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THE ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 2022
THE ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 2022 • B1
WATER UNDER
THE BRIDGE
COMPILED BY BOB DUKE
From the pages of Astoria’s daily newspapers
10 years ago
this week – 2012
LONG BEACH, Wash. — The Long Beach Peninsula
is becoming a whale graveyard.
Less than a month after two dead whales were dis-
covered on the beaches of Seaview and Oysterville , a
dead orca washed ashore near Long Beach on Saturday
morning.
It’s the second orca found decaying on a peninsula
beach in the last three months. The 12-foot female orca
washed up about 1 mile north of the Cranberry approach,
according Tiff any Boothe of the Seaside Aquarium.
WARRENTON – Clatsop County is begin-
ning the next phase of development at the North
Coast Business Park with the construction of a
key route through the 270-acre site.
Big River Excavating is clearing vegetation
and installing silt-control fencing along the route
of Ensign Lane, which will run from U.S. High-
way 101 east to Highway 101 Business. Comple-
tion is expected by late fall.
The Astoria Bridge stretches 4.1 miles across the
mouth of the Columbia River, as much a symbol of Asto-
ria as the man whose legislative prowess helped put it in
place.
William “Bill” Holmstrom , an 18-year veteran of the
Oregon Legislature from Gearhart and representing Clat-
sop County, died Feb. 6 at a Salem h ospital. From his time
in the Oregon House and Senate Holmstrom is remem-
bered as a tireless advocate for North Coast transporta-
tion projects.
A whale washed up on the Long Beach Peninsula in 2012.
The U.S. Coast Guard Sector Columbia River
has received an upgraded MH-60T Jayhawk
rescue helicopter.
The helicopter features upgrades that
greatly enhance mission performance capabili-
ties for fl ight crews. It improves medium range
response and recovery operations including law
enforcement, search and rescue as well as cutter
operations.
50 years ago – 1972
Clatsop Community College students perpetrated a
second “kidnapping” today — Clatsop County Sheriff
Carl Bondietti — and had vowed to hold him and Asto-
ria Mayor Harry Steinbock hostage for a ransom of 200
pints of blood.
The college is hosting an American Red Cross b lood
drive today and kidnappings were intended to spur
contributions.
well,” Murakami wrote.
Murakami said Columbia R iver water penetrates into
Willapa Bay and added that his industry employs nearly
1,000 people, “whose jobs could be in grave danger.”
An unusually bad weather fi shing season and
a tremendous infl ux of boats from along the coast
has made the winter crab catch spotty to poor.
Never in recent years have so many crab
pots been set down between Tillamook Head
and Grays Harbor, Washington, according to
reports. One fi sh packing plant in the Astoria
area estimated up to 50,000 crab pots.
Another person said the pots extend seaward
farther than he has ever seen them before.
ferry Arrow from the hands of the beachcombers.
LOS ANGELES — Gardner Cowles, head
of a newspaper, magazine and broadcasting
empire, today expressed optimism over the
immediate future of newspapers and magazines
but said radio’s future is not too bright, and it
may take 10 years or more to put television on a
paying basis.
Astoria City Manager Dale Curry said despite
the fact that Astoria has an immoral practices
ordinance , the c ity apparently has no authority
to prohibit businesses which deal in sex fi lms or
books.
Another protest over the proposed American Metal
Climax aluminum reduction plant in Warrenton was
received Wednesday by the Clatsop County Board of
Commissioners.
Asking the c ommission not to permit construction of
the smelter at the Warrenton industrial site was the Wil-
lapa Harbor Oyster Growers’ Association.
Commissioners received the protest written by Richard
K. Murakami, president of the association, who said his
group’s greatest concern was to its million dollar industry.
“Because of the prevailing weather conditions,
air-emitted pollutants will reach the Long Beach Penin-
sula. If not emitted by air, these pollutants, including the
fl uorides, will be emitted by water and thereby endanger
the valuable commercial and soft salmon industries as
A runner jogs along the
Astoria Riverwalk as the
sun sets over Youngs
Bay in 2012.
Over 270 people turned out to donate blood at the American Red Cross blood drive at Clatsop Community College in
1972.
CANNON BEACH — Anybody want a lifeboat — a
26-foot one at that? There’s one up for auction. Minimum
bid asked? $500.
The lifeboat is a 56-man craft that washed ashore at
Tolovana Park in the early morning of Jan. 9 after being
lost by The World President, a steamship owned by the
General Seamanship Co. of Portland.
SEASIDE — Construction of an airstrip with adjoin-
ing resort facilities has been started on a 57-acre tract bor-
dering Sunset Lake, 3 miles north of Gearhart, by Clifton
A. Seales, of Portland.
Seales, a former U.S. A rmy sergeant, plans a 300 by
1,800-foot runway with an asphalted surface, lighting for
night fl ying, two hangers and maintenance facilities for
small aircraft. A fl oatplane ramp may be constructed on
Sunset Lake.
75 years ago — 1947
Beachcombers on the Long Beach P eninsula, from
North Head to the foot of Cranberry R oad, are having
troubles in collecting the harvest of the sea.
At the foot of Cranberry Road are stationed grim-faced
U.S. A rmy guards protecting the remains of the A rmy
A crew prepares to power down a new U.S. Coast Guard
MH-60T Jayhawk helicopter after landing at the Astoria airport in 2012.
A specially-equipped airplane will take off
from the Astoria airport Monday — or on the
fi rst day of good fl ying weather thereafter — to
broadcast tree seed over a 600-acre forest tract
west of Saddle M ountain, in the fi rst aerial
operation of its kind ever attempted in Clatsop
County.
A boat found at
Tolovana Park in 1972.