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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 26, 2019)
A6 THE ASTORIAN • THuRSdAy, dEcEmbER 26, 2019 Astoria: New ordinance Sea levels: Chance of rise ‘already baked in’ continued from Page A1 would deal more with “The wife and I would get behavior at properties out of bed, put on our waders, continued from Page A1 “It was a very powerful set of tools that were estab- lished and we were able to get some movement made on some key properties in town. And now we see the Flavel properties are in the hands of individuals who have restored those build- ings or in the process of being restored,” he said. Estes said the new chronic nuisance ordi- nance would deal more with behavior at properties. Police would need to document examples that fall under a list of vio- lations to categorize the behavior as a chronic nui- sance. The behavior could range from municipal code violations to assault, men- acing and intimidation. The Municipal Court or Circuit Court would make the ultimate determination and decide whether the city should close or secure the property or impose other penalties. “All throughout this process, there is going to be communication from the city and the property owner and the individual offender with the goal of trying to remedy the situation with- out getting to a point where it makes it to court,” Spal- ding said. “That’s kind of a last resort.” Spalding referred to people at two homes in particular that would likely qualify as chronic nui- sances. Police were called to one of the homes 17 times and to the other prop- erty 16 times this year. Several neighbors attended the work ses- sion and told city coun- cilors they have been ter- rorized. The neighbors shared their experiences of being stalked, harassed and threatened. In both situations, the people causing the distur- bances live in their parent’s homes. Police respond to 911 calls, but are limited in what action they can take. The hope is the new ordi- nance — and the potential of being sanctioned by the court or even losing their property — will be enough to change behavior. Spalding said similar ordinances have been suc- cessful in Albany and Cor- vallis, where they have been used against drug houses and other persistent problems. An exclusion zone ordinance would apply to repeat offenders in parts of the city where the 911 call volume is abnormally high. “The general consensus is that we would be looking at the downtown core busi- ness area,” Spalding said. The city would move to exclude people from areas if they consistently com- mit violations that range from theft and harassment to disorderly conduct and drinking alcohol or using marijuana in public. If expelled by the court, the person would be subject to trespass if they return. The ordinance would have exceptions for people who need to travel through an area for work, court, doctor’s appointments or other necessities. The ordinance would be similar to the city’s ability to eject people from city parks for violations. “We know there’s a possibility that individu- als may just relocate some- where else,” Spalding said. “We’re hopeful, though, the individual is getting the message the inappropriate behavior is unwelcomed and will be addressed.” Spalding said similar ordinances have been suc- cessful in cities like Ash- land and Lincoln City. “I always am extremely bothered when I hear com- ments from people either in person or I see social media comments from people that say, ‘I no longer go down- town, I no longer go to the Riverwalk ... because I keep being either threat- ened or yelled at or intim- idated by certain people who are regularly there,’” Mayor Bruce Jones said at the work session. He stressed that “none of us want that for our town. And if this tool will occa- sionally allow the police department to remove one or two bad apples that are ruining the experience of living in Astoria ... for everyone else, then I’m all for it.” Local business lead- ers are also hopeful the exclusion zone ordinance will help solve problems downtown. “We don’t have a lot of bad actors downtown, but it’s amazing what one or two people might be able to affect,” said Sarah Lu Heath, the executive direc- tor of the Astoria Down- town Historic District Association. Heath said she receives complaints from property owners who are trying to lease their properties. “When there’s trash or people blocking doorways or graffiti it certainly gives a poor impression of what that town might be like for someone who wants to lease a (business),” Heath said. “When you’ve been doing business down- town for many years and they’re seeing these things not change, we need some sort of tool to change these behaviors that are having impacts.” David Reid, the exec- utive director of the Asto- ria-Warrenton Area Cham- ber of Commerce, said business owners seem to be the least considered in these discussions. “Basically, if downtown suffers then we won’t have the money to pay for addi- tional services, we won’t have the means to take care of anybody,” he said. “So protecting downtown com- merce and commerce city- wide is every bit as import- ant as any other measure we’re going to make to help folks who are experi- encing homelessness.” Population: ‘The coast doesn’t have the job base that the metropolitan areas have’ continued from Page A1 Warrenton, the fast- est-growing city in Clat- sop County, reached 5,320 as of July 1, up 6.4% from 2010. Seaside and Cannon Beach each grew around 2% over the past decade, to 6,585 and 1,730. Gear- hart grew more than 4% over the past decade to 1,525. Unincorporated areas of Clatsop County, with cheaper building costs, grew by 11.6% over the past decade. Rynerson expects to put out one more popula- tion estimate in Decem- ber 2020 before results from the census come out in March 2021. The census will provide better data on the seasonality of the Ore- gon Coast, he said. “The coast doesn’t have the job base that the met- ropolitan areas have,” he said. “It’s sort of difficult to sort out because of so much seasonal housing. The seasonal economies, we’re looking forward to getting new data when the 2020 census comes out in 2021, to get a handle of how many housing units are occupied year-round.” and start our day,” he said. After a particularly devas- tating flood hit the region, the couple used money provided by the Federal Emergency Management Agency to raise their building by 4 feet. Now it doesn’t flood anymore. But in the coming decades, that might change. Human-produced green- house gases like carbon diox- ide are wrapping the earth in a heat-trapping blanket, caus- ing the earth — and its oceans — to warm. And scientists agree that it’s making sea lev- els rise. The question is: How much is it going to rise, and how fast? That’s an important ques- tion for communities along the Oregon Coast. Many areas along the rocky, moun- tainous coastline are too steep or landslide-prone to develop, so many of the places where towns rose up were in marshy estuaries, where roads and buildings sit just a few feet above sea level. It’s not uncommon to encounter flooding during particularly high tides called king tides, even when the water level in the river is low. Richard Alley is a geosci- entist at Pennsylvania State University. He studies gla- ciology, melting ice sheets, abrupt climate change and sea level rise. Alley said that in the best-case scenario, if humans stopped emitting greenhouse gases today, we’d still probably see global sea levels rise by an average of about a foot by the end of the century. “It’s already baked in,” Alley said. That’s because the earth has already warmed by 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit. And even if we seriously curbed our greenhouse gas emissions today, it would take a while to cool back down. In the meantime, ocean water would keep expanding (warm water takes up more space than cold water) and moun- tain glaciers, the Greenland ice sheet and Antarctic ice sheets would keep melting. And that’s the best-case scenario. The worst-case one? The most recent report from a United Nations cli- mate change panel predicts about 3 feet of total rise by 2100. But the International Panel on Climate Change report’s conclusions were produced by consensus, with hundreds of scientists and policymakers taking part. So it’s inherently a cautious report that has historically underestimated future lev- els of melt and sea level rise. Alley said that number could be much, much larger, possi- bly as high as 15 feet. The tipping point In places like Wheeler, communities have different ways to respond to climate change and sea rise. They can become part of a global effort to mitigate it and its effects, by reducing greenhouse gas emissions. They can respond locally by raising houses and strengthening shorelines. Or they can relocate. And while it makes intu- itive sense to plan for the worst-case scenario, mov- ing can be expensive. In the U.S. alone, 3.2 feet of sea level rise could displace 4 million people. Add on a few extra inches, and the number skyrockets. Most of those people live in major metropolitan areas, many of which have rolled out complex climate change preparedness plans. But in Oregon, most coastal towns are small and have very little money, and there’s very lit- tle research on how climate change will impact individ- ual towns. “(San Francisco) Bay Area counties can get together and pass bonds and develop fund- ing, and perform research on the issue,” said Peter Rug- giero, a geologist at Ore- gon State University and the interim director of the Oregon Climate Change Institute. “In rural coastal communities, that’s not going to happen. Right now, any preparedness is done by individual busi- nesses and homeowners.” Ruggiero wants to help Erin Ross/Oregon Public Broadcasting A cabinet of life jackets, free for visitors to borrow, is surrounded by water during a king tide in Nehalem. communities figure out what mitigation strategies are right for them, whether that’s plac- ing large boulders on beaches to protect dunes from erosion, building levees, rehabilitating estuaries, which can act like sponges and absorb floodwa- ters, or relocating. He worked with Tilla- mook County and other scien- tists on the Tillamook County Coastal Futures Project to help model the impacts of cli- mate change on local towns, which includes Nehalem and Wheeler, and to help them plan for mitigation. He said that some communities, like Tillamook, are very proac- tive and better funded. Others don’t think about it much. Figuring out how climate change might impact any particular part of the coast is very difficult, said Ruggiero. It’s due in part to how geo- logically active the North- west is. Near the mouth of the Columbia River and along the southern Oregon Coast, sea levels actually appear to be declining because tectonic plates are pushing up against each other, making parts of the Northwest slowly gain elevation. But it’s a temporary respite. In a few decades, Ruggiero warned, the sea level will be rising faster than the land. “In almost every projection, at some point, the entire Oregon Coast becomes submerged.” A quiet threat It’s hard to get communi- ties concerned about poten- tial flooding a century away, especially when some don’t believe climate change is happening. Sea level rise is slow, and that makes it hard to see. And a few inches of sea level rise pale in compari- son to the dramatic floods that regularly bury cities in Tilla- mook County under several feet of water. “The problem is that the disasters almost always look primarily like a weather event,” Alley said, referenc- ing hurricanes Katrina and Sandy. “And the background sea level rise is not all that noticeable until you bring a king tide or a giant storm on top of it. And then it’s higher than it ever was before.” Jesse Jones, who works for the Oregon Shores Con- servation Coalition, is trying to make sea level rise more visible in Oregon. She works with the Oregon Coastal Management Program to help communities adjust to climate change. She’s also involved with the Oregon King Tides Project. The project is try- ing to raise awareness of sea level rise along the Oregon Coast by encouraging volun- teers to get out and take pic- tures of extreme high tides. Those extreme high tides pro- vide a glimpse into the future, she said. “They’re the regular high tides of tomorrow.” Nov. 26 was a king tide. Even though there had been little rain the week before, the boat ramp in Nehalem flooded into a parking lot. A cabinet of life jackets that boaters could borrow for children was surrounded by water. Rick Hampton parked his old white pickup truck in the boat launch parking lot, camera in hand. Hamp- ton is a longtime resident of Nehalem. It’s just a few miles north of Wheeler and is built on the same estuary. Unlike Wheeler, which butts up against the moun- tains, much of Nehalem is built on a flood plain. “I’ve seen the flood in ’91, I’ve seen the flood in ’96, 2001 and 2007,” Hampton said. In 1996, he was up knock- ing on his neighbors’ doors, making sure they were awake and wading through hip-deep water to help them move their valuables to high ground. Every king tide, Hampton goes down to the Nehalem boat ramp to take pictures for the King Tides Project. He gestured out the window of his truck to the shops around him. “In 2007 a lot of these stores had riverfront prop- erty. So I’ve always been interested in rising waters and how that affects the locals.” He said that a few times a year, the end of the road he lives on goes underwater. “There’s a house down there, and I don’t remem- ber how many years ago it was, but the very first year that house was here we had a good flood that came across the road, and it literally had his whole first floor underwa- ter,” Hampton recalled. Those floods weren’t caused by sea level rise. Most floods in Tillamook County happen when high tides meet heavy rains coming off the mountains. When the flood- ing rivers hit the swollen estuaries they slow and back up, causing extreme floods. When king tides and high rivers do make Nehalem flood, city maintenance spe- cialist Brian Moore is there, putting out cones and redi- recting traffic. Moore wasn’t working for the city during the legendary flood of ’96, but he sees signs of it everywhere. There’s a mark on the wall of his office, about 3 feet off the ground. “That’s where the water came up to, in ‘96.” Like many people on the coast, Moore isn’t quite sure if he believes sea level rise is happening, or if it’ll be that bad or happen that fast. But he agrees that if it happens, it’ll be bad for communities like Nehalem. “If you’re talking about a flood on top of a big 3-foot sea level rise like you’re saying, well, you can elevate build- ings. But they’ve already been elevated,” Moore said. And if sea level rise causes worse floods, Moore says most towns would be on their own. “Usually the Red Cross or some of the local churches will chip in. FEMA if you’re bad enough, but dealing with them can be a headache. But really it’s the local commu- nity, we all help out.” Neilson agreed, “I suppose there would be the Red Cross and all that. But really we just take care of it ourselves, any mess that gets made. It’s just something we’ve been doing for many years.” For now, Nielson said that coastal towns are resilient. “You unplug your freezers and try to elevate them and tie down the ice box,” he said. And once the waters recede you clean up, and wait for the next one, and hope it isn’t worse. Leinassar Dental Excellence Trusted, Caring and Affordable Dental Care Hear what loyal and new patients alike are saying... I am never comfortable visiting a Dental office. Your staff members made me feel at ease. Excellent care! 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