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THE ASTORIAN • SATuRdAy, NOvEmbER 27, 2021
Tribes could harvest prized food at restored wetland
By CASSANDRA PROFITA
Oregon Public broadcasting
Native American tribes could someday
resume their tradition of harvesting a prized
first food — the potato-like tuber, wapato —
from the wetlands along the Columbia River
in the Steigerwald National Wildlife Refuge.
The area was drained years ago and cut
off from the river by levees, but a $31 million
restoration project has removed about 2 miles
of those barriers to restore 965 acres of flood-
plain habitat.
It’s the largest wetland restoration proj-
ect on the lower Columbia River, designed
to re-establish valuable salmon habitat while
reducing flood risks to the area. The newly
restored wetlands will benefit a variety of
native species including lamprey, beaver and
migratory birds. It’s also creating the per-
fect habitat for wapato, a tuber that grows
in wetlands and was once so abundant along
the Columbia in southwest Washington and
Northwest Oregon that Lewis and Clark
named the area Wapato Valley.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and
its partners, including the Lower Columbia
River Estuary Partnership, will plant 3,000
wapato bulbs and 30,000 seeds in the wet-
lands for future tribal harvest.
Sam Robinson, vice chairman of the Chi-
nook Indian Nation, joined in a ceremonial
planting of wapato at the restoration site on
Monday and sang a song in honor of the pos-
itive change at the refuge.
Photos by Cassandra Profita/Oregon Public Broadcasting
ABOVE: Juliette Fernandez, right, with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and Jasmine Zimmer-
Stucky and Doug Kruger, with the Lower Columbia Estuary Partnership, dig holes for wapato
bulbs in the newly restored wetlands at the Steigerwald National Wildlife Refuge on Monday.
INSET: Wapato is a tuber that looks like a small potato and grows primarily in wetlands.
“Wapato was such a huge resource from
this area here down to Longview and through
Portland,” he said. “It was a huge trade item.
So, as they were harvesting this wapato, they
were bringing it down to where my relatives
were and trading it for fish oil. ... Maintaining
refuges like this is so valuable.”
Robinson said it would normally be this
time of year that tribal members would start
harvesting wapato, after the plant had died
back and sent all of its nutrients into its root
system. He said he is looking forward to see-
ing the restored wetland evolve so that tribal
members can harvest wapato at the site in the
future.
Wapato tastes like a potato but it has a bit
more nutrition in it, according to Curtis Helm,
restoration ecologist with the Lower Colum-
bia River Estuary Partnership.
“It has a little more iron in it, cooks eas-
ily. It’s easily stored and easily dried,” he
said. “But you have to know where the plant
was growing in order to harvest it because the
above-ground plant dies in the fall.”
Helm said numerous factors have
reduced the amount of wapato in the North-
west, including the loss of floodplains as the
Columbia River was diked for farming, but
also invasive species and competing crops
like potatoes.
Juliette Fernandez, project leader with the
Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge Com-
plex, said she is grateful for her agency’s part-
nerships with Northwest tribes.
“On many of our refuges we have native
plants that were also first foods that continue
to be harvested by our tribal partners,” she
said. “Working with them not only to under-
stand biology of the plants but to create har-
vest opportunities has been really been mean-
ingful. This week, as we have Thanksgiving
and as we all sit down to enjoy our various
forms of food and the things that are import-
ant to us in our lives, that’s one relationship
I’m thankful for this year.”
Sture: Hearing was Sture’s first chance to argue for his freedom since 2011
Continued from Page A1
investigating mischief near the home the offi-
cer shared with his wife and children. Sture
shot him off a motorcycle, then plugged him
twice in the head.
Sture’s motivations remain vague. He had
served time for stealing a vehicle in the years
before the killing and has said he didn’t want
Shepherd to stumble upon his marijuana oper-
ation. The police, however, founds no such
plants.
Brown said the evidence suggests Shep-
herd’s murder was a “thrill kill.” Sture said
drug use had influenced his actions.
Before he fled the area with Shepherd’s
motorcycle, Sture detained at gunpoint Shep-
herd’s colleague, Brian Johnson, who found
the body. He made Johnson get on the ground
and rummaged through his wallet, but didn’t
injure him.
Days later, Sture was taken into custody in
central Oregon, where he had been hitchhiking.
At last week’s hearing, Sture apologized
to the Shepherd family, something he had not
done in his four decades in prison.
Members of Sture’s family and volunteers
with his religious studies group supported his
release.
“We are all intensely committed to being
an integral part of his stability and crucial sup-
port system,” his sister, Cindy Wiggins, said
at the hearing.
Sandra Bierschied, Shepherd’s daugh-
ter, said the idea of Sture being released is
“incomprehensible.”
“Every single event in my life has been
altered because of this reckless choice that
Michael Sture made in 1980,” Bierschied
said. “Leading up to this very day, not once
has my father’s killer ever made any attempt
to explain his actions or show any remorse to
my mother or our family.”
The psychologist who evaluated Sture
beforehand wrote that the convict had a low
risk of committing further violence, but that
substance abuse could increase the risk.
Sture has severe disorders when it comes to
using alcohol, stimulants and marijuana, and a
moderate disorder with using heroin, the psy-
chologist wrote.
In addition, Sture exhibits traits of anti-
social personalty disorder. “Mr. Sture has
demonstrated problems with impulsivity, irre-
sponsibility, and failure to plan ahead,” the
psychologist wrote.
The parole board wrote in their decision
that Sture “suffers from a present severe emo-
tional disturbance that constitutes a danger to
the health or safety of the community.”
Although Sture said at his hearing — his
first chance to argue for his freedom since
2011 — that he had been sober for nearly two
years, board member John Bailey said that’s
not very long for someone seeking parole.
Sture has dabbled in wellness programs, yet
even within the 12-step Narcotics Anonymous
program, he has stalled at step No. 4.
Bailey and board members Greta Lowry
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and James Taylor worried whether Sture could
stay sober once discharged, given his history
of relapses in prison. “Living in the commu-
nity would increase the likelihood of his expo-
sure or ability to obtain illicit substances,” the
board wrote.
In light of Sture’s newfound commitment
to sobriety — made, the decision noted, “a
mere few weeks prior to his most recent hear-
ing” — the board believes Sture is indeed
likely to start using again. “(S)uch conduct
would present an unacceptable risk to the peo-
ple of Oregon,” the board wrote.
“While the board recognizes and applauds
(Sture) for his present desire to remain clean
and sober, the board needs to see significantly
more clean time from him to find he has the
capacity to remain clean and sober in the
community.”
Virginia Shepherd said, “I’m glad he won’t
be out in public now … I just feel he could do
this to some other family, and that wouldn’t
be good.”