Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 27, 2019)
EXPERIENCE THE OUTDOORS 147TH YEAR, NO. 25 DailyAstorian.com // TUESDAY, AUGUST 27, 2019 A dry farming trial produces some success $1.50 Student project adds solar array to Warrenton Panels on a school breezeway By EDWARD STRATTON The Astorian Hailey Hoff man/The Astorian On a misty morning, Larry Nelson adjusts the basket holding up a tomato plant in a dry plot on his 3-acre farm, LaNa’s Conscious Farm. In dry farming, farmers do not rely on irrigation to cultivate crops, like tomatoes. Farmers sidestep irrigation See Solar power, Page A6 Senate Democrats retreat on fi nes By LUCY KLEINER The Astorian I n mid-May, as soon as the sun came out and the soil warmed, Teresa Retzlaff dug into the earth at 46 North Farm. She fi lled holes with seeds and starts of zucchini, dry beans, summer squash and more. She cov- ered the holes with soil and made sure the beds were free of weeds. And then, she walked away. About 10 miles down the road, the same thing happened at LaNa Con- scious Farm. On a 2,000-square-foot plot of land, Larry and Nancy Nel- son’s fi eld was fi lled with the same plant varieties and, aside from light weeding, was left untouched. Now, in late August, the starts have grown to produce-bearing plants. The zucchinis’ wide leaves shade dozens of vegetables, the full-sized tomatoes are ripening from green to red. One of Retzlaff ’s winter squash is more than WARRENTON — It took on average 873 kilowatt-hours of electricity a day to power Warrenton High School over the past year, equivalent to what the average U.S. home requires in a month. A summer student project will supply a small portion of the high school’s power needs with a 3 kW solar array installed on top of a breezeway. Stephen Shumaker, an instructor with Clatsop Community College’s Upward Bound Summer Academy, has been devel- oping renewable energy and other sus- tainable technologies to make his home carbon-negative. “It’s something I’m just really inter- ested in and passionate about, sustain- able energy in general,” he said. “I think that in teaching this generation of students, they’re the ones that are going to have the biggest impact.” Shumaker secured a $40,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Education to fund his project and the solar array, which cost around $11,000. The 11 students in his project group this summer learned about renewable energy. They visited entities that employ newer electric technology, such as Lektro, an airplane tug manufacturer, and the Portland Bureau of Transportation . Katie Frankowicz/The Astorian Teresa Retzlaff , left, shows off zucchini plants in her dry bed on 46 North Farm during a presentation last August. 2 feet long. A ll of this happened without any irrigation. “I didn’t really think it was going to work,” Retzlaff said. “I kind of thought they’d all be dead in a few weeks and they weren’t … It was phenomenal.” The process is called dry farming. Farmers who practice it do not irrigate their plants throughout the dry sum- mer season. Aside from occasional rainfall, plants rely only on mois- ture from below the surface to sustain growth. See Dry farming, Page A6 ‘I DIDN’T REALLY THINK IT WAS GOING TO WORK. I KIND OF THOUGHT THEY’D ALL BE DEAD IN A FEW WEEKS AND THEY WEREN’T … IT WAS PHENOMENAL.’ Republican walkout over cap and trade By AUBREY WIEBER and CLAIRE WITHYCOMBE Oregon Capital Bureau SALEM — More than two months after voting to fi ne protesting Republican state senators $500 a day for walking off the job, Senate Democrat leaders announced they will not make good on the threat. Instead, Democrats said they are pursu- ing a constitutional amendment to change Oregon’s quorum requirement from two- thirds to a simple majority. That would allow the Senate to convene with 16 of the chamber’s 30 senators, instead of 20 . Forty-six states use the simple majority requirement, according to a Senate Dem- ocrat news release on Friday. Teresa Retzlaff | farmer See Fines, Page A6 Parents organize new softball team Girls get more chances to play By NICOLE BALES The Astorian storia’s new tournament soft- ball team, Future Fish, made a splash this summer. A group of parents organized the 10-and-under team to give children more opportunity to play softball after T-ball. The only other softball tourna- ment team in the area is the North Coast Merchants, which draws A players from Oregon and across the river in Washington state. “I wanted to do something dif- ferent and try and get as many kids playing 40, 50 games a year as we could,” Adam Svensen, one of the coaches, said. “Most of these kids I’ve coached since T-ball and I’m like, ‘OK, we have a pretty good little nucleus here, why don’t we put a tournament team together and keep it Astoria so that we got 12 Astoria kids that are playing a lot of softball?’” Svensen coaches alongside Alina Carlson. Their team has received plenty of parent and sponsor sup- port. With their help, they hope to eventually build 12U, 14U and 16U tournament teams in Astoria. The head coaches and assis- tant coaches bring experience play- ing competitive softball and base- ball, as well as coaching. Svensen played baseball at Willamette Uni- versity . He also has two daughters on the team, Hailey and Kilee . He coached the girls on the 10U team when they played T-ball and said he has seen vast improvement in their performance. The team practices for two hours three days a week and plays about two tourna- ments a month. Carolyn Nygaard See Softball team, Page A6 Future Fish and their moms won a relay race at nationals.
