B1
THE ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, MAY 24, 2022
THE ASTORIAN
• TUESDAY, MAY 24, 2022
•
B1
WATER UNDER
THE BRIDGE
COMPILED BY BOB DUKE
From the pages of Astoria’s daily newspapers
10 years ago
this week — 2012
T
he U.S. Coast Guard reported that in 2011, 758
people in the United States died in boating-re-
lated incidents, the highest number since 1998.
With National Safe Boating Week starting today and
with boating season heating up with the weather, Coast
Guard Sector Columbia River wants to see people safe
on the water.
“Everybody’s turning their focus on boating safety
to try and minimize fatalities and tragedies,” said Capt.
Len Tumbarello.
The issues the Coast Guard focuses on are operator
inattention, improper lookouts, inexperience, excessive
speed and machinery failure. Alcohol use was the most
prevalent contributor to deadly boating accidents.
“You should be wearing your life jacket at all times,”
said Tumbarello, about a simple yet often neglected
safety rule. “You never know when it’s going to
happen.”
In recent weeks, you might have noticed a
small yellow object ripping across the horizon.
It’s not your imagination, and it’s not a color-
ful missile.
The Columbia River Bar Pilots have
acquired an Italian AgustaWestland Grand-
New helicopter, only the fourth of its kind in
the United States.
The high-powered, $7 million aircraft is
being broken in by Brim Aviation, the Ash-
land-based company signed to whisk bar pilots
to and from the Columbia River B ar, where
they board or disembark from incoming and
outgoing vessels.
SEASIDE — Despite the thundering noise from
excited kids shouting to their friends to look at the next
exhibit, the octopus swims quietly in his tank.
The wolf eel lies on his side, like he usually does.
The seals continue to loll about in their pool, waiting
to splash the next curious visitors to tempt them with
food.
It’s a scene that has gone on at the Seaside Aquar-
ium for 75 years.
The Seaside Aquarium is one of just a handful of pri-
vately-owned aquariums in the United States and the
oldest privately-owned aquarium on the West Coast. It
has stayed in the same family since the beginning.
The Columbia River Bar Pilots’ Italian-made AgustaWestland GrandNew helicopter is seen in 2012.
75 years ago — 1947
A World War II warship with a record of never
having lost a man as the result of enemy action, the
USS Astoria, light cruiser, celebrated its third com-
missioning anniversary with a special program at
10:45 a.m. Saturday morning.
The public attended the ceremonies aboard the
Astoria.
Visitors watch the antics of the seals inside the Seaside
Aquarium in 2012.
The Brownsmead pea, the most widely publicized
vegetable, is in need of a drink.
Farmers in the Brownsmead area report that their
peas are suffering from the long dry period and must
have rain soon to live up to what is expected of the
Brownsmead pea.
Much of the crop is sold directly to the fresh veg-
etable market in Portland.
Clatsop Community College’s Fire Response
and R esearch Center served as the location for
intensive hands-on fi re service training for
nearly 100 cadets and their instructors May 17
and May 18. Training exercises included live
fi re incidents, truck operations, wildland fi re
scenarios and hose evolutions.
The fi re cadet program is an opportunity
for junior and senior high school students to
learn fi rst-hand what a career in the fi re ser-
vice is really like.
Firefighting crews and equipment are in
readiness in timberland south and east of
Seaside as a weekend of critical fire weather
looms.
Work was ordered to stop at nearly every
logging operation between Seaside and
Wheeler before 2 p.m. Friday as a desiccat-
ing east wind drove temperatures up and
humidity down.
50 years ago — 1972
NAHCOTTA, Wash. — A sizable crowd gathered at
the north end of the Long Beach Peninsula in blustery
weather on Saturday to witness the World Oyster Open-
ing Contest.
Adam Woolsey, of Ocean Park, captured the men’s
title by shucking 185 oysters in 20 minutes while Toby
Johnson, of Bay Center, easily eliminated her women’s
competition by opening 160 oysters in the same amount
of time.
The average shucker opens 100 oysters every 20
minutes.
The director of the s tate Department
of Environmental Quality said Sunday he
doubted that American Metal Climax would
build an aluminum-reduction plant in Oregon.
“I don’t think they’re ever going to build a
plant in Oregon,” said L.B. Day, on the Port-
land television program “Let’s Face It.”
Asked to comment on Day’s remarks, Ted
Briggs of AMAX said today from Ferndale,
Washington, “I can’t imagine AMAX not
building a plant or not wanting to build a plant,
with their investment in it. Of course, the tim-
ing, the exact timing, is an open question. I just
can’t see why they’d walk away from that type
of investment – it’s pretty sizable.”
Approximately 200 persons, many of them youth-
ful, some of them wearing U.S. Army khakis, marched
peaceably through downtown Astoria on Friday car-
rying placards to protest escalated m ilitary action in
Vietnam.
To maintain a prosperous horse breeding
industry in Oregon, the state needs more rac-
ing days which means another major racetrack
The Newberry store here held formal
opening today in its enlarged, completely
remodeled and repainted store building.
The store has been expanded by addition
of a 50 by 110 feet extension carrying the
building clear through the block from Com-
mercial to Duane Street, with fronts on both
streets.
SEASIDE — A temperature of 93 degrees was
recorded at the official weather observation station
at C ity H all at 1:30 p.m. on Friday.
No higher temperature has been recorded here
since Aug. 21, 1944, when the mercury touched 95
degrees.
The main lifeboat of the log ship Olympia Faith hangs from
one arm of its carrier in 1972. The lifeboat’s occupants got
a little wet when an arm of the hoist broke sending all into
the water. No injuries were reported.
Sea Scouts returned from a regional regatta in Bremerton
in 1972.
in a fair weather area, the Astoria Area Cham-
ber of Commerce was told Friday.
Under those conditions, “Racing is a possi-
bility in Clatsop County,” explained John Cha-
talas, co-owner of The Seaside Farm, the major
backer of a study to determine the feasibility of
locating a racetrack in Seaside.
Protesters against the Vietnam War walk through downtown Astoria in 1972.
SEASIDE — An ordinance permitting the
operation of amphibious vehicles on Seaside
beaches was repealed at a special meeting of
the C ity C ouncil on Wednesday.
Clinton G. White and Richard Lurie,
World War II veterans who have operated
amphibious DUKWs here during the past
six weeks, appeared to testify before the
council.
Both stated that the DUKW are safe pas-
senger vehicles and that a freak circum-
stance caused the engine failure of White’s
craft while carrying passengers through the
surf on May 17.
Delayed by head winds, the motor vessel Dansco
of Los Angeles arrived here today after the U.S.
Coast Guard cutter Onondaga went out to look for
her Thursday. She is berthed at the face of pier No. 2.
The captain of the 104-foot wooden-hulled craft
said that he was not aware that a search was being
made for the Dansco.
She was reported to have a leak, but it was not
serious. Minor repairs to the converted U.S. N avy
coastal transport will be made at the Astoria Marine
Construction Co. , according to a tentative plan.
From here, following minor repairs, the Dansco
will proceed to Alaska for shooting of the film titled
“Harpoon.”