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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 14, 2018)
WEEKEND EDITION // FRIDAY, DECEMBER 14, 2018 146TH YEAR, NO. 120 ONE DOLLAR Fishery reports mostly positive Astoria sees increase in landings, decrease in value By KATIE FRANKOWICZ The Daily Astorian Photos by Katie Frankowicz/The Daily Astorian Volunteers with the North Coast Land Conservancy plant ‘seed bombs’ at a coastal prairie restoration site in Clatsop County. The habitat is crucial for the threatened Oregon silverspot butterfly. SEED BOMBS Volunteers take bombastic approach to restore prairie By KATIE FRANKOWICZ The Daily Astorian W hile sheep watched from a hillside, women and men unloaded grocery bags of bombs from the back of a pickup truck. They carried the bombs to an exposed rectangle in the middle of a grassy prai- rie turned yellow and brown for the winter, where the earth was peeled back to reveal soft, sandy soil. Some people worked on hands and knees to plant the bombs one by one in the ground. Oth- ers stood, dropping bombs every few inches and pushing them in delicately with a booted foot. They’re hoping for an explosion on the Clatsop Plains. No one has quite figured out how to restore Oregon’s coastal prairies, unique habitat that is critical to the recovery of the threatened Oregon silverspot butter- fly. But the seed bombs planted at Reed Ranch near Gearhart earlier this month may be a start. Volunteers with the North Coast Land Conservancy planted 8,000 to 12,000 of the small globes of rust-col- ored clay stuffed with native seed. Plantings at Reed Ranch had failed previously, but the land conservancy saw some success at smaller plots and wanted to try on a larger scale again. The bombs, project leaders theorize, will not only protect seeds from hungry birds, they will also keep the seeds from immediately blowing away, an issue that likely contributed to the failure last time, said Melissa Reich, the steward- ship director for the land conservancy. It’s an experiment, Reich said, but Astoria saw an increase in seafood landed into the community, but a dip in the overall value of the catch, accord- ing to federal fisheries reports released Thursday. The two reports — one that looks at the economics of the nation’s 2016 com- mercial and recreational fisheries and another that examines landing data and catch revenue in 2017 — paint a picture of U.S. fisheries that is, overall, positive. Both the volume — 9.9 billion pounds of fish and shellfish landed by fisher- men nationwide, an increase of 344 mil- lion pounds over 2016 — and the value of fishery landings — $5.4 billion — increased in 2017, noted Ned Cyr, direc- tor of the National Oceanic and Atmo- spheric Administration’s Office of Science and Technology. Seafood consumption also increased. “This report exemplifies the vital eco- nomic benefits provided by commercial and recreational fisheries to American communities nationwide,” U.S. Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross said of the report detailing landings and value. “Every year, farmed and wild fisheries across the United States deliver food to our tables while safeguarding thousands of American jobs.” See Fisheries, Page A3 Thief gets reduced prison time Volunteers with the North Coast Land Conservancy stop to examine a clump of dune goldenrod at a test site where the organization has successfully been able to grow plants native to the area’s coastal prairie habitat. By JACK HEFFERNAN The Daily Astorian one made even more important because of how difficult it can be to get enough seed and young plants to really make an impact on the prairie. “This seed is very precious,” she said. Restoration work The restoration work finds its focus around the silverspot butterfly, a small, reddish-orange insect with distinctive silver spots. They have declined or com- pletely disappeared from sites within their range because of habitat loss. See Prairie, Page A7 A change to the state’s sentencing guidelines Eric Owen, land steward for the North Coast Land Conservancy, shows volunteers a sprouted seed bomb. A former Diamond Heating employ- ee’s 29-year prison sentence for stealing more than $214,000 from the Seaside business was cut Thursday to just over 20 years. The reduction came after the Oregon Court of Appeals ruled in May that the original sen- Lynn tence didn’t account for Deana Freauff changes to state sentenc- ing guidelines. See Thief, Page A7 Wauna Federal Credit Union expands A new location planned for Astoria By EDWARD STRATTON The Daily Astorian Wauna Federal Credit Union is moving in Astoria and opening a new branch in Seaside, part of a regional expansion. The credit union recently purchased a vacant lot from the Lum family near Marine Drive and Fifth Street, where it plans a new two- story commercial building to open in 2020. The new location will replace Wau- na’s existing branch at the “Astoria is outgrowing intersection of Columbia that facility, and that build- Avenue, Bond Street and ing is a historical build- Marine Drive, where the ing, so it’s very difficult to expand there,” said credit union has been Wauna CEO Robert located since 1979. Blumberg. “There’s a Wauna’s branch in whole lot of hoops we Astoria has become have to jump through the most popular, in order to expand or with nearly 6,400 reconfigure the build- members banking ing. So we decided to there, separate from Robert go ahead and move a branch inside Asto- ria Safeway host- Blumberg the location.” ing more than 1,300 Wauna moved its members. The Uniontown Warrenton branch in 2013 location is hemmed in by from the Youngs Bay Plaza traffic lights, limited park- to the North Coast Retail ing and heavy surrounding See Wauna, Page A3 traffic. The Daily Astorian Wauna Federal Credit Union is moving its Astoria branch from a busy intersection in Uniontown to the corner of Marine Drive and Fifth Street.