A2
THE ASTORIAN • SATURDAY, MARCH 19, 2022
IN BRIEF
County records virus deaths
A 71-year-old woman, who was unvaccinated
against the coronavirus, died on March 6 at Colum-
bia Memorial Hospital in Astoria, Clatsop County
said.
No other information was immediately available.
A 57-year-old man from the county died last fall
from the virus, the county reported.
The man, who had underlying conditions, died
on Nov. 21 at Legacy Emanuel Medical Center in
Portland, according to the Oregon H ealth A uthority.
He was not vaccinated against COVID-19, the
county said.
The h ealth a uthority, meanwhile, reported sev-
eral coronavirus cases for the county over the past
several days.
The health authority reported fi ve new virus
cases on Thursday, six new cases on Wednesday,
four new cases on Tuesday and fi ve new cases last
weekend.
Since the pandemic began, the county had
recorded 4,564 virus cases as of Thursday.
GETTING
READY
Three-vehicle crash
temporarily closed Highway 26
A Seaside man was fl own to a Portland hospital
on Wednesday with serious injuries after a three-ve-
hicle crash on U.S. Highway 26 near Quartz Creek.
The 66-year-old man, heading west in a Nis-
san Maxima, veered into the eastbound lane and
crashed into an oncoming Kenworth log truck, Ore-
gon State Police said. The Nissan then collided with
a Ford F-250 pickup truck.
Neither truck driver was injured.
The crash, which occurred at about 6:45 a.m.,
closed the highway for about three hours, police
said.
— The Astorian
Ilwaco community center,
forest win federal funding
LONG BEACH, Wash. — The proposed Dylan
Jude Harrell Community Center at the Port of Ilwaco
will receive $1.2 million in federal assistance.
Claire Bruncke, the executive director of the
community center, said the newly secured funds
“defi nitely helps us to move forward with our
timeline.”
The design calls for a 36,000-square foot cam-
pus-style facility constructed in three phases.
Another $1.6 million in federal money will go to
the Bear Ridge Community Forest, an Ilwaco proj-
ect that aims to protect the city’s drinking water and
preserve hundreds of acres of land.
The money is part of an omnibus federal spend-
ing package.
— Chinook Observer
DEATH
In Brief
Death
March 18, 2022
SARKIE, Delbert Joel, 88, of Astoria, died in Asto-
ria. Caldwell’s Luce-Layton Mortuary of Astoria is in
charge of the arrangements.
ON THE RECORD
Attempted murder
alleged to have occurred
On
the Record
• Thomas
Squier in November.
Whiteford, 60, of Oregon
City, was indicted this
week for attempted mur-
der, two counts of sec-
ond-degree assault, two
counts of strangulation,
fourth-degree assault and
menacing. The crimes —
all listed as instances of
domestic violence — are
alleged to have occurred
earlier this month.
Assault
• William Allen Han-
ning, 37, of Deer Lodge,
Montana, was arrested
on Sunday at Colum-
bia Memorial Hospital in
Astoria for fourth-degree
assault and second-de-
gree disorderly conduct.
He allegedly assaulted a
nurse at the hospital.
Burglary
• Calvin Toi North, 28,
of Salem, was indicted on
Wednesday for fi rst-de-
gree burglary and fi rst-de-
gree theft. The crimes are
Theft
• Danielle Laurel Carl-
son, 32, of Astoria, was
indicted last week for
fi rst-degree theft, second-de-
gree theft, three counts of
second-degree forgery and
computer crime. The crimes
are alleged to have occurred
between September and
November 2020.
• Samuel Joe John-
son, 32, of Astoria, was
arrested on Tuesday at
Walmart in Warrenton for
second-degree theft and
possession of heroin.
DUII
• David James Curry,
41, of Vancouver, Wash-
ington, was arrested on
Wednesday at W. Marine
Drive and Portway Street
in Astoria for driving
under the infl uence of
intoxicants and reck-
less driving. He was also
cited for refusing to take
a Breathalyzer test.
PUBLIC MEETINGS
MONDAY
Astoria City Council, 7 p.m., City Hall, 1095 Duane St.
PUBLIC MEETINGS
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Luke Whittaker/Chinook Observer
Sea Breeze Charters owner Steve Sohlstrom walks past the bow of the F/V Sea Breeze this month. Fishermen are getting ready
for the recreational ocean fi shing season.
Bradford Island listed
as a Superfund site
A dumping spot for
the Army Corps
By MONICA SAMAYOA
Oregon Public Broadcasting
The U.S. Environmen-
tal Protection Agency des-
ignated the Columbia Riv-
er’s Bradford Island and
its surrounding waters as a
Superfund cleanup site on
Thursday.
Environmental, conserva-
tion and health groups, along
with tribes, lawmakers and
state agencies, are calling
the listing a huge win, after
spending almost three years
asking the federal govern-
ment to list the contaminated
site for top-priority cleanup.
The Superfund listing,
announced by EPA Admin-
istrator Michael Regan, will
now require federal reg-
ulators to apply the high-
est cleanup standards to the
area. Having Superfund sta-
tus will mean more federal
funding and strict timelines
for the U.S. Army Corps of
Engineers to clean up the pol-
lution it dumped at the site.
The Superfund process also
includes opportunities for
the public to comment on
cleanup plans.
At a press conference on
the listing announcement,
Gov. Kate Brown said she
hopes the Superfund listing
will mark a turning point in
the history of the area and the
people who depend on it.
“Oregon, along with the
Yakama Nation and the state
of Washington, have worked
for over 20 years to see some
forward progress in address-
ing this injustice,” Brown
said.
Bradford Island, located
near Cascade Locks, was
used by the Army Corps in
the 1930s as a dumping site
while the agency was con-
structing Bonneville Dam.
That marked the beginning
of four decades of dumping
debris and electrical equip-
ment that contained highly
toxic chemicals like polychlo-
rinated biphenyls, known as
PCBs, directly into the river
and contaminating the island
and surrounding waters.
Once PCBs are pres-
ent in the environment, they
do not break down easily
and can build up in the tis-
sues of fi sh. PCBs have
been known to have harm-
ful eff ects on human health,
and fi sh consumption is one
of the most common ways
the toxic chemical enters the
human body. Both Oregon
and Washington state health
agencies have issued health
advisories warning people to
Oregon Department of Enviromental Quality
An aerial view of Bradford Island located near Cascade Locks on the Columbia River.
‘THE FISH CAUGHT IN THIS
AREA STILL CONTAIN THE
HIGHEST LEVELS OF CANCER
CAUSING PCBS IN THE PACIFIC
NORTHWEST. SO THIS IS AN
OVERDUE UNDERTAKING.’
U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley
avoid eating resident fi sh at
Bradford Island because of
high PCB levels.
The area is important to
the Yakama Nation and many
other tribes in the region for
traditional hunting and fi sh-
ing grounds. The tribes have
expressed concern about the
high levels of contamination
in the area.
“The Yakama Nation and
our partners worked hard
to get the site added to the
Superfund list because, even
after two decades of work at
the site, contamination in res-
ident fi sh remains alarmingly
high,” Yakama Nation Fish-
eries Regional Superfund
Project Manager Rose Lon-
goria said in a press release.
“The decision to add Brad-
ford Island to the Superfund
list is a major fi rst step in get-
ting EPA and the Corps to
expedite cleanup actions.”
The Army Corps began
cleaning up the area during
the 1980s, but progress was
slow. Those eff orts ultimately
came to an end in 2007 after
the agency removed contam-
inated sediment along Brad-
ford Island’s shoreline. Then
in 2011, the Oregon Depart-
ment of Environmental Qual-
ity took tissue samples from
resident fi sh and found con-
tamination levels were still
too high for the health of res-
ident fi sh and people who eat
them.
During that time, both the
Army Corps and the Depart-
ment of Environmental Qual-
ity were working together
under a v oluntary c leanup
p rogram agreement in which
the Army Corps paid the
department’s oversight cost
for their participation. But
that agreement was termi-
nated by the Army Corps in
September 2019, which led
the department to join envi-
ronmental groups and state
leaders in pursuing Super-
fund listing.
Now, the Army Corps
will still be responsible for
the cleanup process, but with
Superfund status, the EPA
will oversee the cleanup and
require a legally enforceable
agreement .
U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley, an
Oregon Democrat, said the
environmental damage has
gone on for too long and has
aff ected tribal fi shing waters,
fi sh ecosystems and human
health.
“The fi sh caught in this
area still contain the high-
est levels of cancer causing
PCBs in the Pacifi c North-
west,” he said. “So this is an
overdue undertaking.”
Advocates fi rst urged the
EPA to list Bradford Island
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as a Superfund site in 2019,
when samples taken from
sediment and tissue from res-
ident fi sh showed high lev-
els of contamination. But in
2020, the Trump a dministra-
tion did not consider listing
the area. Last summer, the
same groups urged the Biden
administration to uphold its
commitment to environmen-
tal justice and list the site for
federal cleanup.
The EPA will now assess
the full extent of contamina-
tion in the area and look at
alternative strategies for the
longer-term clean up goals.
The agency will also work
with the Army Corps to create
a formal agreement for how
cleanup will move forward.
The Corps did not immedi-
ately respond to a request for
comment.
Yakama Nation Tribal
Councilman Gerald Lewis
said although the tribal mem-
bers appreciate the EPA list-
ing Bradford Island, their
hope is more than getting
EPA’s involvement.
“For the Yakama Nation
our goal is simple: clean,
healthy fi sh that is safe to
eat,” he said.
Other tribes that include
Bradford Island in their tra-
ditional hunting and fi shing
grounds are Confederated
Tribes of Warm Springs, Nez
Perce Tribe, Confederated
Tribes of Siletz Indians of
Oregon, Confederated Tribes
of the Umatilla Indian Reser-
vation, Confederated Tribes
of the Grand Ronde and the
Cowlitz Indian Tribe.
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