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THE ASTORIAN • SATURDAY, DECEMBER 28, 2019
IN BRIEF
Coastal hazard in effect for North Coast
A coastal hazard message is in effect for the North
Coast through Sunday afternoon.
There is an increased risk of being caught in a
sneaker wave, which can suddenly knock people off
their feet and pull them into the ocean.
Offi cials advise people to keep children and pets
away from the surf and to stay off of jetties, rocks and
logs near the surf.
If you see someone swept out to sea, do not swim
after them. Authorities say to call 911 and keep an eye
on them until emergency crews arrive.
Crash closes Highway 101
Water everywhere
Both lanes of U.S. Highway 101 near Glenwood
Village in Warrenton were closed for about two hours
Thursday afternoon due to a fi ve-vehicle crash.
The crash occurred after a northbound driver
crossed into the southbound lane, striking two vehi-
cles. One of the vehicles then crashed into another
northbound vehicle. A vehicle trying to avoid the crash
drove off the highway and onto the embankment.
Police say nine people were taken to three differ-
ent hospitals, including a Portland-area hospital, with
injuries. A citation was issued to one driver for care-
less driving.
ABOVE: Heavy rain
this month caused
fl ooding in Naselle.
LEFT: The storm was
tough on people and
elk, like this herd
near Rosburg.
State Rep. Mitchell hosts
listening session in Astoria
State Rep. Tiffi ny Mitchell, D-Astoria, will hold
a listening session from 10 a.m. to noon on Jan. 6 at
Three Cups Coffee House in Astoria.
The coffeehouse is located at 279 W. Marine Drive.
Mitchell will also hold two listening sessions Jan. 5,
from 10 a.m. to noon at Tillamook Bay Community Col-
lege, and from 2 to 4 p.m. at the Banks Public Library.
— The Astorian
Efforts underway to produce
Mount St. Helens license plates
VANCOUVER, Wash. — Tired of seeing Mount
Rainier on the vehicle in front of you?
The Columbian reports that Clark County residents
may soon be able to buy license plates featuring a
mountain closer to home.
The Mount St. Helens Institute is working with
state Rep. Ed Orcutt, R-Kalama, to get legislative
approval next year for a Mount St. Helens license plate
that would raise money for the nonprofi t institute. The
effort is timely with the upcoming 40th anniversary of
the volcano’s cataclysmic eruption on May 18, 1980.
“Portland has Hood, Seattle has Rainier,” said Ray
Yurkewycz, executive director of the Mount St. Helens
Institute. “Southwest Washington has Mount St. Helens.”
The institute has launched an online petition drive,
with the goal of collecting 4,000 signatures by the time
the 2020 Legislature convenes Jan. 13.
Don Clark, of Invisible Creature in Maple Valley,
designed the license plate for free, Yurkewycz said.
— Associated Press
DEATHS
Dec. 25, 2019
HOUK, Paul War-
ren, 78, of Knappa, died
in Knappa. Caldwell’s
Luce-Layton Mortuary of
Astoria is in charge of the
arrangements.
LONG, Thomas V., 81,
of Astoria, Oregon, died
in Astoria. Caldwell’s
Luce-Layton Mortuary of
Astoria is in charge of the
arrangements.
Dec. 24, 2019
OJA, Robert M., 89,
of Astoria, died in Asto-
ria. Ocean View Funeral
& Cremation Service of
Astoria is in charge of the
arrangements.
ON THE RECORD
Theft
• Hannah L. Havranek,
28, was arrested Tuesday
at Fred Meyer in Warren-
ton for theft in the second
degree and criminal tres-
pass in the fi rst degree.
DUII
• Nicholas Clark
Golden, 39, of Warren-
ton, was arrested Friday
on Basin Street in Asto-
ria for driving under the
infl uence of intoxicants.
His blood alcohol content
was 0.16%.
• Dylan Rabell, 25, of
Warrenton, was arrested
Thursday on Lexington
Avenue and Fourth Street
in Astoria for DUII, driv-
ing while suspended,
driving uninsured and
failure to install an igni-
tion interlock device. His
blood alcohol content was
0.16%.
•
Jeffrey Warren
Childs, 44, of Portland,
was arrested Thursday in
the parking lot of Mini
Mart West in Astoria for
DUII.
• Scott Douglas Smith,
49, of Oregon City, was
arrested Wednesday on
Sunset Beach Lane for
DUII and reckless driving.
PUBLIC MEETINGS
THURSDAY
Astoria Design Review
Commission, 5:30 p.m.,
City Hall, 1095 Duane St.
Seaside Parks Advisory
Committee, 7 p.m., work
session, City Hall, 989
Broadway.
Photos by Nick Nikkila/
Chinook Observer
Dams focus of federal court ruling
Hope is to
boost salmon
By MALLORY GRUBEN
The Daily News
A federal court ruling last
week mandating a salmon
protection plan related to
warm river temperatures
caused by dams could impact
ongoing salmon recovery
efforts on the Columbia and
Snake r ivers .
And on the same day as
the ruling, Washington Gov.
Jay Inslee released a stake-
holder report summarizing
comments in support and
against removing four l ower
Snake River dams to boost
salmon populations and help
feed orca.
Columbia Riverkeeper,
an environmental group that
has historically has sup-
ported dam removal, praised
the federal court ruling as
“a victory,” saying it forces
the U.S. Environmental Pro-
tection Agency to do its job
to protect rivers — and the
endangered salmon that live
in them — from dangerously
hot water.
“The Clean Water Act
bans the Columbia River
temperatures over 68 degrees
Fahrenheit. ... But the govern-
ment agencies in charge of
the Columbia and Snake river
dams aren’t obeying the law,”
Columbia Riverkeeper wrote
in a press release. “Today’s
ruling establishes that EPA
is legally obligated to write a
plan to bring the rivers’ tem-
perature back in line with the
needs of salmon — and the
requirements of the Clean
Water Act.”
Columbia
Riverkeeper
and several other salmon
interest groups sued the EPA
in February 2017, alleg-
ing that the agency “failed
to undertake its mandatory
duty” to create a plan to man-
age temperature pollution in
the river. The Dec. 20 rul-
ing upholds a lower court’s
decision to require the EPA
to submit a “long overdue”
Center for Whale Research
Warmer river water is harmful to salmon.
plan.
High temperatures
The suit was spurred by
several years of record-high
river water temperatures,
including a 2015 incident
when 250,000 adult sockeye
salmon died due to hot river
temperatures, according to
Columbia Riverkeeper .
Water
temperatures
warmer than 68 degrees Fahr-
enheit are “particularly dan-
gerous” for salmon and trout
because it makes it more
diffi cult for fi sh to migrate
upstream to spawn and
increases the chance fi sh will
die of disease, according to
court documents. Dams are a
primary cause for warm river
waters, according to court
documents.
A panel of judges on the 9th
U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals
upheld a 2018 decision that
the EPA was obligated to cre-
ate its own management plan
for water temperature on the
Columbia and Snake rivers
after Washington state and
Oregon didn’t submit plans
for approval, according to
court documents.
“The time has come —
the EPA must do so now,” the
panel wrote in its ruling .
The decision moves for-
ward a yearslong effort to
improve salmon recovery
rates on the Columbia and
Snake rivers. According to the
Natural Resources Defense
Council, 13 populations of
salmon on the Columbia and
Snake rivers are listed under
the Endangered Species Act.
Many conservation groups
point to dams as a reason for
the salmon’s decline because
they create still, warm pools
of water along the river that
exhaust young salmon on their
way to the ocean and increase
their chance of dying. And
recently state offi cials linked
the dams to the declining pop-
ulation of s outhern r esident
orcas, which live part of the
year in Puget Sound and pri-
marily rely on healthy and
plentiful salmon for food.
Decades of debate
State legislators provided
$750,000 in the 2019-2021
budget for Gov. Inslee’s orca
task force to conduct a stake-
holder engagement study
about what various state river
users think about proposals to
remove the four l ower Snake
River dams. Inslee released
the fi rst draft of that study this
month .
Although the report does
not offer any recommenda-
tions on how to help salmon
and orca populations, it pro-
vides insights from tribal lead-
ers, industry offi cials, conser-
vationists, farmers and other
river stakeholders about what
the consequences of dam
removal would be.
The 115-page document
summarizes interviews with
almost 100 agency leaders and
online survey responses from
more than 3,500 Washington
state residents. It also reviews
previous reports and studies.
Conservationists, though,
say dam breaching is the only
action that hasn’t been tried to
help salmon and orca, accord-
ing to the report. Any energy
or transportation benefi ts lost
in dam breaching could be
replaced by investments into
alternative options, like wind
and solar power or rail lines.
Inslee will use the stake-
holder study to inform his
perspective on the dams and
determine if and how to par-
ticipate in ongoing federal
environmental evaluations of
the Columbia and Snake r iv-
ers’ system, according to a
press release.
“Debate over the dams has
gone on for several decades
and the issues are complex.
Despite some recent improve-
ments in collaboration, many
of the participants remain
wary of the cycle of study,
lawsuits and court decisions,”
the report says. “There is both
hope and despair about what
comes next and the potential
for progress.”
The Pacifi c Northwest
Waterways Association — a
regional group of ports, busi-
nesses and agencies that’s
long supported the dams’ eco-
nomic, transportation and
energy benefi ts — criticized
Inslee’s study for duplicat-
ing an environmental impact
statement already underway
by the U.S. Army Corps of
Engineers and other federal
agencies.
That draft statement is set
to be released in February , and
it will include evaluations for
how different long-term oper-
ating plans could affect the
environment, fl ood risk, irri-
gation, power generation, nav-
igation, fi sh and wildlife, cul-
tural resources and recreation
on the river.
Kristin Meira, the execu-
tive director of the waterways
association, said in a state-
ment that the taxpayer money
used for Inslee’s report could
have “gone toward activities
that directly benefi t salmon
and orcas.”
“While we appreciate the
diligence of the consultants
leading this process in reach-
ing out to PNWA members
and other stakeholders, the
product that was commis-
sioned by the s tate is essen-
tially a status report of river
operations followed by a sur-
vey of opinions — not sci-
ence-based salmon recovery.”
Offi ces around region close for New Year’s Day
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In observance of New
Year’s Day on Wednesday,
all federal, state, county and
city offi ces and services,
including Astoria, Warren-
ton, Gearhart, Seaside and
Cannon Beach city halls, are
closed. All U.S. post offi ces
are closed, and there is no
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2019 by The Astorian.
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MAIL (IN COUNTY)
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mail delivery.
Astoria, Jewell, Knappa,
Warrenton/Hammond and
Seaside (including Cannon
Beach and Gearhart) school
district schools, and Clat-
sop Community College, are
closed for winter break.
The Astoria Library, Sea-
side Library and Warrenton
Library are closed.
WANTED
Alder and Maple Saw Logs & Standing Timber
Northwest Hardwoods • Longview, WA
Contact: John Anderson • 360-269-2500
The Port of Astoria
administrative offi ces are
closed.
Garbage
collection
through Recology West-
ern Oregon and the city of
Warrenton garbage collec-
tion are not affected by the
holiday. Recology West-
ern Oregon’s Astoria Trans-
fer Station closes at 2 p.m.
Tuesday, and is closed
Wednesday.
The Sunset Pool in Sea-
side is closed Tuesday, and
open Wednesday. The Asto-
ria Aquatic Center is open
Wednesday.
The Clatsop County Her-
itage Museum, Oregon
Film Museum and Flavel
House and Carriage House
are closed Wednesday. The
Uppertown
Firefi ghters’
Museum is closed for the
winter.
Lil’ Sprouts is closed
Wednesday. Fort Clatsop is
open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.;
the Columbia River Mari-
time Museum is open from
9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.; and the
Seaside Museum is closed.
Sunset Empire Transpor-
tation (“The Bus”) is not
running Wednesday.
The Astorian offi ces are
closed Wednesday .