A2
THE ASTORIAN • SATURDAY, JANUARY 2, 2021
VACCINE
ROLLOUT
IN BRIEF
Metal reported missing from
Astoria Riverfront Trolley barn
Astoria police received a report Monday of a theft of
equipment outside of the Astoria Riverfront Trolley barn.
Train rails, joint bars and tie plates stored outside the
barn were taken. Some of the material is used by the non-
profi t for track repair and some of it is used to make sou-
venirs to generate more funding during the coronavirus
pandemic.
Anybody with information about the missing materi-
als can contact offi cer Alex Whitney at the Astoria Police
Department.
— The Astorian
LEFT: Registered nurse Jaime Humphries
vaccinates Jessica Gauthier against the coronavirus
at the Astoria Armory on Thursday. BELOW: Dozens
of health care workers got vaccinated against the
coronavirus at the Astoria Armory on Thursday.
Photos by Hailey Hoff man/The Astorian
Wyden will seek reelection in 2022
U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden says he’s seeking reelection in
2022, ending speculation that Oregon’s senior senator
might retire and pave the way for a crowded lineup of
potential replacements.
Wyden, 71, told Oregon Public Broadcasting he
believes he has more work to do in Washington D.C.
“Of course I’m running,” the Democrat said. “There’s
so much to do for Oregonians, and I’d very much like to
have the honor of representing Oregonians again.”
Wyden holds several key positions in Congress, includ-
ing on the Senate Intelligence Committee. Should Dem-
ocrats regain control of the Senate this month, Wyden is
in line to chair the powerful Senate Finance Committee.
One of his priorities in the coming Congress, Wyden
said, is wildfi re preparation and prevention. He and U.S.
Sen. Jeff Merkley have proposed creating a 21st cen-
tury civilian conservation corps — essentially a modern
re-creation of a program that was part of President Frank-
lin Roosevelt’s efforts to pull the United States out of the
Great Depression.
— Oregon Public Broadcasting
Washington state extends
coronavirus restrictions
Washington state Gov. Jay Inslee on Wednesday
extended restrictions on businesses and social gatherings
due to the COVID-19 pandemic for another week.
Inslee said the restrictions are now due to expire on
Jan. 11.
“This choice is not easy,” Inslee said via Twitter. “Next
week I’ll be announcing more details about our new plan
to safely reopen.”
In mid-November Inslee, in response to rising case
numbers, announced a host of businesses must close their
indoor services, including fi tness facilities and gyms,
bowling centers, movie theaters, museums, zoos and
aquariums. Retail stores — including grocery stores —
were told to limit their indoor capacity to 25%.
Also, indoor social gatherings with people from more
than one household are prohibited unless attendees have
either quarantined for 14 days before the gathering or
tested negative for COVID-19 and quarantined for seven
days. There’s no enforcement mechanism for indoor
get-togethers.
— Associated Press
Willapa Valley eyes in-person learning
MENLO, Wash. — The Willapa Valley School Dis-
trict is the fi rst district in Pacifi c County to eye returning
to in-person learning beginning next week.
Students are expected to enter their respective class-
rooms on Wednesday, roughly two months after all dis-
tricts inside the county returned to remote learning during
the week of Nov. 11.
“With the governor’s new guidelines for school
openings, all students, preschool through grade 12, will
return,” Superintendent Nancy Morris said. “The guide-
lines are based on studies showing that COVID infec-
tions have not spread in schools due to the strict proto-
cols in place.
“I feel Willapa Valley will be able to continue our
strict safety protocols as we had in place earlier this year
when students were in school.”
— Chinook Observer
DEATHS
Dec. 30, 2020
In WILDGRUBE,
Brief
Fred
Leo, 80, of Seaside, died
in Seaside. Caldwell’s
Deaths
Funeral & Cremation
Arrangement Center of
Seaside is in charge of the
arrangements.
Dec. 28, 2020
CUMMINGS, Nancy
E., 85, of Warrenton,
died in Warrenton. Ocean
View Funeral & Cre-
mation Service of Asto-
ria is in charge of the
arrangements.
PUBLIC MEETINGS
MONDAY
Astoria City Council, 7 p.m., City Hall, 1095 Duane St.
TUESDAY
Clatsop County Board of Commissioners, noon, work
session, (electronic meeting).
Port of Astoria Commission, 4 p.m., (electronic meeting).
Clatsop Care Health District Board, 5 p.m., (electronic
meeting).
Sunset Empire Park and Recreation District Board of
Directors, 5:15 p.m., workshop, (electronic meeting).
PUBLIC MEETINGS
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Industrial logging a
risk to drinking water
Small towns often
bear the brunt
By TONY SCHICK
and ROB DAVIS
Oregon Public Broadcasting
and The Oregonian
On a damp night in
November 2019, dozens of
residents packed into the
local fi rehouse in Corbett,
a town about 30 miles out-
side of Portland. Water man-
ager Jeff Busto told the crowd
that logging had devastated a
creek that provided part of the
town’s drinking water supply.
A timber company had
clear cut thousands of trees
along the creek, leaving only
a thin strip standing between
the town’s drinking water and
recently fl attened land strewn
with debris. A single row of
trees was left on either side to
protect it from mud, herbicides
and summer sun. After many
of those trees were bowled
over by wind, the creek fl ow
dropped so low that the town
could no longer get water.
As a result, Corbett now
had only one creek supply-
ing drinking water for more
than 3,000 residents. If a wild-
fi re or more logging compro-
mised the remaining creek, the
town’s taps could run dry in as
little as three days, Busto said.
“I’m really seriously con-
cerned about the future of this
community,” Busto told the
crowd. “There are places all
over the world that lose their
water source and they lose
their town. If you guys don’t
have water coming out of
your tap, you’re not going to
be able to live here.”
In rainy Oregon, commu-
nities tap a network of streams
and creeks to supply millions
of residents with cold, clean
water. The problem is that
the land surrounding drink-
ing water streams is, in many
cases, owned not by the towns
or the residents who drink the
water, but by private timber
companies that are now log-
ging more intensively than
ever, cutting trees on a more
rapid cycle and spraying her-
bicides to kill other plants that
compete with replanted seed-
lings for sunlight.
In the past two decades,
Oregon environmental regu-
lators identifi ed industrial log-
ging as a risk to more than 170
public water systems, listing
clear cutting, road building and
pesticide spraying as potential
sources of contamination.
Timber companies have
successfully fought to keep
Oregon’s laws much more
Photos by Brooke Herbert/The Oregonian
Clearcut forests are shown in western Oregon.
Stevie Burden, the former mayor of Wheeler, looks out the
window of her kitchen.
‘IT IS ABSOLUTELY RIDICULOUS
THAT WE HAVE TO FIGHT FOR OUR
RIGHT TO CLEAR WATER IN THE
FACE OF GIANT CORPORATIONS
COMING IN AND BASICALLY
HAVING NO ACCOUNTABILITY.’
Stevie Burden | former mayor of Wheeler
lenient than neighboring
states, lobbying lawmakers
and the public through opin-
ion campaigns to burnish the
industry’s reputation. Ore-
gon legislators have failed to
change logging laws that state
regulators, scientists and the
federal government say are
insuffi cient to protect clean
water, leaving small towns
with millions of dollars in
additional costs, an investiga-
tion by Oregon Public Broad-
casting, The Oregonian and
ProPublica found.
Many of those commu-
nities are in Oregon counties
already bearing the brunt of
timber tax cuts, which cost the
state nearly $3 billion in rev-
enue that would have been
largely used to fund schools
and local governments.
Lawmakers and forestry
offi cials have joined timber
executives in defending cur-
rent environmental laws, say-
ing they protect communities
without unnecessarily bur-
dening one of Oregon’s most
important industries. But they
have ignored the costs to com-
munities that say they are
powerless to protect their most
critical resource: water.
More than two dozen com-
munities have had at least 40%
of the forests around drink-
ing water sources cut down
in the past 20 years, accord-
ing to an analysis by the news
organizations.
In Corbett, the town has
started excavation work to
fi nd a new water supply. Resi-
dents will have to help pay the
$2.2 million cost. In Wheeler,
the investment in a new water
system happened 16 years
ago, but residents of the for-
mer mill town on the coast
will be paying off the $1.1
million debt.
“It is absolutely ridiculous
that we have to fi ght for our
right to clear water in the face
of giant corporations com-
ing in and basically having
no accountability,” said Ste-
vie Burden, former mayor of
Wheeler. “And the responsi-
bility for it ends up in these
really tiny little municipalities
and water districts that can’t
afford to shoulder the cost.”
A spokeswoman for the
Oregon Forest & Industries
Council, a lobbying organiza-
tion, said the state has robust
and effective rules to protect
drinking water.
“Oregonians should feel
confi dent forest practices
strongly protect their drink-
ing water,” Sara Duncan,
the spokeswoman, said in an
email.
Duncan pointed to pollu-
tion monitoring data from the
Oregon Department of Envi-
ronmental Quality that found
public and private forests pro-
vide the cleanest water in the
state. The government agency
says the data is not an appro-
priate metric because it is
too imprecise to measure the
effectiveness of Oregon’s log-
ging rules.
Recent research funded by
the industry also challenges
the council’s claim. This
year, Oregon State University
released two studies, which
found logging can cause
long-lasting water shortages
and pollute drinking water
with herbicides and dirt. A
March study examining tim-
ber practices over a 60-year
period found that water lev-
els in streams surrounded by
industrial timber plantations
dropped by more than 50%
See Logging, Page A3