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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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