A2
THE ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, JULY 27, 2021
IN BRIEF
Lil’ Sprouts Academy staff er
tests positive for virus
A staff er at Lil’ Sprouts Academy, Astoria’s child care
program, has tested positive for the coronavirus.
City Manager Brett Estes said the city is working
with the Clatsop County Public Health Department to
ensure all appropriate protocols are being taken.
“Nothing more is known at this point in time,” Estes
said.
City Councilor Brownson
to hold meet-and-greet event
Astoria City Councilor Tom Brownson is holding a
“Meet Your Councilor, Ward 2” event at 9 a.m. Saturday
at Peter Pan Market, 712 Niagara Ave.
City Councilor Herman to host meeting
Astoria City Councilor Joan Herman will host her fi rst
in-person “Meet the Councilor” event in more than a year.
The event will be held from 4 to 5 p.m. on Aug. 4
in the Flag Room at the Astoria Library. The event is
a chance for Herman to hear from residents about their
concerns.
Herman can also be reached at jherman@astoria.
or.us or by voicemail at 503-298-2408.
— The Astorian
FLIPPING OUT
Luke Whittaker/Chinook Observer
Ty Sarkkinen, 16, of Battle Ground, did a backfl ip as fi reworks exploded behind him on the Fourth of July in Long Beach.
Washington state urges masks indoors
Washington state’s top epidemiologist is recom-
mending that everyone wear a mask or face covering in
crowded indoor places because of the rise of the COVID-
19 Delta variant — even if they have been vaccinated.
Dr. Scott Lindquist said Friday the state is seeing a
“fi fth wave” of the coronavirus that is sending more peo-
ple to the hospital.
“The majority of these hospitalizations can be pre-
vented by people getting vaccinated,” Linquist said.
The Department of Health and Gov. Jay Inslee aren’t
formally reinstating mask mandates or other measures
yet, Lindquist said.
Warming rivers in the West killing fi sh
SAN FRANCISCO — Baby salmon are dying by
the thousands in one California river, and an entire run
of endangered salmon could be wiped out in another.
Fishermen who make their living off adult salmon, once
they enter the Pacifi c Ocean, are sounding the alarm as
blistering heat waves and extended drought in the West
raise water temperatures and imperil fi sh from Idaho to
California.
Hundreds of thousands of young salmon are dying in
Northern California’s Klamath River as low water lev-
els brought about by drought allow a parasite to thrive,
devastating a Native American tribe whose diet and tra-
ditions are tied to the fi sh. And wildlife offi cials said the
Sacramento River is facing a “near-complete loss” of
young Chinook salmon due to abnormally warm water.
A crash in one year’s class of young salmon can have
lasting eff ects on the total population and shorten or stop
the fi shing season, a growing concern as climate change
continues to make the West hotter and drier. That could
be devastating to the commercial salmon fi shing indus-
try, which in California alone is worth $1.4 billion.
The plummeting catch already has led to skyrocket-
ing retail prices for salmon, hurting customers who say
they can no longer aff ord the $35 per pound of fi sh, said
Mike Hudson, who has spent the last 25 years catching
and selling salmon at farmers markets in Berkeley.
Hudson said he has considered retiring and selling his
40-foot boat because “it’s going to get worse from here.”
— Associated Press
DEATHS
In Brief: July 27,
2021
Deaths
July 24, 2021
DUMOND,
Nancy
Lynn, 67, of Seaside, died
in Seaside. Ocean View
Funeral & Cremation Ser-
vice of Astoria is in charge
of the arrangements.
July 21, 2021
CROTHERS, Cynthia
B., 68, of Astoria, died
in Portland. Caldwell’s
Luce-Layton Mortuary of
Astoria is in charge of the
arrangements.
ON THE RECORD
Theft
• Jacob Terrill, 34, of
On
Record
• Ciara the
Roundtree,
20, Gearhart, was arrested
of Seaside, was arrested
Sunday afternoon at
Walmart in Warrenton for
theft in the second degree.
Saturday afternoon at
Fred Meyer in Warren-
ton for theft in the second
degree.
PUBLIC MEETINGS
TUESDAY
Astoria Planning Commission, 5:30 p.m., City Hall, 1095
Duane St.
Seaside Airport Advisory Committee, 6 p.m., City Hall,
989 Broadway.
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).
PUBLIC MEETINGS
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Printed on
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Planned proposal to lay cables under
Columbia River met with skepticism
By PETER FAIRLEY
InvestigateWest
Can slicing a 100-mile
trench into the bed of the
Columbia River be good for
the environment? The answer
is a big “yes,” says a team of
energy developers that pro-
poses submerging power
cables in the riverbed.
The developers say the
cables could deliver clean
energy that will be crucial
for getting the most densely
developed areas of Cascadia
off fossil fuels.
A proposal by energy
developer Sun2o Partners and
transmission developer Pow-
erBridge would insert the
cables into the Columbia at
The Dalles in Oregon. This
electrical on-ramp is near the
wind farms and solar farms
installed along the Columbia
Gorge in E astern Oregon and
Washington state.
The cables also would
intersect the monster trans-
mission lines at the Bonne-
ville Power Administration’s
Big Eddy substation, draw-
ing cheaper solar power from
the Southwest, steadier wind
‘WHETHER IT’S RENEWABLE
ENERGY OR FOSSIL ENERGY, WE
NEED TO UNDERSTAND HOW A
PROJECT IS GOING TO IMPACT
PEOPLE THAT RELY ON THE
COLUMBIA FOR SALMON AND
FOR CLEAN WATER.’
Lauren Goldberg | legal and program director for Columbia Riverkeeper
power from Montana and
Wyoming and reliable backup
power from British Colum-
bia’s supersized hydropower
reservoirs.
But even climate-con-
scious developers can’t make
plans involving a natural
resource like the Columbia
River without causing uneas-
iness among those concerned
with ecosystems and commu-
nities. Along the Columbia,
those aff ected would include
tribal nations and unique cul-
tural interests.
Sun2o and PowerBridge
propose to bring their cables
ashore in Portland, helping to
electrify industries, buildings
New reporter a familiar face
“I wanted to study it in
a serious and systematic
way,” Bengel said.
Journalism fi rst came on
By ETHAN MYERS
Bengel’s radar at Portland
The Astorian
State, where he was a news
writer , the arts and culture
A familiar face is back editor and eventually the
with The Astorian.
editor-in-chief at the uni-
Erick Bengel, who versity’s student newspaper,
worked as a reporter and The Vanguard.
the Coast Weekend editor
Bengel fi rst joined
for the paper from 2015 to The Astorian through the
2019, will cover criminal Snowden internship pro-
justice, social ser-
gram in 2011, where
vices and county
he fi rst saw the ser-
government
this
vice that local jour-
time around.
nalism fi lls.
“I’ve
always
“We give peo-
envied the person
ple the information
who occupied this
they need to nav-
beat,” he said. “It
igate their day-to-
Erick
always seemed like
day lives and com-
Bengel
an essential chal-
munities,” he said.
lenge … I like that
“It has an immedi-
it is a serious beat and has acy that oftentimes large-
very sharp edges to it.”
scale reporting fails to cap-
Bengel fi lled in for ture because you are reading
reporters over the years and about your neighbors, you
dabbled in the beat during are reading about locations
his two years at the Cannon you know well — an imme-
Beach Gazette.
diacy and an intimacy. Inso-
“But this is the fi rst time far as you think anything
I’ve been able to own it,” he local is important — local
said.
elections, local services —
When Bengel left The local journalism is incredi-
Astorian in 2019, he moved bly important.”
to New York to get a mas-
As for Bengel’s long-
ter’s degree in journalism at term goals, he hopes to keep
Columbia University.
broadening his horizons
With a bachelor’s degree within journalism.
from Portland State Univer-
“At this point, I am try-
sity in philosophy and polit- ing to get good at diff erent
ical science, he had never modes and forms of jour-
formally studied journalism nalism and that is what
outside of a few high school excited me about this beat,”
classes.
he said.
Bengel rejoins
The Astorian
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WANTED
Alder and Maple Saw Logs & Standing Timber
Northwest Hardwoods • Longview, WA
Contact: John Anderson • 360-269-2500
and vehicles while reducing
the use of coal- and gas-fi red
power plants. Hence the proj-
ect’s name: Cascade Renew-
able Transmission.
“The only places you can
site solar and wind at scale
are, for the most part, east of
the Cascades. But the demand,
the need for the electricity, is
in Portland and Seattle, on the
west side,” said Corey Kuper-
smith, the New York–based
renewable energy developer
who cofounded Sun2o and
dreamed up the cable scheme.
And power lines that link east
and west are fi lling up fast, he
said .
Anticipating environmen-
tal concerns, the developers
assert they will do little harm
to the Columbia, employ-
ing high-pressure pumps that
make underwater cable instal-
lation quick and not so dirty.
Water jets would shoot down
from a hydroplow towed
along the riverbed, stirring
open an 18-inch-wide trench
in the sediment.
Environmental impacts,
they argue, would likely be
short term and outweighed by
environmental gains: reduc-
tions in pollution from natural
gas, petroleum fuels and coal.
That includes emissions of
carbon dioxide and methane,
two greenhouse gases that
are supercharging Cascadia’s
wildfi res and heat waves and
disrupting even the Colum-
bia’s temperature and timing.
One more industrial
enterprise
To Elaine Harvey, how-
ever, the Cascade Renewable
Transmission pitch sounds
like one more industrial enter-
prise in a stream of projects
that have harmed her people.
See Cables, Page A3
Coast Weekend
welcomes new editor
Davidson brings
experience in
multimedia
Iowa Public Radio.
She has had reporting and
anchor roles at television sta-
tions in Michigan, South Car-
olina, Iowa, Minnesota and
By GRIFFIN REILLY
Louisiana.
The Astorian
While often diffi cult,
Davidson said her time in
Though Nikki Davidson’s broadcast journalism exposed
career in journalism has taken her to the value of visual
her all over the coun-
media in storytelling,
try, her landing in
something she hopes
Astoria will be her
to incorporate into
fi rst taste of Oregon.
her work with Coast
Weekend .
Davidson is tak-
“We can do mul-
ing over as the new
timedia, maybe some
editor of Coast Week-
videos — just to
end, a weekly arts
Nikki
really showcase the
and
entertainment
Davidson
area and the people in
publication featured
a way that print alone
in The Astorian and
can’t do,” she said. “I think
Chinook Observer.
She hopes telling the sto- it can really complement the
ries of a region with such work that we’re doing here.”
In an area as beautiful as
rich history will help her get
familiar with the area, as well the North Coast, she said ,
as let her explore one of her creating that type of content
shouldn’t be a problem.
biggest interests.
“It seems like a really awe-
“I’m very interested in his-
tory,” she said. “I really want some place to be, ” she said.
Davidson said oversee-
to delve into the quirky his-
tory stories that people don’t ing Coast Weekend is some-
hear about as often — the what of a perfect situation
ones that seem like they’re for her, since it allows her to
stick beside her husband in
lost in time.”
Davidson started her time the U.S. Coast Guard while
in journalism at the Univer- indulging her passions for
sity of Northern Iowa, where storytelling and journalism.
Her husband, Patrick, is
she was editor of the school’s
paper. At the same time, she stationed at Cape Disappoint-
juggled working for a local ment in Washington state.
public access station and as Previously, the couple lived
an associate producer for in Louisiana.
“You don’t always nec-
essarily get to choose where
OREGON CAPITAL
you end up in journalism,”
Davidson said. “Getting the
ability to do what has been
Get the inside
my passion in life in the place
scoop on state
that we are is really what
government
and politics!
attracted me to this.”
INSIDER