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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 18, 2020)
A6 THE ASTORIAN • TuESdAy, FEbRuARy 18, 2020 State wrestles with building facilities in tsunami zones By ANDREW SELSKY Associated Press SALEM — Experts say the big one is coming to the Pacific Northwest: a massive earthquake that will cause buildings and bridges to col- lapse and unleash a tsunami that will devastate the coast. But, doubling down on its decision last year to allow the construction of critical facilities in tsunami inun- dation zones, the Oregon Legislature appears headed to approve building stan- dards for those facilities, like police and fire stations. The House Committee on Nat- ural Resources last week approved the measure by a 6-1 vote, sending it to the House floor for a vote. A leading earthquake expert, and the lone dissent- ing voter, says lawmakers are making a big mistake. “I don’t think that we should have ever opened up tsunami inundation zones to important infrastructure like police, fire stations and so forth. So that’s why I’ll be voting no for the bill,” Rep. Chris Gorsek, a Dem- ocrat from the Portland sub- urb of Troutdale, told the committee. Most other countries in the world prone to tsuna- mis have a land-use philoso- phy in which construction of Andrew Selsky/AP Photo Oregon State University’s Marine Studies Building, which is under construction in a tsunami inundation zone, is viewed from the Yaquina Bay Bridge in Newport. The state Legislature appears poised to continue to allow construction of critical facilities in tsunami inundation zones, a move slammed by critics. certain structures are banned depending on their proxim- ity to tsunami inundation zones, said Chris Goldfin- ger, an Oregon State Univer- sity professor and an earth- quake geologist. “It’s just probably best not to put things into the tsu- nami zone at all, no mat- ter how strongly they build them,” Goldfinger said. Oregon, however, aban- doned that approach last year when the Legislature, with hardly any discussion, repealed a ban enacted in 1995 on construction of cer- tain public facilities in inun- dation zones. The American Society of Civil Engineers has decided to recommend allowing buildings in tsunami zones if they’re built to certain stan- dards, Goldfinger noted. The new bill adopts the ASCE standards. Rep. David Brock Smith, a Republican from the coastal town of Port Orford, tried to convince Gorsek to reconsider his vote by point- ing out that there currently are no building standards for critical facilities in the tsu- nami zone, and that this bill provides them. The bill’s sponsor, Rep. David Gomberg, a Demo- crat representing a coastal district, said in an email to voters that “new science, engineering, and architec- ture are showing us how to construct better and safer.” Goldfinger, who submit- ted written testimony oppos- ing the bill, said the ASCE standard is useful in build- ing a vertical evacuation structure, and is aimed only at keeping a building from being knocked down. “If you were to build a tsunami-proof, ASCE- coded hospital in a tsunami zone, everybody could well die inside the hospital and the function would be lost, but the steel skeleton would still be there,” he said. “This makes no sense.” An earthquake in the Cascadia subduction zone, which extends in the ocean off Northern California to Canada’s Vancouver Island, has a 37% probability of happening off Oregon in the next 50 years, with a slightly lower chance of one strik- ing near Washington state, Goldfinger said. Cascadia earthquakes have an average magnitude of around 9, mak- ing them among the world’s biggest. The last time the ocean reared up from a Cascadia earthquake was in 1700. Carports: Cutting them out of city code could take three to four months Continued from Page A1 “My guess is that this was added to the code probably 25, 30 years ago, and no one’s even really thought about it,” Cronin said. “The stuff that’s actu- ally in the code, I have to look at that. It’s a ‘shall.’ It’s not like a maybe or a guideline.” Johnson, protesting several conditions the city put on his project, said the carport requirement hadn’t been enforced on other apartment complexes. “I went into the proj- ect thinking, ‘Well, it’s not going to be enforced for me either,’” Johnson said. “And this here is a big deal, because I’m not really interested in spend- ing $100,000 or more on carports that nobody wants that have to be designed and engineered for hurricane-force winds. For me, that is actually a deal-breaker.” The developers behind the Latitude 46 Apart- ments, a 28-unit complex recently approved by the Planning Commission with a condition of add- ing carports, will apply for a variance before the City Commission to nix them before developing the complex in the next six to eight months. Mike Morgan, a consultant for the project, said requiring carports would raise rents by between $50 and $100 a month. Cronin recommended that instead of applying for his own variance, Johnson allow the city to begin the process of eliminating the carport code before secur- ing building permits. Johnson claimed that not even the Warrenton Fire Department likes car- ports, which could get in the way when fight- ing fires. Brian Alsbury, the city’s fire chief, said he has no definite stance on carports, but said they’re something he takes into consideration when reviewing projects for fire safety. Spencer Parsons, the city’s attorney, warned that prior projects where the carport requirement was not enforced do not set a precedent for John- son’s application. Commissioners, who reluctantly required car- ports at Johnson’s com- plex as a condition of approval, agreed they’re more of a pain than any- thing else. Cronin esti- mated it would take about three to four months to go through the public process of cutting carports out of city code. Fisheries: No gillnets will be permitted on Columbia River’s main stem Continued from Page A1 Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, and Kelly Susewind, director of the Washington Depart- ment of Fish and Wildlife, announced last week that they had reached an agree- ment on gear types and allo- cations — the proportion of impacts allowed to wild fish allowed under the Endan- gered Species Act — for this year’s fisheries. “Consistency in the reg- ulations between our two states is always a top prior- ity when talking about man- agement on the Columbia River,” Susewind said in a statement. “This agreement is similar to what occurred last year, and brings Ore- gon and Washington in line with each other on some key issues.” Anglers will have 75% of the spring Chinook — a 5% increase from the allo- cation outlined in Washing- ton’s Columbia River pol- icy. The remaining 25% will Center for Whale Research Oregon and Washington state have set salmon fishing rules on the Columbia River. go to the commercial fish- ery. Oregon had considered an 80-20 split for the spring season. Tangle nets will be allowed on the river’s main stem during the commercial spring fishery following a run size update in May. For the summer Chinook fish- ery, anglers and commer- cial fishermen will split the Foster: Proper alignment treats chronic pain Continued from Page A1 “I think there’s an over- whelming amount of people that are tired of people and themselves chasing the pain. And they know wholeheart- edly, deep down, there is this capacity that they have an energy, an inner know- ing, that they can contribute to their healing, but they just don’t know what it is,” Fos- ter said. Over the years, he said he has refined his practice and the way he treats patients. He started Spinal Axis, which has a central philos- ophy that once the shoulder blades are properly aligned, the whole body can come into alignment. He said he has used the method to treat his own pain. He said a lot of tension resides in the midback as a result of poor alignment, which leads to pain and issues in other parts of the body like the neck and lower back. He believes proper align- ment treats chronic pain throughout the body and ‘IT’S FuN TO bE AbLE TO TAKE SOMEONE WHERE THEy’RE AT ANd HELP THEM CREATE SOMETHING PRETTy SPECIAL.’ Bradley Foster | chiropractor increases energy levels, which in turn empowers people to become physically and mentally healthier. Instead of multiple, long term, protracted sessions, Foster opts for appointments as needed for one or two weeks, just enough time to teach people how to be more aware and engaged. “It’s fun to be able to take someone where they’re at and help them create some- thing pretty special,” he said. Hailey Hoffman/The Astorian Bradley Foster stands in the lobby of his new clinic on Commercial Street. On the wall behind him hangs a piece of metal work he brought with him from Chico. allocation 80-20. No gill- nets will be permitted on the main stem. The fall Chinook fish- ery will be the same as last year, with 70% allocated to the recreational fishery and 20% to the commer- cial fishermen. Gillnets will be allowed upstream of the Lewis River on the lower Columbia River. Commercial fishermen are critical of the split. Jim Wells, a gillnetter and pres- ident of the advocacy group Salmon For All, noted that the sport fishery has not come close to using the entirety of its allocation, while commercial fisher- men pushed close against the 20% last year. Under the new agreement, the use of barbless hooks will be required in Colum- bia River salmon and steel- head fisheries on the river’s main stem from the mouth of the river to the Washing- ton and Oregon state line upstream of McNary Dam effective March 1. Last year, the Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission had made barbless hooks volun- tary after June 1. Report: Housing authority has appealed several of the findings Continued from Page A1 “Given all of the requirements and regu- lations, it’s not unusual for us to find that there are procedures that aren’t quite being followed and regulations that aren’t quite being followed by our grantees,” Jones said. “It’s just in this partic- ular instance there is a not inconsiderable num- ber of issues they need to address, and we’re confi- dent they will.” The recommendations mainly focus on docu- mentation, record keeping and timeliness in reporting information. Todd Johnson, the housing authority’s exec- utive director, countered that many of the problems highlighted in the audit report are incorrect. The housing author- ity has appealed several of the findings. Johnson believes once federal audi- tors review the appeal the score will increase. Johnson said some of the issues, like supply- ing documentation, were a result of being short- staffed. He said some of the issues were also due to software challenges. He said the Department of Housing and Urban Devel- opment is offering fund- ing to improve software to avoid issues in the future. “The insinuations from this report that there’s problems with the agency is incorrect because we can demonstrate that there’s not,” Johnson said. Clatsop County Com- missioner Pamela Wev has served on the board of the housing authority for the past year and believes the audit report raised valid concerns. But she said communication between the authority, the board and regulators has been positive. “The executive direc- tor handed me, the next day, a three- or- four-page response to the negative HUD audit and I thought it was quite robust. I think it was addressing some issues that they were actu- ally objecting to, with pushback,” Wev said during a county Board of Commissioners meeting this month. “They are now working with HUD, and HUD has been just terrific in helping the staff,” she said.
