A3
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • MONDAY, APRIL 8, 2019
Chinook fi sherman views life afl oat as public service
Wisdom from
a gillnetter
‘GILLNETTERS ARE THE ONLY
ONES THAT HAVE THE CAPACITY
TO HARVEST THE LARGEST
NUMBER OF FISH, THE SIZE OF
NETS, TO TARGET THE FISH, AND
SEPARATE THE LISTED STOCK.
THEY ARE A VERY IMPORTANT
TOOL ON THE RIVER.’
By PATRICK WEBB
Chinook Observer
CHINOOK, Wash. —
Fishermen make good
philosophers.
Les Clark is no exception.
“I have had a fantastic
life,” said Clark, who turned
90 in December. “I had a lot
of scrapes, but I survived all
of them. All my buddies are
gone. I wonder why I am
still here. Maybe the good
Lord needs me here to fi ght
for the fi sh?”
The concept of giving up
his 32-foot F/V St. Frances II
and not fi shing solo doesn’t
arise. “I am one of the older
guys still on the river,” he
said. His father Gene and
Anna Clark, of Chinook, set
the bar. “Dad fi shed till he
was 90 and died at 98, and
mom went to 97,” he smiled.
He recently lost his
long-time fi shing and hunt-
ing partner Ken Greenfi eld.
Their 15- and 20-year terms
in the Port of Chinook Com-
mission overlapped and he
enjoys reminiscing about
their adventures together
on the Columbia River, at
Salmon Creek near Vancou-
ver, and in Alaska.
Clark grew up in Wash-
ougal, fi shing with his father
and the school superinten-
dent across the river in Cor-
bett . “I was a kid working
on my school summer vaca-
tions. I used to fi sh with my
father part time, then got my
own outfi t.”
He married his sweet-
heart, Frances, in 1955,
bought a plywood skiff
and spent a lucrative three
weeks. “Bumble Bee Sea-
foods was paying 25 cents a
pound for top-grade spring
Chinook. I made $5,500 —
that was a lot of money in
those days!”
Northwest
fi shing
dynamics changed when the
completion of The Dalles
Dam fl ooded the Indian dip-
Les Clark
Patrick Webb/Chinook Observer
Les Clark’s life as a commercial fi sherman spans decades.
net grounds at Celilo Falls in
1957; Clark has fond mem-
ories of bird hunting with
Native Americans during
that era, plus early efforts to
preserve tribal and commer-
cial fi shing amid changing
conditions.
In the early 1960s, the
Clarks moved from Washou-
gal to Chinook, where he and
Frances raised four children.
He operated his commer-
cial fi shing vessel and she
worked as secretary-book-
keeper for the family busi-
ness. Together they founded
the Northwest Gillnetters
Association in 1977 to help
preserve the livelihoods of
commercial fi shermen on
the Columbia; he served as
president for more than a
dozen years with Frances as
secretary.
Clark’s calendar showed
a pattern. “I put 54 seasons
in Cook Inlet. In July, I went
to Alaska. I spent spring and
fall here, crab for 20 years,
troll for 20 years, and gill-
netting since 1944.”
Several
life-threaten-
ing scrapes afl oat have been
the subject of prior news-
paper articles that fi ll Clark
family scrapbooks. In one,
he was trapped in his own
net, wrapped around a giant
reel, and had to be cut out
by a passing fi sherman who
heard his cries for help. In
another, he had to swim to
safety when a shrimper ran
over his boat and caused it
to sink.
‘Safeguards’
He has testifi ed before
state commissions about
fi shing policy, working with
the late Sen. Sid Snyder, who
served with distinction in the
Washington Legislature. “I
keep up with politics and the
fi shing business. Our coastal
economy depends a large
part on fi shing — it is very
important,” he said. “Our
‘savior’ used to be Sid Sny-
der. He did his very best to
keep things working. He was
a prince of a man. He knew
what everybody needed.”
The 1989 Exxon Val-
dez oil spill, which dev-
astated habitat in Alaska’s
Prince William Sound, is an
ugly memory. Recalling the
drunken captain who ran the
giant vessel aground makes
Clark’s always-cheerful face
turn briefl y into an uncharac-
teristic scowl.
Trump offi cials blamed for
slowing down nuke site cleanup
By NICHOLAS K.
GERANIOS
Associated Press
SPOKANE, Wash. —
The slow pace of cleaning
up the nation’s largest cache
of radioactive waste left
over from the production of
nuclear weapons is frustrat-
ing Washington state offi -
cials from both major polit-
ical parties, who blame the
Trump administration for not
doing more.
The U.S. Department
of Energy recently pro-
posed hundreds of millions
of dollars in budget cuts for
cleaning up the vast Han-
ford Nuclear Reservation in
southeastern
Washington,
even though the estimated
cost of the cleanup has at
least tripled and could reach
more than $600 billion.
“That’s a huge, huge cost
increase,” said Tom Carpen-
ter, director of the watchdog
group Hanford Challenge.
At a hearing in Washing-
ton, D.C., last week, U.S.
Sen. Patty Murray ques-
tioned Energy Secretary Rick
Perry’s assertion that his
agency can still meet a legal-
ly-binding cleanup sched-
ule despite the proposed bud-
get cuts. Much of the site’s
aging infrastructure is dete-
riorating, including under-
ground waste storage tanks
and tunnels.
The Energy Department
issued a report in January
that raised the remaining cost
of Hanford’s environmen-
tal cleanup to between $323
billion and $677 billion, with
the work lasting until 2079
or 2102, depending on which
estimate proves true. That is
much higher than the pre-
vious estimate of $107 bil-
lion in costs to complete the
cleanup by 2066.
That is “a pretty shocking
number,” Perry told mem-
bers of the House Appropri-
ations Committee last month.
Shortly after the higher
estimates were revealed, the
Trump administration pro-
posed a $416 million cut in
its budget for Hanford that
would reduce it from about
$2.5 billion for the fi scal year
ending in September to $2.1
billion for the next fi scal year
that starts in October.
U.S. Rep. Dan Newhouse,
whose district encompasses
the site, said the adminis-
tration’s “budget request
numbers would fall short of
fulfi lling the federal govern-
ment’s obligation to clean up
the Hanford site.”
U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, an
Oregon Democrat, estimated
it will take 300 years to clean
up the site under the Trump
administration’s proposed
budget.
“Trump’s combination of
bad math and shifty word-
play adds up to tragicomic
incompetence,” said Wyden,
a frequent critic of efforts to
clean up the site.
Washington state offi -
cials have said previously
— even before the cuts were
announced — that the federal
government has not provided
enough funding to meet
annual cleanup costs. They
have suggested that least $3
billion annually is needed.
“We believe that the lack
of adequate funding trans-
lates into a longer, more
drawn-out cleanup, and that
in turn is a signifi cant fac-
tor in the increased cost of
the total cleanup,” said Alex
Smith, manager of nuclear
waste programs for the
Washington Department of
Ecology.
Hanford was created by
the Manhattan Project during
World War II as the nation
raced to build atomic bombs.
The plutonium for the atomic
bomb dropped on Nagasaki,
Japan, at the end of the war
was made at the site, which
then produced about 70% of
the plutonium for the U.S.
Cold War arsenal.
That left the country’s
largest volume of radioac-
tive waste at the site about
half the size of Rhode Island,
where the most dangerous
56 million gallons of waste
is stored in 177 giant under-
ground tanks, some of which
have leaked.
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“We need oil, but we
need better safeguards pro-
tecting the environment,”
he said, noting that there
are similar fears for propos-
als for expanded coal and oil
transportation on the Colum-
bia. “These people are ‘big-
money people.’ We need
the industry, but we need
safeguards.”
As a gillnetter, he is
delighted at the latest head-
lines about rights to fi sh
being restored after a period
of severe restrictions. He is a
strong supporter of hatcher-
ies and the use of scientifi c
methods to help preserve
salmon.
To rebuild diminished
runs, gillnetters must be
allowed to return, he said.
“Gillnetters are the only ones
that have the capacity to har-
vest the largest number of
fi sh, the size of nets, to tar-
get the fi sh, and separate the
listed stock,” he said. “They
are a very important tool on
the river.”
Life afl oat as a fourth-gen-
eration fi sherman is satisfy-
ing, Clark said.
“You live with fi shermen
on the river. You get to know
them. You’re not working at
the mill, you are your own
boss and you work extra
hard.
“But in between runs you
have time to do other things.
You wouldn’t work that hard
for someone else!”
A hip replacement fi ve
years ago barely slowed him.
“My doctor did not want
me to continue, but fi shing
has been my life and I told
him, ‘One way or another I
am going to go back on the
boat,’” he said.
The doctor acquiesced,
but reportedly warned him
not to jump off the vessel.
“I have excellent mobility
and heal fast. I was ready to
climb the walls — and three
weeks later I was on a boat
fi shing.” His swift recovery
in his mid-80s surprised his
medical team. “The doctor
said, ‘You’re going to be the
poster child!’”
That quick-healing phy-
sique has some additional
help, of course.
“I have more hydraulic
power. That’s why I can fi sh
alone!” he smiled, reveal-
ing one secret to his longev-
ity. “All my equipment is
all paid for, but if you can’t
go fi shing it’s not worth
nothing.
“We have had fi ghts
before — nothing stays the
same. You have to be pre-
pared. I bought gear when
others were selling.”
Philosophy
He lost Frances to cancer
in late 2016. Their family
includes daughters, Karen
Gray and Cheryl Rais-
takka, sons, Lee Clark and
Steve Clark, plus grand and
great-grandchilden.
Karen Gray acknowl-
edged that her father attri-
butes his longevity to genes,
but his healthy lifestyle has
helped considerably. “He
was always very active his
whole life, way before peo-
ple touted the benefi ts of
exercise and a good diet. He
also sleeps very well.”
Growing up, Lee and
Steve took to the water eas-
ily and learned the ropes
from a skilled teacher. “They
have fi shed a lot of the same
places, and they are always
in close proximity, in the
Columbia River, here at the
mouth, and up in Alaska,”
Gray said.
“They watch him and
always know where he is
— they watch a little closer,
check in with him and help
load his fi sh.”
When not on his boat,
Clark enjoys taking his shot-
gun to Chinook and Knappa
gun clubs.
“I’m very lucky,” he said.
“The neighbors all around
me are gone. I am the last
living there.”
Amid rugged work afl oat,
a lifetime fi sherman has time
to think. Clark’s philosophy
connects dots to form a sin-
cere conclusion.
“The public owns the
whole resource — and the
gillnetters harvest fi sh for
the public,” he said, thought-
fully. “I suppose I am a ‘pub-
lic servant.’”
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