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THE ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, DECEMBER 14, 2021
THE ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, DECEMBER 14, 2021 • B1
WATER UNDER
THE BRIDGE
COMPILED BY BOB DUKE
From the pages of Astoria’s daily newspapers
10 years ago this week —
2011
I
t’s been 13 years since Andrew Nygaard died, but
his spirit lives on, and so does the annual swim meet
named in honor of the former Astoria swimmer.
At about this time every year, fi ve or six schools
gather at the Astoria Aquatic Center to celebrate the life
of Nygaard, who collapsed and died after a swim work-
out in 1998.
“It’s a special meet, for everybody on the North
Coast,” said Astoria’s Tim Roth, who was making his
home debut as the new Fishermen coach on Saturday. “I
feel lucky to be a part of it.”
“Andrew’s Meet” is also an opportunity for schools
in the Cowapa League to get a good look at each other,
and to kick off the new swim season.
And from the looks of it, the Seaside boys will be
tough to beat this year, and the same goes for the Scap-
poose girls.
The Gulls racked up 90 points to win the boys’ team
title over second-place Scappoose (76).
The Oregon Department of Transporta-
tion has a message for concerned residents liv-
ing near a stretch of U.S. Highway 101, who
say ODOT should reduce speeds along a por-
tion of the road: not so fast – other options are
available.
ODOT doesn’t dispute that a stretch of the
highway near Camp Rilea to Surf Pines has a
higher crash rate than the state average, but
transportation department offi cials have no
plans to lower the speed limit on the 5 -mile
expanse despite calls to do so from a public
committee.
Clatsop County Commissioner Patricia
Roberts is one of the committee members who
worries that the highway is becoming danger-
ous. She said ODOT’s schedule for making the
highway safer is too far in the future and uncer-
tain to mollify residents who live near the high-
way and use it regularly. ODOT’s plan calls for
the fi rst fi xes to go into eff ect sometime between
2015 and 2018.
WESTPORT – Rebuilding infrastructure demolished
during a 2007 storm that fl ooded roadways and washed
out both high-and-low-lying areas — a storm that fea-
tured high winds that brought down tree limbs and cre-
ated a mucky soup of debris that ruined dams — has
been a slow, arduous process.
Now, much of it is fi nally done.
Four years after the storm struck, the Westport Water
Association has put the fi nishing touches on a half-mil-
lion dollar project that revamps its water system.
50 years ago — 1971
Seaside swimmers cheer for teammate David Hoth as he completes his fi nal lap of the 500-yard freestyle at a meet in
Astoria in 2011.
It’s offi cial.
Astoria may move ahead with plans for the sewage
lagoon in east Astoria after receiving two fi ll permits —
one from a federal agency and one from a state agency.
Sewage lagoon engineers, Stevens, Thompson and
Runyan, have been working on revisions of the original
lagoon design. In fi nal reviews of the c ity’s plan, state
agencies asked for the water circulation pattern and cell
reversal.
From 1902 until the Columbia River Packers
Association sold the three-masted, full rigged
vessel in 1922, the St. Nicholas plied the waters
from Astoria to Bristol Bay, Alaska, during
the summer salmon run. In 1927, the wood-
en-hulled sailor was run aground and burned
for her tons of copper fastenings.
In 1971, the Columbia River Maritime
Museum has a St. Nicholas display. Just inside
the museum entrance are some pictures of the
long-gone reminder of hearty fi shing days, one
framed in window casing from the ship, and a
sailor’s sea chest.
The chest, along with the sailor’s books and
an 1880 photograph taken in Portland, belonged
to H.A. Larsen Spande, a young Norwegian
who came to Astoria on the St. Nicholas in the
1880s, before the vessel was sold the Colum-
bia River Packers Association , and stayed here.
Sande’s gear was given to the museum earlier
this year by his son and daughter.
The Port of Astoria remains clogged with ships. And,
another “second city” of ships at anchor awaiting berths
is building in the Columbia R iver , as shipping compa-
nies rush to beat the end of the Taft-Hartley injunction.
The cooling-off period, which temporarily ended
the 100-day West Coast l ongshoremen’s strike in early
October, ends Christmas Day, but International Long-
shore and Warehouse Union President Harry Bridges
has said the strike would not resume during the holiday
season.
75 years ago — 1946
The fi nal, major, street “vacation project” in the
city’s program of removing unsettled platted areas from
the map of Astoria is getting underway in the offi ce of
George McClean, city engineer.
This project involves a large part of the southern and
southeastern area of the city, living just west of the big
chunk on the eastern boundaries of Astoria on which
vacation proceedings were instituted at the last meeting
of the C ity C ommission.
The area on which McClean and his staff are now
doing the preliminary paperwork has as its eastern
boundary 47th Street, the western boundary of the tract
being vacated for the U.S. N avy’s new $4.3 million
housing project.
A fl oating cannery ship, joined by a fl otilla
The Calmar line freighter Portmar, which lost a third of
its lumber deckload off the mouth of the Columbia River
during a storm, is seen docked at the Port of Astoria in
1971 where the ship’s load was set to be restowed.
Dave Hill, president of the Westport Water Association,
locks up the gate to Westport’s revamped water system
in 2011.
of 12 fi shing boats, will sail from the Columbia
River on a tuna hunting expedition off the coast
of Mexico, Central America and South America
by New Year’s.
This deep sea fi shing enterprise, the greatest
in the history of the American fi sheries, is being
undertaken by the Pacifi c Exploration C o. of
Seattle and has been supported by an estimated
$3.7 million investment from the Reconstruc-
tion Finance Corporation .
The expedition will comprise a “fac-
tory ship,” the reconverted freighter Pacifi c
Explorer, and 12 fi shing vessels. Four of the
fi shing boats are trawlers, still incomplete. The
others are privately owned craft, including the
Swiftwater and Kiska of Astoria.
Tuesday night’s stormy weather climaxed a six-
day period of intermittent gales and pouring rain in the
lower Columbia district. Trees and branches were blown
down, interrupting telephone and power service in some
localities, causing slides, and putting high water across
highways.
The worst fl ood in 12 years covered thou-
sands of acres of farmlands in western Wash-
ington today as hours of heavy rains and
melting mountain snow turned rivers into over-
fl owing torrents.
A mother and her three children are seen Christmas
shopping in 1971.
There is an undeclared holiday in the w est e nd of
town today.
The Union Fishermen’s Cooperative Packing C o. is
observing its 50th anniversary in style. Such an event
concerns almost everyone in the city’s w est e nd. There
are stockholders, sons and daughters of stockholders and
grandsons and daughters of stockholders.
Then there are some 300 fi shermen and their kin.
More than 200 people, most of them from the city’s w est
e nd, work during the year for Union Fishermen’s Coop-
erative Packing C o .
T he Union Fishermen’s Cooperative Packing C o. is
today and has been for the past 50 years the w est e nd’s
greatest industry.