Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 27, 2020)
A2 THE ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, OCTOBER 27, 2020 IN BRIEF Fire destroys home in Brownsmead Officials are investigating a fire that destroyed a home on Monday morning in Astoria. Firefighters were able to keep the fire contained to the home off of Brownsmead Dike Lane. Officials say the occupants were able to get out of the home and no injuries were reported. — The Astorian Peninsula crabs low in meat LONG BEACH, Wash. — Dungeness crab in Long Beach Peninsula waters have the lowest percentage of meat in at least six years of late Octo ber testing. This is bad news for the traditional Dec. 1 opening date, which has often proved illusory in the past two decades. Samples gathered Saturday in the south of Klipsan area had a pick-out rate of 18.7%. Last year, crab gath ered in the local test area had a meat-recovery rate of 19.1%, which itself was considered very low. This compares to 20.9% in 2018, 19.9% in 2017, 23% in 2016 and 23.8% in 2015. Samples from the Westport area collected Friday tested at 19.6%, compared to 21% last year, 19.7% in 2018, 20.2% in 2017, 22.9% in 2016 and 24% in 2015. All areas must be at least 23% before a commercial crabbing season can commence under terms of the tri state protocol that governs crabbing in the waters of Washington, Oregon and California. Due to coronavirus restrictions and the lim ited number of Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife crew who could be on board the test boats, the state did not collect any shell condition data. Most local Dungeness crab are still at a soft-shell stage in October after molting in the summer and early fall. Dungeness crab is the most valuable fishery in Washington and Oregon. — Chinook Obsen’er DEATHS Oct. 24, 2020 BALKINS, Jean Eliz abeth, 76, of Astoria, died in Astoria. Ocean View Funeral & Cre mation Service of Asto ria is in charge of the arrangements. Aug. 3, 2020 KONECNY, Michael Anthony, 32, of Asto ria, died in Warrenton. Hughes-Ransom Mor tuary is in charge of the arrangements. To leave condolences or messages, go to hughesransom.com MEMORIAL Saturday, Oct. 31 RANTA, Anja Hannele — Visitation from 1 to 4 p.m., Caldwell’s Luce-Layton Mortuary, 1165 Frank lin Ave. Ranta, 66, of Astoria, died Saturday, Oct. 24, 2020, in Astoria. ON THE RECORD Theft • Kathryn M. Jen sen, 38, of Eugene, was arrested Thursday at Fred Meyer in Warren- ton for theft in the second degree. Menacing • Jimmy Seo Peter son, 43, of Tonasket, Washington, was arrested Saturday behind Asto ria Warehousing for menacing. Criminal trespass • Christopher Noelle Crone, 51, of Astoria, was arrested Saturday on 16th Street and Marine Drive in Astoria for crim inal trespass in the sec ond degree. • Christine Delora Marcy, 52, was arrested Saturday at Astoria Mini Mart East for crimi- nal trespass in the sec ond degree. Marcy was arrested again at the loca tion on Sunday for crimi nal trespass. • Suzanne K. Sno dgrass, 51, was arrested on Oct. 17 in Warrenton for criminal trespass in the first degree and theft in the third degree. • Unlawful entry Ashley Lukoszyk, 36, of Warrenton, was arrested Sunday on U.S. Highway 101 Business for unlawful entry into a motor vehicle. DUII • Brian William Scott, Jr., 29, of Warrenton, was arrested Sunday on S.E. 19th Street and S.E. Ensign Lane in Warren ton for driving under the influence of intoxicants. PUBLIC MEETINGS TUESDAY Astoria Planning Commission, 5:30 p.m., City Hall, 1095 Duane St. Warrenton City Commission, 6 p.m., City Hall, 225 S. Main Ave. WEDNESDAY Astoria Parks Board, 6:45 a.m., City Hall, 1095 Duane St. Clatsop County Board of Commissioners, 6 p.m., (elec tronic meeting). •’Astorian Established July 1,1873 (USPS 035-000) Published Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday by EO Media Group, 949 Exchange St., PO Box 210, Astoria, OR 97103 Telephone 503-325-3211, 800-781-3211 or Fax 503-325-6573. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to The Astorian, PO Box 210, Astoria, OR 97103-0210 Circulation phone number: 503-325-3211 Periodicals postage paid at Astoria, OR ADVERTISING OWNERSHIP All advertising copy and illustrations prepared by The Astorian become the property of The Astorian and may not be reproduced for any use without explicit prior approval. DailyAstorian.com MEMBER OFTHE ASSOCIATED PRESS MEMBER CERTIFIED AUDIT OF CIRCULATIONS, INC. Subscription rates Effective May 1,2019 COPYRIGHT© Entire contents © Copyright, 2020 by The Astorian. O Printed on recycled paper MAIL (IN COUNTY) EZpay (per month).................................................................................................................... $ 11.25 13 weeks in advance................................................................................................................. $37.00 26 weeks in advance..................................................................................................................$71.00 52 weeks in advance...............................................................................................................$135.00 Out of County Rates available at 800-781 -3214 DIGITAL EZpay (per month)...................................................................................................................... $8.00 Environmentalists, loggers collaborate in Eastern Oregon ByAARONSCOTT Omgon Public Broadcasting So, a logger and an envi ronmentalist walk into a for est together. It sounds like a joke, because, at least historically speaking, loggers and envi ronmentalists didn’t go any where in Oregon together. If they crossed paths in the for est, it was because they were on opposite sides of a road blockade or logging protest. But not in Eastern Ore gon’s Grant County. Here, loggers and environmental ists have been walking in the woods together for years. “So did this pencil out?” environmental attorney Susan Jane Brown asked during a tour of different logging treat ments in the Malheur National Forest in August 2019. “Yeah, easy logging,” responded Zach Williams, a forester for the company that cut the trees, Iron Triangle. “I don’t hesitate to say this was the best sale we’ve had in years.” Brown and Williams are part of the forest collaborative group Blue Mountains For est Partners. They’ve been so successful at finding common ground that environmentalists haven’t filed a single anti-log- ging lawsuit on the Malheur National Forest since 2003. It might not seem like a big deal to see environmen talists and loggers working together in the woods. But in the Northwest, it is. In the 1980s, environmen talists protested timber sales across the region, sparking what was called the Timber Wars. By the late ’90s, they had managed to severely limit logging in federal forests, which crushed timber-depen- dent areas like Grant County. “I can’t even name the amount of kids I grew up with that: families lost jobs; the mill lost, you know, lost whole logging companies; busi nesses started to close down,” Williams said. “Slowly but surely, you start to wonder if you’re going to be a ghost town at some point.” Williams’ family goes back five generations in the area. He watched his father close their sawmill, and he said locals blamed environ mentalists for locking up the trees. “At that point in our lives, ‘Susan Jane Brown’ were extremely dirty words to say around here.” “I certainly was concerned about my safety at that time,” said Brown, who, as a law yer at the Western Environ mental Law Center, regu larly appealed timber sales on the Malheur National Forest. “I had been run out of town before — had been tailgated by pickup trucks. I’ve had air let out of my tires.” So how did these two groups go from enemies to tromping through the woods together? What it took was a few locals realizing in 2003 that they couldn’t beat Brown in the courtroom. So they invited her to Grant County to see if they could find some way to manage the forest that would meet both their goals. And Brown agreed, bringing along other environmentalists she worked with. They started meeting informally every couple of months in the back room of a local restaurant. And about the only thing they could agree on was a name for the group, the Blue Mountains Forest Partners (and even that was contentious). “I’ll begin by describing some of those early meet ings,” said Mark Webb, who was the county judge during the early years of the collabo rative, before losing reelection in part due to his participation with the group. “Industry and community members are on one side of it. Environmen /L. __________ itti <1 Brandon Swanson/Oregon Public Broadcasting There were once dozens of sawmills in Eastern Oregon. Now there are only a handful. The Prairie Wood Products mill in Prairie City was one of the last to shut down, which it did in 2008 as a result of the housing market collapse and limited timber supplies. it ripe for much larger cat astrophic fires. But the sci entists suggest that the way to restore them to their his toric state is going to involve both fire and logging, because logging gives more control over what trees are preserved and which are removed (for instance, keeping the old- growth ponderosa pine trees while removing the smaller, faster-growing fir trees that Brandon Swanson/Oregon Public Broadcasting now crowd it out). The Malheur Lumber Co. in John Day almost closed for a lack “The more time you spend of timber supply, until environmentalists and other members out looking at this stuff and of the Blue Mountains Forest Partners stepped in to develop the more the science can inform what we’re seeing, the a 10-year stewardship contract that would ensure a sustained more willing many of us in supply of timber from the surrounding forests. the environmental community tal community’s on the other. nary results suggested that have been to having a conver sation about, ‘OK, chainsaws, And we have a third party, selective logging had min a facilitator, that’s walking imal negative impact on I think we’re going to need back and forth between us, white-headed woodpeckers, some chainsaws out here,”’ because we couldn’t talk to but that it appeared to cause Brown said. “And the other side of the equation, for the one another. It was that bad — a slow decline in the nest almost that poisonous.” ing numbers of black-backed community, they’re getting more comfortable talking fire Webb, who is now the woodpeckers. group’s executive director, At the end of the tour, the — prescribed and wildfire. said he considered it a multi group circled up around a Because you look at these for cultural conversation, because charred, old-growth ponder- ests, and they’re out of whack. it was like the two sides spoke osa pine that had housed one And given climate change, it’s not going to get any better on a different language. When of the study’s woodpeckers. they said something like “I definitely agree this was its own.” Perhaps the greatest test “healthy forest,” they meant a success,” said Williams, two completely different whose company had logged of this partnership came in things. in the study area. “Susan Jane 2012, when Grant County’s So to find common lan detests salvage logging, and last sawmill announced it was guage and common ground, if I’m being honest, I look at closing for a lack of timber. “I was like, this is not OK,” they made a fateful decision: this bum — 110,000 acres — they committed to follow the and look at salvaging 5,000 said Brown, who learned science. They invited ecolo of it and think: how is that the news as she was return gists, biologists, silvicultur really going to harm habitat? ing home from a backpack ists and other scientists to tour And I’m not going to say that ing trip. “If the mill closes, the forests with them and talk I think any differently about this community just dries up about what exactly makes that, but that’s the point of col and blows away. It’s really the a forest healthy. And where laboration. And if this is the mainstay of what’s keeping there wasn’t clear science, kind of process we have to go this community alive.” But it wasn’t just the com they commissioned their own. through, then it worked.” Such was the case for this “I agree,” Brown said. munity. Brown realized the tour on a hot August day. One “And I don’t want this to be mill was also keeping the col laborative alive because it of the most contentious issues one off. And we can do sal for the collaborative over the vage, and we can take logs to bought the timber they cut out years has been salvage log the mill, and people can earn of the forest during their res ging, or the logging of trees a living wage, and we also toration work, which in turn that are dead or damaged don’t have to kill a bunch of funded the work. So she started making from fire. birds in the process.” Loggers historically rush Following the science phone calls. She got U.S. to harvest burned timber gave them a shared language Sen. Ron Wyden’s office because, to them, leaving to talk about the forest. But it involved. She roped in other wood to decay is like watch was also dangerous, because conservation groups like the ing money rot on trees — to it meant both sides had to be Nature Conservancy and Sus say nothing of providing fuel willing to change their beliefs. tainable Northwest. And she for future wildfires. For environmentalists, got the mill’s president, Bruce Daucsavage, and the county’s But to environmentalists that means not only accept and scientists salvage logging ing Saab’s research that some biggest logging operations on is anathema, because these level of salvage logging might board. The result was what’s burned forests provide essen be compatible with wood called a 10-year stewardship tial habitat for many animals, pecker habitat, but that log especially woodpeckers. ging itself can be an important contract. It guaranteed that the U.S. Forest Service would So, when more than tool in forest restoration. pay for a certain amount of 110,000 acres burned in the That’s because the sci 2013 Canyon Creek Complex entists they’ve worked with restoration work for 10 years, fire, much of it on the Mal argue that these dry, eastside ensuring a sustained level of heur National Forest, instead forests, like many of the drier logging. “I think that’s when I of seeing it as another thing to conifer forests in southern really looked at Susan Jane,” fight about, the Blue Moun Oregon and throughout Cal tains Forest Partners saw it as ifornia, are now overgrown. Daucsavage said. “She was an opportunity. They invited The main cause is a century of putting her neck out on the Vicki Saab, a biologist with putting out the low-intensity line from her side, because U.S. Forest Service, to create fires that historically burned she was actually being pre sented as more of a moderate. a study that would determine through the forests on a reg whether there was a level of ular basis, cleaning out the And I’m sure she had plenty salvage logging that could duff and small trees that now of feedback from people that were winning the battle.” provide an economic benefit crowd the forest and make to the local community with out compromising wood pecker habitat. Saab’s study involved log ging different test sites at dif ferent levels, ranging from cutting no trees to cutting r most of them, and then track ing how woodpeckers fared review of your over four years. current As they toured the test Medicare Health Plan! sites at the end of the study, Saab said that the prelimi 1 WANTED [Alder and Maple Saw Logs & Standing Timber J Northwest Hardwoods • Longview, 1/1 fA Contact: John Anderson • 360-269-2500 It’s time to review your MEDICARE Coverage Darlene Warren Roger Warren Fanner’s Insurance 1639 SE Ensign Lane Warrenton 503 - 861-2672 www. Agents. Farmers. com/ORAVarrenton/Darlene-Warren
