B1
THE ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, MARCH 22, 2022
THE ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, MARCH 22, 2022 • B1
WATER UNDER
THE BRIDGE
COMPILED BY BOB DUKE
From the pages of Astoria’s daily newspapers
10 years ago
this week – 2012
D
uring a swing through Astoria on Saturday,
U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, an Oregon Demo-
crat, addressed concerns at his annual Clatsop
County town hall about exporting liquefi ed natural gas
from Oregon port facilities, saying he believed the pro-
posals could undermine the country’s energy indepen-
dence and drive up costs.
At an afternoon town hall discussion, the state’s
senior senator said he opposed proposals to export LNG
from West Coast terminals, believing such plans would
only increase domestic fuel prices.
With gas prices on the rise, Oregon drivers are feeling
pressure at the pump, and it’s taking a toll on transporta-
tion-dependent industries such as trucking and logging.
Driven by confl icts in the Middle East, oil speculators
and a weak U.S. d ollar, the average cost for a gallon of
unleaded gas in Oregon reached $4 Tuesday, a fi rst for
the state since prices reached their record high in 2008.
It should come as no surprise to North Coast resi-
dents, who have been feeling the burden of $4-a-gallon
gas for a while. Prices in Astoria are as high as $4.08 a
gallon.
If lacrosse was good enough for one of
the NFL’s all-time greatest players, it’s good
enough for Taran Johnson.
And now the Seaside High School senior feels
it’s worth teaching to people on the North Coast.
Just over a month after hosting a rugby
match between Oregon State University and
Willamette University, Broadway Field will
be transformed into a lacrosse fi eld, for a one-
day camp and exhibition match featuring the
nationally ranked men’s team from Western
Oregon University.
“I’m hoping to build up enough interest in
the community to where there’s enough peo-
ple who want to play and start a small lacrosse
organization,” Johnson said. “Like an inner-
city type thing, or even where it’s sponsored by
the school as varsity sport .”
James Davis, a veteran boat and tug operator of more
than 40 years, steadies the Arrow No. 2 as it bobs up and
down in the waves created by the bulk freighter Selin-M,
making its way on the Columbia River before picking up
a load of scrap in San Francisco destined for Asia.
Robert Johnson, a bar pilot, straddles the front-right
of the boat, keeping his balance until he ascends a wood
and rope ladder up the side of the freighter.
The Arrow No. 2, which Davis guesses has made
about 3,000 such river transfers a year for the last half
century, will soon be replaced by the Connor Foss, a
new pilot launch vessel under construction at the Rain-
ier boatyard of Foss Maritime. The company has helped
transfer pilots to boats on the Columbia for decades.
“I think it’s time,” says Mike Walker, Foss’s r egional
o perations m anager , walking around the elevated steel
hull and describing what will become the 110,000-
pound Connor Foss, Arrow No. 2’s replacement some
time in May or June. “The ships are getting bigger.”
Curt Dawson, a boat operator with Foss Maritime aboard the Arrow No. 2, spots river pilot Brett Deaton as he descends
the ladder from the freighter Selin-M in 2012.
department is availing itself of all training available, and
wants to keep in the know.
“The day of Long Beach being a small town with only
problems in the summertime has disappeared,” he said.
Smith and his men all work a 10-hour shift and double
cover on each other’s day off . The department is main-
taining two unmarked cars. The light bars and the bubble
lights have been removed so as to facilitate movement of
the car without alerting persons at the scene of a break-in
that a police car is approaching, Smith said.
75 years ago — 1947
Lacrosse player Taran Johnson in 2012.
Nearly one-fourth of the pupils at Sea-
side Central S chool were absent Monday
and uncounted numbers of adults had taken
to their beds as a wave of a “three-day fl u”
threatened to reach epidemic proportions.
Doctors rushed to meet their growing
schedules of calls and druggists worked to
fi ll prescriptions for sulfa drugs and other
remedies.
Reports from Gearhart and Cannon Beach
indicated that the malady has become general
in the beach communities.
50 years ago – 1972
A fi rst edition of the Lewis and Clark j ournals was
dedicated on Sunday in the Astoria Library , near where
the pioneer explorers ended their famous 1804 to 1806
trek to the Pacifi c Ocean.
“It is most fi tting that this city at the western end of
the Lewis and Clark Trail should be the proud posses-
sor of this rare edition,” said Dr. E.G. Chuinard, chair-
man of the Oregon Lewis & Clark Heritage Foundation
Committee.
On hand for the occasion were a roomful of citizens,
representatives of historical groups and visitors, includ-
ing members of the family of the person who edited the
journals.
Students in the sixth grade class at Central
School in Astoria are not preparing to hire out
as carpenters, they are pioneers and are build-
ing a smokehouse by using local materials,
cedar shakes and vine maple.
“American citizens have a right to know
where some of their tax money is spent,” said
Jean Roberts, a sixth grade teacher at the
school . Roberts fi nanced this project with funds
from a T itle III Elementary and Secondary
Education Act g rant.
“This is not a carpentry lesson, but a lesson
in social studies to promote the concept that
one’s environment dictates the food and mate-
rial that are available for use,” Roberts said.
It also is an attempt to help American young-
sters realize that the majority of the people in
the world spend most of their time providing
The drag fi shing boat Westward anchored for the
night Saturday in calm, clear weather west of the Colum-
bia L ightship.
During the night, owner Nick Zorich felt a slight
bump against the side of his vessel, awoke and went
on deck to discover a big ship right alongside, tower-
ing above him.
Zorich began calling out to fi nd out what was going
on. He soon discovered that it was a decommissioned
ship, in tow of the tug Hercules, bound for San Francisco.
The dipping tow line had caught his anchor cable,
pulling the Westward gently against the side of the tow.
Had Zorich not awakened, chances are that by morn-
ing he would have been well on his way to San Fran-
cisco in tow.
Zorich had to cut the anchor cable to get the West-
ward free, and the tug and tow continued on south, tak-
ing his anchor with them.
Greg Sharp, center, president of the Gray School third
grade American Eagles, and Brock Lower, secretary, give
a $5 check to Michael Nabb, curator of the Columbia
River Maritime Museum, for the proposed museum and
waterfront park in 1972.
food and shelter with nothing to use but hand
tools.
LONG BEACH, Wash. — “Cops are human beings.”
This was the word Long Beach Chamber of Com-
merce members heard from their luncheon speaker,
Police Chief Al Smith.
Smith said his department was three men trying their
best to serve the community with 24-hour coverage. His
The Connor Foss, a new bar pilot launch vessel under construction at the Foss Maritime
boatyard in Rainier, seen in 2012.
The Lions C lub, after hearing from two speakers
on the fi shing industry’s arguments against construc-
tion of McNary D am on the Columbia River, formally
expressed by resolution Tuesday evening its opposi-
tion to construction of the dam.
The club also proposed to its board that all Lions
clubs in Oregon and Washington state be notifi ed of
the Astoria club’s stand and its reasons .
Drag fi shing and salmon trolling landings in
Warrenton and Astoria have declined to prac-
tically nothing, but the crab fi shery is keeping
the Columbia River on the fi shing map.
Astoria crab receipts for the week ending
on March 15, as reported by the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service , totaled 125,363 pounds, and
those of Warrenton, 66,854 pounds.
Seventy ships, mostly of the landing craft support
type , will be brought downriver to Tongue Point naval
station in April to join the Columbia River group of the
19th fl eet in Mott B asin, naval authorities said Friday.
Modernization of the Point Adams Packing Co. in Hammond continued as workers
demolished additional old structures on the fi rm’s property in 1972.