A2
THE ASTORIAN • SATURDAY, JULY 17, 2021
IN BRIEF
New assessment released on
relocating county public works facility
A new assessment for relocating the Clatsop County
public works facility found that the Warrenton Fiber
sort yard is the best choice.
The county wants to move the public works facility
on Olney Avenue out of the tsunami inundation zone.
Consultants from Mackenzie, a Portland-based engi-
neering and design fi rm, narrowed down the poten-
tial sites to the sort yard near Lewis and Clark and the
North Coast Business Park in Warrenton.
A preliminary analysis indicated that the sort yard
site would have lower overall development costs, or
roughly $56.1 million compared to $56.6 million for
the business park. Additionally, the size of the sort
yard site allows for future growth and storage areas,
and it would not present a loss of property tax revenue
and a loss of job creation.
The county had previously identifi ed the sort yard
for the relocation, but neighbors have opposed the
move.
The consultants presented the new assessment at a
work session of the county Board of Commissioners
on Wednesday.
According to County Manager Don Bohn, “it’s not
the end of the process — it’s just another step.”
Port of Astoria raises marina fees
The Port of Astoria Commission has voted to raise
marina rates.
In August, the annual rates for recreational and
commercial boats will increase $2 each year until
2023. The seasonal and off season monthly rates will
increase $1 each year until 2023. Daily seasonal rates,
as well as daily and monthly trailer parking rates, will
also go up.
The Port found it necessary to raise the fees in order
to “cover increased operational costs and ongoing cap-
ital costs for dredging and pile replacements.”
The commission’s vote on Tuesday was unanimous.
Jury awards Port of Astoria
damages in Pier 3 lawsuit
A jury has awarded the Port of Astoria $36,750
in a lawsuit against Marathon Fisheries for damages
caused to Pier 3.
The lawsuit claimed a fi shing boat owned by Mar-
athon Fisheries, based in Lincoln County, struck Pier
3 and caused a large portion of the dock to fall into the
Columbia River in July 2018.
The Port was seeking $147,000.
Knappa lands state funds
for school bond
The Knappa School District has landed a $4 million
state grant to boost the $14 million capital bond it will
ask voters to approve in November.
The school district had counted on receiving the
funds from the state, Superintendent Bill Fritz said.
The current scope of work proposed by the district
assumes an $18 million budget. The district will only
receive the state money if the bond passes.
— The Astorian
DEATHS
July 14, 2021
In SWEENEY,
Brief
Christy
Kathrina Walker, 67, of
Astoria, died in Astoria.
Deaths
Caldwell’s
Luce-Lay-
ton Mortuary of Asto-
ria is in charge of the
arrangements.
July 13, 2021
RINER, Louann L.,
86, of Longview, Wash-
ington, formerly of Asto-
ria, died in Longview.
Caldwell’s
Luce-Lay-
ton Mortuary of Asto-
ria is in charge of the
arrangements. She was
the daughter of Ray-
mond and Marion Luce,
the prior owners of the
funeral home.
July 9, 2021
NIEMI, Gary Harold,
78, of Westport, died in
Westport. Groulx Fam-
ily Mortuary in Rain-
ier is in charge of the
arrangements.
ON THE RECORD
Criminal mischief
On
the
• Miles
Joseph Record
Hunsinger, 55, of Astoria, was
arrested at Fourth Street and Marine Drive for crim-
inal mischief in the third degree.
PUBLIC MEETINGS
PUBLIC MEETINGS
MONDAY
Astoria City Council, 7 p.m., City Hall, 1095 Duane St.
TUESDAY
Clatsop County Board of Commissioners and Planning
Commission, 10 a.m., work session, (electronic meeting).
Astoria Historic Landmarks Commission, 5:30 p.m., City
Hall, 1095 Duane St.
Seaside Planning Commission, 6 p.m., work session, City
Hall, 989 Broadway.
Gearhart Small Business Committee, 6 p.m., (electronic
meeting).
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First phase of Naselle
hatchery rebuild complete
“We still have enough for
our coho program. We take
extra eggs knowing we’re
going to have these problems
in the summer,” Foreman
said.
By LUKE WHITTAKER
Chinook Observer
NASELLE, Wash. —
Cool, clear and clean water
from Crusher Creek has
begun pooling in a cement
sediment settling pond above
the Naselle Fish Hatchery.
The recently constructed
pond represents the comple-
tion of the fi rst phase of an
ambitious three-phase series
of changes slated over the
next few years to modernize
the aging hatchery, fi rst con-
structed in 1979.
“The phase included the
new settling ponds, distri-
bution box and the pipe-
line ( from Crusher Creek) to
the new intake, ” said Brady
Foreman, a specialist at the
hatchery.
Both sediment settling
ponds — one for Crusher
Creek and one for the Naselle
River — will serve a funda-
mental role in the raising of
future salmon runs.
“They keep the mud and
solids out of the rearing units
and incubators. It’s especially
important for the incubators
to keep the eggs clean, so they
don’t suff ocate,” Foreman
said.
The antiquated infrastruc-
ture supporting the h atchery
has become inadequate over
time, Foreman explained,
leading to a juggling act
among staff to patch problems
while preserving fi sh runs sea-
son to season.
The half-acre ponds — rid-
dled with cracks and prone to
algae growth and “dead spots”
— are unsuitable for use in the
summer due to the defi cien-
cies, leading to crowding in
the limited raceways.
The pump house, which
houses the generator and a
series of pumps necessary for
providing fresh water, is unre-
liable and often diffi cult to
maintain.
The pipes beneath the
hatchery — now rusting after
more than 40 years under-
ground — leak in places,
causing sinkholes and soft
spots.
Although each phase is
important, some of the most
impactful changes for the
hatchery, including a new
pump house and weir, will
occur in the second phase,
anticipated in 2023.
“We’re going to have mod-
ern pumps and generator that
won’t be breaking down on
us. We’re not going to have to
worry if all the fi sh are going
Steelhead come
to local lakes
Luke Whittaker/Chinook Observer
Brady Foreman, a specialist with the Naselle Fish Hatchery,
talks about the infrastructure changes coming over the next
few years.
to die when a power out-
age happens,” Foreman said.
“This is the big one. This is
the one we really need.”
Replacing the
failing
infrastructure could change
the trajectory for the hatchery
and future local salmon runs.
“We’ll be able to catch
more fi sh and operate it more
effi ciently. That’s the goal
here,” Foreman said.
“We’ll be able to catch
most of our hatchery fi sh to
bring them into the hatchery
and keep them off the spawn-
ing grounds (and from mix-
ing with the wild fi sh). That’s
the big thing now. We need to
protect the wild fi sh. If we can
keep the hatchery fi sh off the
spawning grounds upstream,
and keep them from mix-
ing with the wild fi sh, the
wild genes are going to be
stronger.”
Known for coho
T he Naselle h atchery is
known for prolifi c coho pro-
duction, but has also ramped
up Chinook production from
800,000 to 4 million over the
past few years.
“Right now, we get a huge
number of fi sh back. Our
hatchery is usually fi rst or
second in coho returns in the
whole state. We do a lot of
Chinook now, too. Our goal is
to do 5 million Chinook. T his
year we released 4 million.
We do about 1.4 million coho
and 500,000 chum and 75,000
steelhead.”
Raising separate salmon
species in an “old-style” sys-
tem poses unique challenges
that will be alleviated with the
hatchery upgrades.
“We increased our produc-
tion before our infrastructure,
so we defi nitely need to get
it done,” Foreman said. “We
have these huge returns of
coho and Chinook coming in
Ilwaco secures money to protect drinking water
City hopes to
preserve watershed
at Indian Creek
By BRANDON CLINE
Chinook Observer
ILWACO, Wash. — The
city’s hopes of protecting its
drinking water source and
preserving hundreds of acres
of land as a community forest
took a huge step forward this
month.
On July 1, the Washing-
ton State Department of Ecol-
ogy announced that it is off er-
ing Ilwaco a $500,000 grant
and a nearly $2 million loan
for the Bear Ridge Commu-
nity Forest Watershed Protec-
tion Project.
City Councilor Matt
Lessnau, who’s spearheading
the project for the city, said
the grant and loan off er is a
“big chunk” of funding that,
once formally accepted, will
go toward the acquisition of
the land and surrounding tim-
ber deeds to make the project
a reality.
The city plans to protect
its drinking water source,
the Indian Creek w atershed,
by purchasing land and sur-
rounding timber deeds and
preserving the area as a com-
munity forest. The two tim-
ber deeds the city is working
to purchase total 178 acres,
and another 210 acres of
watershed area outside of city
management would also be
purchased.
Ilwaco is working on the
sale with The Trust for Public
Land, a nonprofi t specializing
in land conservation, and for-
estry consultant Ben Hayes.
The
city
previously
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at the same time and we have
to separate the wilds ( naturally
spawning fi sh) . It’s hard to do
in the old system. The new
system is going to be great.
We’ll be able to work it every
day with less staff and the fi sh
are going to be treated better.”
The hatchery has had close
calls due to crumbling infra-
structure, from leaking pipes
to power failures. In one emer-
gency, fi sh had to be evacu-
ated by truck to the nearby
Nemah h atchery.
Extreme weather con-
ditions bring extra stress to
hatchery crew, particularly the
ice storm in February and the
historic heat wave in June.
“You never know when the
alarm is going to happen. We
had that ice storm and I was
on standby a couple days,”
Foreman said. “The storm
covered the pump switches
with a layer of ice. I couldn’t
restart the pumps because they
were covered in ice. I couldn’t
thaw it out. I had to bring in a
generator.”
Those controls are now
safely housed in a covered
distribution box, part of the
fi rst phase changes.
The summer heat is espe-
cially problematic for the
hatchery, where salmon and
trout thrive in cooler water.
The heat issues reached an
apex in late June when tem-
peratures soared above 100
degrees in part of Pacifi c
County.
“We had a high water tem-
perature of 73. We lost a lot
of fi sh,” Foreman said. “We
struggle here with pathogens,
bacteria and parasites, espe-
cially in the summertime.”
Fortunately, a back up plan,
including an extra abundance
of coho eggs, was already in
place, since the hatchery suf-
fered a similar fate in the
drought of 2015.
Anglers in select local
lakes may have noticed a
new species casting a bigger
shadow than the typical trout.
Hundreds of adult steel-
head, surplus from the Naselle
h atchery, have been planted in
Black Lake and Radar Lake
over the past two years, part
of a plan to provide new fi sh-
ing opportunities for local
sportsmen.
“Now we’re releasing sur-
plus big adult steelhead when
they come back,” Foreman
said.
Foreman has helped spear-
head the plantings .
“When (we) have more
fi sh than we need for eggs,
we try to release those in the
lakes so people can have a
shot at catching them. We like
to provide as many new fi sh-
ing opportunities as we can.”
The steelhead stockings
started in 2019, but became
more frequent over the past
year.
“Last year, we had hun-
dreds of surplus fi sh,” Fore-
man said.
Steelhead and rainbow
trout are the same species, but
rainbow are freshwater only,
and steelhead are anadro-
mous, meaning they migrate
to sea. Unlike most salmon,
steelhead can survive spawn-
ing, and can spawn in multiple
years, according to the Wash-
ington Department of Fish
and Wildlife .
The annual Black Lake
fi shing derby was can-
cel ed the last two years amid
COVID -related precautions,
but young fi shermen in 2022
will have their fi rst chance to
reel in a 10-plus pound steel-
head, a jump up from the
jumbo rainbow trout that
occasionally exceed seven
pounds.
“It’s going to be an inter-
esting fi shing derby next time
around,” Foreman said.
Sometimes the surplus
steelhead are donated to
tribes, food banks or used for
nutrient enhancement, while
others will now live out their
fi nal days in local lakes.
“If we can have one kid
catch a 12-pound steelhead in
the spring, it’s worth it,” Fore-
man said.
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Bayshore
Animal Hospital
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received a $600,000 grant
from the U. S. Department of
Agriculture in 2020, as part of
the USDA Community Forest
and Open Space Conserva-
tion Program, that will also go
toward the purchase. Ilwaco
also received $721,000 for the
project from the s tate Legisla-
ture this spring as part of its
$6.3 billion capital construc-
tion budget.
The third time was the
charm for the city when it
came to the Ecology grant
and loan . In 2020, the city
was awarded a $3.4 million
loan, and had applied but
been denied twice a $500,000
grant that it was able to secure
during this funding period.
The success came after
Ilwaco and its partners said
they needed to do a better
job of explaining to Ecol-
ogy why purchasing and con-
trolling the timberland within
the watershed will protect the
water source.
All told, Ilwaco has been
off ered $1.8 million in grants
and $1.9 million in loans — at
a 1.6% interest rate — for the
project so far.