)&
/9"(
/2"'5,,,*34/'"934"$+/,*%"93&6&.43 /-*$
/53&/'"3)*/.
6*3*4777$"../.#&"$)/2(&6&.43
"-&
Follow us on Facebook
/,,/753/."$&#//+
@MimosaMadness &
@HaystackHolidaysCannonBeach
*-/3""%.&33
"934"$+/,*%"93"../.&"$)
For a full list of Haystack Holidays events
visit www.cannonbeach.org/events
&"/,&3)/&
/54*15&
)& *.&)"$+
/9"(&3/93
503.436.2623
/2"'5,,,*34/'"934"$+/,*%"93&6&.43
/-*$3".%
6*3*4777$"../.#&"$)/2(&6&.43
"-&3
