A2
THE ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, JANUARY 26, 2021
IN BRIEF
County to distribute
free face masks against virus
Free KN95 face masks to help contain the coronavi-
rus will be available at drive-thru events throughout the
county on Thursday.
The events will take place between 2 and 4 p.m. at
Elsie-Vinemaple Fire Station, Seaside Fire Station, Asto-
ria Aquatic Center, Cannon Beach City Hall, Knappa
Fire Station, Warrenton Fire Station, Lewis & Clark Fire
Station and Gearhart Fire Station.
People will be instructed to stay in their car, hold up
fi ngers to show the number of masks needed and roll
down the window to receive the bag of masks.
Broadway Middle School is sold
SEASIDE — Broadway Middle School is now
owned by the Sunset Empire Park and Recreation Dis-
trict. The sale closing, at $2.15 million, took place Jan.
15.
Park district board member Celeste Bodner said the
district’s objective is a hub for the community that pro-
motes recreation for all ages.
The district hopes to increase child care, preschool
and after-school activities, expand indoor recreation
activities for all residents and contribute to the local
economy through sports tourism.
“The acquisition of this building will facilitate this
goal and benefi t our community for decades to come,”
Bodner said.
— The Astorian
Gray whale population drops
by quarter off West Coast
SEATTLE — Researchers say the population of gray
whales off the West Coast has fallen by nearly one-quar-
ter since 2016, resembling a similar die-off two decades
ago.
In a paper released last week, NOAA Fisheries
reported that surveys counted about 6,000 fewer migrat-
ing whales last winter, 21,000 as compared with 27,000
in 2016.
The agency declared an “unusual mortality event”
in 2019 as dozens of gray whales washed up on Pacifi c
Ocean beaches.
Scientists aren’t sure what has been causing the die-
off. But they believe that it is within the range of previous
population fl uctuations and that the number of whales
may have exceeded what the environment can support.
— Associated Press
DEATHS
Jan. 23, 2021
MATHRE,
Marvin
Richard, 94, of Asto-
ria, died in Warrenton.
Caldwell’s
Luce-Lay-
ton Mortuary of Asto-
ria is in charge of the
arrangements.
In Brief
Deaths
Jan. 22, 2021
KAWASOE,
Mary
Ann, 78, of Gearhart, died
at Providence Seaside
Hospital. Ocean View
Funeral & Cremation Ser-
vice of Astoria is in charge
of the arrangements.
ON THE RECORD
Assault
cle at a high rate of speed
On
the
Record
• Jeremy
Gleason,
37, and collided with the driv-
of Warrenton, was arrested
Sunday on N.W. Warren-
ton Drive in Warrenton
for assault in the fourth
degree.
• Cody Allen Perez, 31,
was arrested Sunday on
Seventh Street and Bond
Street in Astoria for assault
in the fourth degree.
Reckless
endangerment
• Kent Cawlfi eld, 21,
of Warrenton, was arrested
Saturday on U.S. Highway
101 and East Harbor Drive
in Warrenton for two
counts of reckless endan-
germent and reckless driv-
ing. Police say Cawlfi eld
attempted to pass a vehi-
er’s side. A third vehi-
cle behind them became
involved in the crash.
Reckless driving
• Thalia Mae Kelley,
51, of Astoria, was arrested
Sunday on 14th Street and
Marine Drive in Astoria
for reckless driving and
reckless endangerment.
DUII
• Chadam Shayne
Odell, 27, of Rainier, was
arrested Saturday for driv-
ing under the infl uence
of intoxicants after crash-
ing into an Oregon State
Police trooper vehicle on
Lief Erikson Drive near
the East Mooring Basin in
Astoria.
PUBLIC MEETINGS
TUESDAY
Sunset Empire Park and Recreation District Board of
Directors, 5:15 p.m., (electronic meeting).
Astoria Planning Commission, 5:30 p.m., City Hall, 1095
Duane St.
Seaside Airport Advisory Committee, 6 p.m., (electronic
meeting).
Warrenton City Commission, 6 p.m., City Hall, 225 S. Main Ave.
WEDNESDAY
Clatsop County Board of Commissioners, 6 p.m., (elec-
tronic meeting).
THURSDAY
Columbia River Estuary Study Taskforce Council, noon,
(electronic meeting).
Clatsop County Recreational Lands Planning Advisory
Committee, 1 p.m., (electronic meeting).
PUBLIC MEETINGS
Joshua Bessex/The Astorian
Cheryl Johnson, a school librarian turned anti-fossil fuel activist, speaks at a rally in 2015 in Astoria against liquefi ed natural
gas terminals on the Columbia River.
A thin green line
with global impact
Activists thwart
fossil fuel projects
By ROBERT McCLURE
InvestigateWest
SEATTLE — Envi-
ronmentalists teamed with
Native Americans, ranch-
ers and even windsurfers to
block nearly every effort over
the past decade to export fos-
sil fuels from the West Coast.
And they claimed yet another
major victory this month
when a proposed coal-export
terminal in Washington state
was called off.
Against the odds, and
even their own expectations,
activists have fended off
more than 20 proposals to use
West Coast ports to expand
the global fossil fuel trade
— the carbon equivalent
of fi ve Keystone XL pipe-
lines, according to the Seat-
tle-based Sightline Institute.
Green groups succeeded
in fi ghting fuel-export pro-
posals along the Pacifi c coast
because they enlisted non tra-
ditional allies. They put a lot
of calories into fi guring out
how coal and oil were set to
be exported, and they enlisted
the communities at risk to
supplement the fi ght.
Government action to slash
greenhouse gas emissions
has fallen short in Oregon,
Washington state and Brit-
ish Columbia, as documented
last week in the opening story
of InvestigateWest’s yearlong
series, Getting to Zero: Decar-
bonizing Cascadia. But as
opposition to climate action
thwarted policymakers in
Cascadia, its activists repeat-
edly triumphed.
A few signifi cant ener-
gy-export proposals have
been revived under the
Trump and Trudeau admin-
istrations. Still, that wave of
earlier victories represents
the region’s greatest contribu-
tion to climate action, accord-
ing to KC Golden, a longtime
policy leader who spent over
a decade at Climate Solu-
tions, a regional group head-
quartered in Seattle, who now
sits on the board of the inter-
national activist group 350.
org
“You can’t measure that
on our emissions curve,”
Golden said. “But it’s prob-
ably the single biggest thing
that we did.”
How did they do it?
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
DailyAstorian.com
Circulation phone number:
800-781-3214
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.
COPYRIGHT ©
Entire contents © Copyright,
2021 by The Astorian.
MEMBER OF THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
MEMBER CERTIFIED AUDIT OF
CIRCULATIONS, INC.
Printed on
recycled paper
The coalitions joined cli-
mate policy and environ-
mental organizations with
community groups. Cru-
cially, they looked beyond
policy measures designed to
cut emissions, such as car-
bon trading and carbon taxes,
and instead followed the fos-
sil fuel shipments that impact
communities — often mar-
ginalized communities — en
route to warming the global
climate. They went after the
underground pipelines pro-
posed to tunnel beneath farms
and fi elds, and the trains rum-
bling through downtowns.
Regional factors also
helped. Indian tribes and First
Nations bands reasserted sov-
ereign powers. And the polit-
ical and economic makeup
of Oregon, Washington state
and British Columbia eased
the lift politically. Fossil fuel
production makes up a small
part of the region’s job base.
Many politicians score with
voters by opposing the likes
of Big Oil.
The most important factor,
though, was the sheer number
of people that activists mobi-
lized by reaching beyond
their traditional alliances. In
massive numbers, commu-
nity members attended pub-
lic hearings. Marched in
protests. Spent nights and
weekends at kitchen tables
drafting pleas to government
agencies.
“Clearly part of what is dif-
ferent about this campaign is
the fairly extraordinary level
of grassroots involvement,”
said Becky Kelley, former
president of the Washington
Environmental Council.
‘WE ESTABLISHED THAT FOSSIL
FUELS DO NOT HAVE A SAFE
HARBOR IN THE NORTHWEST.’
The Sightline Institute’s Eric de Place
This story of uncharac-
teristic environmental victo-
ries has its roots in the mid-
2000s, when growing use of
so-called natural gas spawned
proposals to import lique-
fi ed natural gas through ports
in Oregon and pipelines to
move the fossil gas eastward
— pipelines that take a lot of
land, and much of it in solidly
conservative expanses of the
state.
Fracking turned that pic-
ture upside down. Cheaper
domestic gas and oil, as well
as surplus coal, spurred three
new waves of export pro-
posals: Facilities to take coal
transported by rail; oil trans-
ported by rail and pipeline;
and then — once again — gas
from pipelines. This time the
latter would carry gas west-
ward for export.
Climate policy experts at
Sightline, a key player in the
greens’ movement, calculated
that if all the proposals for
coal exports went through, it
would mean 50 to 60 trains
per day traveling through the
region.
Oil trains more than a mile
long would block emergency
vehicles and other traffi c on a
Subscription rates
Eff ective January 12, 2021
MAIL
EZpay (per month) ...............................................................................................................$10.75
13 weeks in advance ...........................................................................................................$37.00
26 weeks in advance ...........................................................................................................$71.00
52 weeks in advance ........................................................................................................ $135.00
DIGITAL
EZpay (per month) .................................................................................................................$8.25
daily basis in towns between
Washington and Wyoming.
And in a derailment or col-
lision, the trains could cause
devastation on a fearsome
scale.
By the middle of last
decade, a fossil fuel tsu-
nami seemed to be pointed
at Cascadia and its ports.
But by then, environmental-
ists had also built a coalition
far stronger than their part-
nerships with each other —
a regional infrastructure of
activism whose importance
to the greens’ success is hard
to overstate.
“That’s a real lesson
learned: To be successful on
major campaigns you have
got to work outside tradi-
tional alliances,” said Ross
Macfarlane, then a key archi-
tect of the effort at Climate
Solutions.
It began as a campaign
called Power Past Coal,
based on the projected doz-
ens of coal trains per day.
At fi rst the activists thought
industry’s momentum would
be too much to counter. Mac-
farlane recalls the early days
of the campaign as dark.
Allies in the business world
warned “that we were going
to get creamed,” McFarlane
said.
WANTED
Alder and Maple Saw Logs & Standing Timber
Northwest Hardwoods • Longview, WA
Contact: John Anderson • 360-269-2500
“And I wasn’t sure they
were wrong,” he said. “In
fact, I was pretty sure they
were right.”
What turned it around was
forging a broader coalition,
said Beth Doglio, the Power
Past Coal campaign’s co-di-
rector, who was elected to a
Washington House of Rep-
resentatives seat in 2016. “It
was the combination of peo-
ple wanting to turn the tide
against climate change cou-
pled with communities’ very
visceral reactions to 60 trains
a day coming through.”
Environmentalists looked
at who might be affected by
each project or proposal and
reached out, often discover-
ing natural allies who already
had mobilized. Scouting far
up the rail lines, they also
found previously unlikely
supporters, from politicians
in decidedly conservative
towns along the rail routes
to a concerned researcher for
the Montana Wheat & Bar-
ley Committee. Lots of folks
worried about the effects of
mile-long, traffi c jam-induc-
ing trains. Especially when
they carried volatile oil.
They were far stronger
together. Dedicated people at
the grassroots level poured in
their time and worked their
community connections. Pro-
fessionals at environmen-
tal nonprofi ts bolstered their
case, providing expertise
to, for example, challenge a
company’s calculation about
how much of a neighbor-
hood would be decimated if
an oil-bearing train exploded.
“It’s all about grassroots
resistance to the fossil-fuel
infrastructure,” said Doglio.
“Legislators really can’t
ignore the massive outcry in
our communities around try-
ing to stop these fossil fuel
projects.”
Native peoples
critical to success
First Nations and Native
Americans have often been
in the forefront and in a few
cases provided the pivotal
legal fi repower that won the
day.
Take, for example, the
proposal to build the Gate-
way Pacifi c Terminal, about
10 miles from the Cana-
da-U.S. border, to ship coal
to China – a project that saw
Montana ranchers and their
Native American neighbors
travel to Seattle to protest
together in 2012.
So many people wanted
to attend that hearing that the
U.S. Army Corps of Engi-
neers moved the event from
a community college to the
convention center. More
than 2,300 people showed up
on that Dec. 14 along with
the Northern Cheyenne, the
Montana cowboys and their
allies; more than 6,000 more
attended other hearings for
the project around the state.
In Seattle, opponents
sang to the tune of “Deck the
Halls”:
“We have lots of greener
choices
Fa la la la la, la la la la
Stop the coal and
Raise our voices…”
The fatal blow for the
Gateway Pacifi c coal termi-
nal landed a few years later,
when the Lummi Nation —
an Indian tribe living just
south of the U.S.-Canada
border — won a legal fi ght
to convince the Army Corps
to reject the proposed 3,000-
foot wharf and rail trestle.
The Lummi cited the 1855
treaty under which they gave
most of their traditional terri-
tory to the United States and
were guaranteed the right to
forever fi sh at their “usual
and accustomed grounds and
stations.”
Taking aim at the coal-ex-
port terminal, the Lummi
submitted fi sh catch reports
dating back to the 1970s
showing that Lummi fi sher-
men had long been landing
crab, salmon, halibut, herring
and cod in the waters around
where the marine terminal
was to be sited. As a sover-
eign native nation, the Lummi
could expect the federal gov-
ernment to give their position
serious consideration.
And they won. In 2016,
the Army Corps declined the
permit application.
In her decision, Michelle
Walker, chief of the Army
Corps’ regional regulatory
branch, recognized not only
the Lummi’s sovereign rights
See Activists, Page A3