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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 7, 2019)
A3 THE DAILY ASTORIAN • MONDAY, JANUARY 7, 2019 First baby on the North Coast in 2019 Huge trash-collecting boom in Pacifi c Ocean breaks apart Associated Press Providence Seaside Hospital welcomed the fi rst baby of the year, Brock Snyder, at 3:25 p.m. Tuesday. From left to right are Janiece Zauner, chief nursing offi cer; Brock, Bradley and Raquel Snyder, of Astoria; Dr. Dominique Greco; and Katherine Davidson, inpatient nurse manager. National Park Service to tap into entrance fees to keep operating Associated Press WASHINGTON — The National Park Service says it is taking the extraordinary step of dipping into entrance fees to pay for staffi ng at its highly visited parks in the wake of the partial govern- ment shutdown. P. Daniel Smith, deputy director of the park service, said in a statement Sun- day that the money would be used to bring in staff to maintain restrooms, clean up trash and patrol the parks. He acknowledged that the Trump adminis- tration’s decision to keep the parks open during the weekslong budget impasse was no longer workable and so more extreme measures were warranted. Parks have been relying on outside help for security and upkeep. “We are taking this extraordinary step to ensure that parks are protected, and that visitors can continue to access parks with limited basic services,” Smith said. Republican U.S. Sen. Steve Daines of Montana warned Interior Secretary David Bernhardt on Satur- day of “signifi cant risk to property and public health” without funding. Three Utah Republican congress- men also asked Bernhardt to restart regular operations. Democrats want the parks fully opened. But LOS ANGELES — A trash collection device deployed to corral plas- tic litter fl oating in the Pacifi c Ocean between California and Hawaii has broken apart and will be hauled back to dry land for repairs. Boyan Slat, who launched the Pacifi c Ocean cleanup project, told NBC News last week that the 2,000-foot long fl oating boom will be towed 800 miles to Hawaii. If it can’t be repaired there, it will be loaded on a barge and returned to its home port of Alameda, California. The boom broke apart under constant wind and waves in the Pacifi c. Slat said he’s disap- pointed, but not discour- AP Photo/Jeff Chiu Rep. Betty McCollum of Minnesota, the incoming chair of the subcommittee overseeing Interior appro- priations, said Sunday that dipping into user fees was “not acceptable” in this sit- uation, and likely violates the law. Parks supporters called the administration’s move misguided. “Instead of working to reopen the federal gov- ernment, the administra- tion is robbing money col- lected from entrance fees to operate our national parks during this shutdown,” said Theresa Pierno, president and CEO for the National Parks Conservation Asso- ciation. “For those parks that don’t collect fees, they will now be in the position of competing for the same inadequate pot of money to protect their resources and visitors. Draining accounts dry is not the answer.” aged and pledged that operations would resume as soon as possible. “This is an entirely new category of machine that is out there in extremely chal- lenging conditions,” the 24-year-old Dutch inventor said. “We always took into account that we might have to take it back and forth a few times. So it’s really not a signifi cant departure from the original plan.” Previously, Slat said the boom was moving slower than the plastic, allowing the trash to fl oat away. Environmentalists withdraw from ‘broken’ Oregon wolf plan negotiations By TONY SCHICK Oregon Public Broadcasting A woman walks past trash piled next to a garbage bin at Ocean Beach in San Francisco. AP Photo/Lorin Eleni Gill A ship tows The Ocean Cleanup’s fi rst buoyant trash- collecting device toward the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco en route to the Pacifi c Ocean. Environmental groups have withdrawn from an effort to update Ore- gon’s plan for managing gray wolves days before a fi nal meeting of stakehold- ers, throwing the future of negotiations over wolf management and protec- tions into question. Ranchers, hunters and wolf conservation advocates have been in talks with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife over an update to the rules governing the protection and management of the state’s wolf popula- tion, including when and how wolves can be killed. But Oregon Wild, Defenders of Wildlife, Cas- cadia Wildlands and the Cen- ter for Biological Diversity are now pulling out of the process and plan to oppose the state’s plan, according to a joint letter fi led with Gov. Kate Brown’s offi ce. “We feel the process is so broken and the plan is so bad that there really isn’t a purpose for us to show up to this next meeting,” said Oregon Wild Executive Director Sean Stevens. “We know the direction they’re trying to go and it’s not try- ing to fi nd an honest con- sensus around the plan.” Stevens said any of the conservationists’ sug- gestions, regardless of how ranchers and hunters received them, were dis- missed by the state as either too costly or too complex. Specifi cally, wolf advocates took issue with the notion that two livestock attacks within either a nine-month or 12-month period could be considered chronic depreda- tion, which triggers plans to kill the culprit wolves. Remaining stakeholders represented are the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, the Oregon Farm Bureau, the Oregon Hunters Asso- ciation and the Oregon Cattlemen. The Department of Fish and Wildlife convened stakeholders at the request of Brown, after the agency’s draft for a new wolf plan last year was met with sig- nifi cant criticism — much of it from the same environ- mentalists now withdraw- ing from the process. The next meeting of the wolf plan stakeholders is scheduled for 9 a.m. Tues- day at the Monarch Hotel and Conference Center in Clackamas. 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