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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • WEDNESDAY, DEcEmbER 12, 2018
OPINION
editor@dailyastorian.com
KARI BORGEN
Publisher
JIM VAN NOSTRAND
Editor
JEREMY FELDMAN
circulation manager
Founded in 1873
DEBRA BLOOM
business manager
JOHN D. BRUIJN
Production manager
CARL EARL
Systems manager
PUBLISHER’S NOTEBOOK
Forests a gift to Clatsop County
D
uring the holidays most of us
give more thought to trees than
usual, since they’re decorated
with lights and ornaments everywhere.
Although we may be thinking ever-
greens now, let’s face it, during most of
the year we live along the river and sea
and don’t give much thought to the larg-
est part of our county —
the part that grows trees.
Of 529,000 acres in
Clatsop County, 499,000
acres is forestland,
according to OregonFor-
estFacts.org. That means
KARI
trees cover 94 percent of
BORGEN
our home.
In October I joined
108 community mem-
bers on three school buses to tour for-
estry projects and logging operations on
private timberlands and in the Clatsop
State Forest. The idea was to get us to
think about our forestland and the con-
tributions it makes to our local economy
more often.
The county’s forestland is mostly
large and small private ownership, as
opposed to publicly owned. Five of
Clatsop County’s top 10 taxpayers are
forest landowners or wood processors,
and accounted for nearly 40 percent of
property taxes in 2017, according to the
county budget message. In addition to
property tax revenues, timber sales on
the State Forest Trust Lands comprise
an additional $3.6 million of the gen-
eral fund. Forests fund a big chunk of
the county budget — that’s a year-round
gift.
Changes in forest management
Our first tour stop was at a tract
owned by Hampton Lumber, one of
those top 10 property taxpayers, where
retired forester Bud Henderson talked
about the changes in historic forest man-
agement. At one time, forest practices
called for cleaning snags and debris
from streams, removing places where
water pooled. Culverts channeled water
under roads and prevented fish passage.
Oregon’s Forest Practices Act now
requires a buffer of trees around streams
that provide shade, sticks and insects
that create fish habitat. In the last 10
lights and grapples and tracks, out in the
woods on their own. I even want to run
one.
High-wage jobs
Kari Borgen/The Daily Astorian
The sun shines through the trees on the landing of a selective cut harvest site on
the Clatsop State Forest.
years, state agencies collaborated with
Hampton to install bridges over roads
to remove the fish barrier and provide a
more naturally flowing stream. Now fish
have habitat again in the once-scarce
weirs and pools. It’s an example of a pri-
vate-public project that keeps giving
back, year after year, as fish now find
homes upstream.
As the forestry tour bus traveled off
paved roads and into the woods, I was
struck by the vastness of the timbered
ground in our county, much of it in steep
ravines (something you notice riding in
a school bus on a narrow gravel logging
road).
More gravel road, switchbacks and
a spur road took the bus to the second
stop on the tour, a cut-to-length log-
ging operation on Clatsop State Forest.
The harvest plan on this site calls for the
contractor, Miller Timber Services of
Philomath, to selectively cut small trees
with a harvester, a machine with a com-
puterized cutting head that falls, limbs,
cuts correctly measured logs and marks
for the right species sort in one pass. The
accompanying forwarder has a grapple
and boom mounted on a carrier to pick
up the harvested logs and take them to
the road to be unloaded and sorted. The
forwarder also loads the sorted logs on
the truck for delivery.
Fifty years ago though, these oper-
ations would have required a team of
fallers, choker setters, skidder oper-
ators, knot bumpers and a log loader
operator. Now with $1.3 million in
computerized machinery, this harvest
operation is accomplished with a team
of two.
“How hard is it to find employees?”
asked someone on the tour. They have
no problem finding operators, came the
answer. That makes sense. It was like
watching kids play with Tonka toys with
Water
under
the bridge
Port of Astoria Manager C.E. Hodges
told the port commission Tuesday night
he thinks the port will develop a facility to
handle containerized cargo but not with its own
money.
“I think Astoria is in a strategic position geo-
graphically as a containerization port but with-
out sufficient financing,” said Hodges.
He said this was another reason for obtain-
ing the cooperation of the Port of Portland in
leasing the former Cathlamet Bay reserve fleet
facility from the federal Maritime Administra-
tion. The two ports are examining the poten-
tial of the site with an eye toward containerized
cargo there.
10 years ago
this week — 2008
The future of the port of Tillamook Bay Rail-
road is as murky now as it was exactly one year
ago, when floodwaters and fallen trees knocked
the line out of commission.
What has grown clearer, though, is the enor-
mous investment that would be required to fix
and upgrade the railroad.
Before the December 2007 storm, dair-
ies and sawmills in the region relied upon the
line, which runs from Tillamook to Gaston, for
incoming cattle feed deliveries and outgoing
lumber shipments.
In the storm’s immediate aftermath, the port
pegged the repair cost at roughly $27 million.
A more complete analysis commissioned by
the port brought the price tag to $34 million,
but that didn’t include permitting and other
bureaucratic requirements.
Astoria resident Curtis Dawson has been awarded the
Carnegie Medal in recognition of his “outstanding act of
heroism” in rescuing his captain, David M. Schmelzer,
Kari borgen is publisher of The Daily
Astorian.
disclosed, but The Daily Astorian has been advised by
state and federal agencies that there is little likelihood of
the type of seismic work that disturbed the offshore fish-
ing industry so greatly a few years ago.
Compiled by Bob Duke
From the pages of Astoria’s daily newspapers
CORVALLIS — A little over 10 years ago, two high
school basketball teams celebrated state championships
with a parade through the streets of Astoria — where,
as the story goes, “all they do is catch salmon and play
basketball.”
Well ... the local boys can play a little football, too.
For the second time in just over a week, Clatsop
County welcomed home a state football champion, as
the Astoria Fishermen capped their run for history with
a 19-11 win over the Banks Braves in the 2008 Class 4A
state title game, on a sunny Saturday afternoon at Reser
Stadium in Corvallis.
Just one week after the Knappa Loggers capped ‘08
with their first football championship in school history,
Astoria put the finishing touches on a perfect season with
a victory over the Braves in the ultimate Cowapa Clash.
What do you say, Astoria and Knappa, same time,
same place, 10 years from now?
Clatsop County employed about
440 people in logging and lumber and
wood products manufacturing in 2017,
down from more than 500 in the 1990s,
according to Oregon Employment
Department figures. But the average for-
est-related job paid $68,200 a year in
2015 — nearly double the county’s all-
job average of $35,100. Those jobs are
better than family-wage, and most don’t
require a college degree.
Our final stop on the tour was at
Northrup Horse Camp, a recreational
site in Clatsop State Forest managed by
the Oregon Department of Forestry. As
the name implies, there are corrals for
horses, and camping areas for RVs and
tents as well as a picnic area. Although
we may not think about our forests
often, the state forest is being managed
for multiple use, which means the pub-
lic can access more than nine miles of
trails for hiking, horseback riding and
and camping — a livability benefit for
county residents.
Clatsop County forest lands pro-
duced enough wood in 2017 to pro-
vide lumber for more than 15,000 typ-
ical 2000-square-foot homes. We are
home to both a lumber mill and a paper
mill that processes some of that lum-
ber and pulp. The export yard at the Port
of Astoria sorts and ships logs over-
seas. State and private foresters and land
managers assure that harvests are done
responsibly, and managed sustainably.
On the bus ride back through miles
and miles of forests, it struck me that all
of the management and harvest activity
I saw on the tour goes on every day, out
of sight of almost all of the rest of Clat-
sop County.
As you look at your Christmas tree
this year, you might think about the
other trees in Clatsop County that stand
in the woods unadorned, and how fortu-
nate we are to be home to a vibrant for-
est and forest economy.
1943 —The Oregon Pine No. 2, a 2,400-ton wooden
barge build at the CRPA shipyard on Young’s Bay, is
shown sliding down the ways on Armistice Day in
the company’s first launching.
from drowning three years ago.
The medal is awarded to those who risk their lives to
an extraordinary degree to save the lives of others.
50 years ago — 1968
The Washington State Parks and Recreation Commis-
sion has taken under advisement a request of Washing-
ton Mineral Inc., of Ilwaco for a long-term lease of beach
at Fort Canby State Park to mine mineral-rich sand. The
present one-year lease was extended until February
while the long-term proposal is considered.
The company said the black sand at the southwestern
tip of the state contains enough iron and titanium for its
smelter at Centralia to produce 35,000 tons of iron annu-
ally for 25 years.
It said engineering studies indicate ocean action will
deposit additional amounts of the sand.
Union Oil company has applied to the Portland dis-
trict office, U.S. Corps of Engineers, for renewal of a
permit to conduct core drilling and exploratory opera-
tions in the Pacific ocean off the Oregon coast.
Nature of exploratory work planned by union was not
Delegates to the National Conference of Coastal
States were told Wednesday that mineral deposits may
make the ocean floor along the coasts “one of the richest
strips of real estate in the world.”
But they were cautioned, too, that “only uninformed
people believe ocean mining will be a large business
within two or three years.”
There appeared to be agreement among a number of
speakers, however, that mining of hard metals from the
coastal shelf is coming.
75 years ago — 1943
To renew interest of Clatsop County women in home
nursing with a view to making every woman “symptom
conscious” and thus forestall epidemics both during and
after the war, Miss Mary Grey, Red cross nursing consul-
tant for the state of Oregon, conferred today and Thurs-
day with local Red Cross workers.
Every war — from the time of the Egyptians to date
— has been followed by an epidemic, according to Miss
Grey. Consequently, she explained, the Red Cross and
health departments have been observing the incidence of
communicable disease in this country. The increase now
nears 35 percent since the war began, she said.
“We are hoping to avoid any such epidemics as we
had after the last war.”
A light plane from the naval auxiliary air
facility at the Clatsop County airport devel-
oped engine trouble while on a routine flight at
12:32 p.m. Sunday and crashed into the Colum-
bia River near the naval station, port docks,
naval authorities announced today.
The pilot, Ensign C.J. Dugan, “got wet.”