B1
THE ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, MAY 26, 2020
THE ASTORIAN
• TUESDAY, MAY 26, 2020
•
B1
WATER UNDER
THE BRIDGE
COMPILED BY BOB DUKE
From the pages of Astoria’s daily newspapers
10 years ago
this week — 2010
he fl ocks of about 20,000 brown pelicans that live
on the Oregon Coast in summer usually fl y south
before winter. But during the past three years,
they’ve lingered — perhaps another sign of climate change.
Hundreds of brown pelicans turned up dead or ailing
along the West Coast in January as changing climate
and ocean conditions led them to expand their ranges
to Oregon and Washington state and attempt to stay
throughout the winter. They ran out of food and turned
up listless on beaches or begging for food in parking
lots between Warrenton and Newport.
The lucky ones were rescued and brought to the
Wildlife Center of the North Coast near Astoria where
they were rehabilitated and kept over the winter until
they could be released.
On May 16, nearly a dozen of the pelicans, now
healthy and robust, were released back into the wild
by volunteers of the wildlife center. The release site
was on the beach north of Fort Columbia State Park
in Washington. The site faces East Sand Island, which
draws Caspian terns, pelicans and other seabirds in the
summer.
T
When Chief Warrant Offi cer Matt Zyt-
kowicz heard there was a project at Astoria
Middle School that required a slew of capable
hands to complete, he knew who could get it
done.
Zytkowicz is the engineer onboard the U.S.
Coast Guard c utter Steadfast and though usu-
ally homeported in Astoria, the 210-foot ship is
out of water getting a major multimillion-dol-
lar overhaul at the Coast Guard Yard in Balti-
more, Maryland.
Social c ompetencies teacher Bill Shively had
mustered donated building materials and ser-
vices from more than 25 different donors for a
passive solar greenhouse in December and laid
the concrete foundation.
But a June 3 open house was looming on
the calendar, and Shively still needed the man-
power to get the structure framed and fi nished.
While only a few of Zytkowicz’s shipmates
actually had construction experience in similar
projects, that didn’t stop the crew from tack-
ling the task.
“We’re sailors, but we can get things done.
We’re Steadfast,” just like the name. “We’ll do
whatever,” Zytkowicz said.
Behind its pretty face, Scotch broom hides a wicked
little heart and all last week, groups around Clat-
sop County hacked the yellow-fl owered shrub to the
ground.
Staff from Lewis and Clark National Historical Park
crossed the Columbia River to battle it at Station Camp
in Washington.
In Cannon Beach, members of the Ecola Creek
Watershed Council threw slain shrubs into the back of a
pickup truck. And in Seaside, along Thompson Creek,
the North Coast Land Conservancy and volunteers
attacked hillsides, piling the shrubs into yellow heaps
while the wind blew forlorn petals down the road.
Nearly a dozen brown pelicans were released back into the wild by volunteers of the Wildlife Center of the North Coast
in 2010.
Tongue Point Job Corps Center student Bryan Palmer
waits while recreation adviser Dick Jarner fi nishes sawing
at the base of a Scotch broom plant in Seaside in 2010.
Saddle Mountain in 1970.
50 years ago — 1970
While many young people endure years of paren-
tal prodding to practice the piano, the violin or the
fl ute, relatively few young musicians stick with their
drills and regular practices long enough to really feel
a passion for their music. Even fewer of those decide
to devote their career s to professional musical perfor-
mances, for that awesome and fi ercely competitive fi eld
frightens most music lovers into only recreational uses
of their musical talents. Or else they teach.
Astoria’s talented 17-year-old Kathy Puusti, how-
ever, who recently won fi rst place in the district musical
competition with her clarinet and went on to state com-
petitions, wants to “make it” in the professional world
of the chamber orchestra or the woodwind quintet. A
member of the Seaside Symphony Orchestra, in which
she will play the clarinet solo in Mozart’s Concerto in
B Flat Sunday at Clatsop Community College. Miss
Puusti will also demonstrate her skill with the cello, an
instrument which she only learned to play this year due
to the need for a regular cello player in the orchestra.
CANNON BEACH — William Hay, the
realtor-motel owner whose barrier on the
beach led to a court decision declaring the dry
sands public, is involved in another “barrier”
case.
Hay’s neighbor, Irving “Bud” Stevens, has
erected a 5 -foot chain-link fence on Stevens’
property just a few feet from Hay’s house. Hay
doesn’t go for the fence and was reportedly in
Portland Thursday consulting an attorney.
Stevens said he erected the fence Tuesday
on the recommendation of an insurance agent,
who said the area near the fence was danger-
ous. Stevens said his liability insurance would
have been canceled if he hadn’t erected the
fence, which was felt by his insurance agent to
be necessary as a warning and safety measure.
Finland’s ambassador to the United States, Olavi
Munkki, will visit Astoria Saturday, the second time
a Finnish ambassador will have traveled to this area
where so many Finns and persons of Finnish extraction
live.
Honorary Vice Consul Dennis Thompson, of Asto-
ria, said the two Finnish offi cials will go on a boat ride
Saturday afternoon aboard a Knappton t owboat vessel.
Harry Steinbock won a fourth term as
mayor, Sven Lund was re elected to the C ity
C ouncil and the council’s collective bargain-
ing amendment was approved by Astoria resi-
dents Tuesday.
The new Astoria Middle School greenhouse will capture light from the southern sky and look down on the school’s
playing fi elds in 2010.
75 years ago — 1945
Frank Jones, of Altoona, Washington, fi sherman,
snagged a bottle message in his net Saturday 4 miles
off Astoria that should go a long ways toward ending
all bottle messages.
It read: “This bottle was dropped in the (Big) Sioux
River at Brookings, South Dakota, on September 20,
1941. H.A. Wildermuth, 303 South Spring Avenue,
Sioux Falls, S.D.”
The Big Sioux River is a tributary of the Missouri
River, fl owing southward to meet the “Big Muddy.”
Its water fi nally enters the Gulf of Mexico and Atlan-
tic O cean.
Authorities on ocean currents here say that the arrival
of the bottle message in the Columbia River would have
at least been expedited by a bit of overland travel.
That extra gasoline motorists were promised
after V-E D ay will come to them in June. But
it won’t be enough to do much extra joyriding.
“A” gasoline rations will be increased only
about a gallon a week. “B” rations will be
increased, but only if card holders can demon-
strate increased need to their local ration
boards.
That Nehalem V alley farmers consider bears a direct
menace to both their sheep industry and orchards was
reported Tuesday night by Don Jossy, county agent, to
the Rod and Gun club which had asked the agent for
a statement on bear damage after the c ounty l ivestock
association petitioned the county court for a bounty on
the bear.
Jossy, who sent questionnaires to Nehalem V alley
farmers regarding losses, said that farmers of that area
believe they have lost 855 sheep, with an estimated
value of $6,913 during the past fi ve years from rav-
ages of bears. He further stated that in the past fi ve
years there have been 5,518 sheep on farms in the val-
ley, but that presently there are only 733.
Conscientious objectors and veteran A rmy
paratroopers are standing ready side-by-side
to quell any forest fi res started by Japanese
balloon-bombs, it was learned today.
Meanwhile it became clear that Japan’s
“fantastic effort” to bomb the United States
from a distance of over 5,000 miles away was
made largely to bolster sagging morale among
Japanese workers.
A search was abandoned today for a German sub-
marine reportedly seeking surrender off the Washing-
ton coast near Westport.
The search began after the receipt late yesterday
by the U.S. C oast G uard radio station at Westport of
a message purportedly from the skipper of a German
submarine.
The message said the U-boat was ready to surren-
der and gave its position as 45 miles off Westport. A
blimp and patrol planes were dispatched to that point,
but the unsuccessful search was discontinued this
morning.
A bad train wreck but without injuries to
train personnel occurred about 9:30 a.m. this
morning at Bradwood when one SP&S freight
train rammed into the rear end of another.