SEASIDE BOYS’ THREE-PEAT COMES UP SHORT SPORTS A10
146TH YEAR, NO. 180
Ocean
conditions
appear to be
improving
Waters are cooler
and more productive
By KATIE FRANKOWICZ
The Daily Astorian
ONE DOLLAR
DailyAstorian.com // MONDAY, MARCH 11, 2019
Creative
liberties
clasSroOms experiment with plastic art
The ocean is still warmer than nor-
mal, but things appear to be looking up in
West Coast waters — for now.
An annual status report on ecosystems
in the California Cur-
rent by the National
Oceanic and Atmo-
MORE
spheric Administra-
INSIDE
tion found there are
indications the ocean
Razor
waters off California,
clamming
Oregon and Washing-
shut
ton state are cooler
down
and more productive
by toxin
than they were during
Page A2
a marine heat wave
that began in 2014
with a mass of warm
water nicknamed “the B lob” and per-
sisted through 2016.
Fish landings and revenue rebounded
strongly in 2017 compared to 2016,
with record hake landings and increases
in crab leading the way, along with
a bump in squid . Landings in other
fi sheries, however, did not see the same
boost.
See Ocean, Page A7
Rep. Mitchell
hears calls for
more money
Lawmaker appeared at
a town hall on Sunday
Katie Frankowicz/The Daily Astorian
Bronson Brim examines a piece of plastic during an art project with his class from Simply Kids Preschool in Astoria.
Material salvaged
from the beach
By KATIE FRANKOWICZ
The Daily Astorian
By EDWARD STRATTON
The Daily Astorian
State Rep. Tiffi ny Mitchell faced calls
during a town hall at Clatsop Community
College on Sunday to push her colleagues
for more education funding and taxes on
corporations.
Mitchell’s town hall
came as the state Legisla-
ture is crafting a two-year
budget . The budget of the
Joint Committee on Ways
and Means, released last
week, includes nearly
Tiffi ny
$8.9 billion for K-12
Mitchell
education, an 8 percent
increase and enough to
cover service levels.
B
ronson Brim examined the
broken wedge of black plastic
a friend handed him.
“What’s this?” the preschooler
asked, turning it over so the let-
ters “DVD” were suddenly visible,
stamped on one side.
“A shark fi n for you!” his friend
exclaimed.
Because — indeed — the former
DVD tray was broken into the approx-
imate shape of a shark fi n. Brim turned
back to an old window on the table in
front of him and considered where to
place the fi n.
He and his classmates from Sim-
ply Kids Preschool in Astoria collab-
orated with the Bumble Art Studio’s
preschool program last week to cre-
Colorful plastic pieces, some familiar,
are sorted by color in buckets and used
in art murals in Bumble Art Studio’s
preschool classroom in Astoria.
ate murals on windows using odds and
ends of plastic that washed up on local
beaches.
The art is part of a larger Trash
Talk Project created by the Haystack
Rock Awareness Program in an effort
to educate the public about the issues
of plastic pollution in marine envi-
ronments and to keep the plastic from
ending up in landfi lls.
In the program, discarded , ocean-
warped plastic becomes wearable
jewelry, art or even window murals
encased in resin.
The plastic the preschoolers sorted
through was collected during the Hay-
stack Rock Awareness Program’s
marine debris surveys in Cannon
Beach and from local beach cleanups .
Familiar items surfaced as the chil-
dren sifted through buckets of plastic,
on the hunt for the perfect pieces and
colors to fi ll in a design of a bee buzz-
ing among fl owers and honeycombs
on their windows. There were old soap
bubble wands, bucket handles, a pink
spoon, milk caps.
“By tying in the items that they
recognize with the concept that it’s
marine debris that we picked up off
the beach — maybe even things they
recognize from their own visits to the
beach — next time they go, they’ll be
See Plastics, Page A7
See Mitchell, Page A7
Ballet director comes back to her roots
Sundstrom began
dancing in Astoria
By BRENNA VISSER
The Daily Astorian
Lisa Sundstrom, who
directs the training company
of the Oregon Ballet Theatre,
didn’t always love ballet.
In fact, when she was
fi rst taking classes her mom
signed her up for in Asto-
ria as a kid, she didn’t like
it very much at all. She was
shy, and wasn’t a huge fan of
leotards and tights.
“It made me feel
exposed,” she said.
But as she progressed,
Sundstrom began connect-
ing with and taking more of
an interest in dancing.
Before she knew it, she
was spending all of her free
time in the studio, traveling
to summer intensives and
eventually attending bal-
let school in California. She
was on track to become a
professional ballerina.
“I felt like I was with my
people for the fi rst time,”
Sundstrom said of going to
ballet school her senior year
of high school. “I never fi t
in with Astoria. I always felt
like I was different, going to
the studio every day while
everyone else was playing
sports.”
Astoria was the beginning
of that dream. So it was par-
ticularly special for Sund-
strom, who is now the direc-
tor of OBT2, the theater’s
training company, to come
back to her roots on Saturday
to collaborate with the studio
that trained her.
Over
the
weekend,
OBT2, composed of danc-
ers who are on the cusp of a
Brenna Visser/The Daily Astorian
See Sundstrom, Page A7
Lisa Sundstrom, the director of OBT2, grew up in Astoria.