A6
THE ASTORIAN • SATURDAY, AUGUST 6, 2022
Groups seek pause in long-running
Columbia River salmon dispute
By TODD MILBOURN
Oregon Public Broadcasting
Hearing: ‘Very impressed
with the collaborations
on climate solutions
happening in Oregon’
Continued from Page A1
A legal dispute over
the impact of hydroelec-
tric dams on salmon runs in
the Columbia River b asin
has been winding its way
through federal court for
more than 25 years.
It’s been on hold for the
past year while stakehold-
ers develop a long-term plan
that protects fi sh while safe-
guarding the region’s power
system.
On Thursday, a coali-
tion of tribes, environmental
groups and the U.S. govern-
ment asked a federal judge
for another year to craft that
vision.
Supporters say “business
as usual is not an option” as
they seek to restore historic
runs of salmon and other
fi sh. They say the construc-
tion of more than a dozen
dams has made it hard —
and often impossible — for
salmon to swim from North-
west rivers to the ocean and
back.
“Salmon are running
out of time and barreling
toward extinction,” Erin
Farris-Olsen, regional exec-
utive director of the National
Wildlife Foundation, said
in a statement. “Time is of
Ted S. Warren/AP Photo
The Biden administration has released two reports arguing that removing dams on the lower
Snake River may be needed to restore salmon runs to historic levels in the Pacifi c Northwest.
the essence.”
The request follows the
release of a federal report that
found removing some dams
on the lower Snake River
— a tributary of the Colum-
bia — might be required to
restore salmon runs to his-
toric levels. According to
the federal government, any-
where from 7.5 to 16 mil-
lion adult salmon and steel-
head once swam the region’s
waterways, providing food
for over 130 wildlife spe-
cies, such as orca, bears
and wolves.
Republican lawmakers,
including U.S. Rep. Jaime
Herrera Beutler, of Washing-
ton state, and U.S. Rep. Cliff
Bentz, of Oregon, wrote a
letter to federal offi cials in
support of keeping dams on
the lower Snake.
“The infrastructure on
the Columbia River s ystem
provides invaluable ben-
efi ts to the Pacifi c North-
west, including carbon-free
energy, fl ood control miti-
gation, irrigation, navigation
and recreation benefi ts,” the
lawmakers wrote in a state-
ment. “Balancing these vital
interests with species con-
servation is not an easy task.
It is made signifi cantly more
diffi cult when science and
collaboration is replaced
by
politically-motivated
intervention.”
Federal offi cials say it
would be possible to replace
the energy lost by remov-
ing hydroelectric dams and
it would cost $11 billion to
$19 billion.
Port: ‘We’ve got to be careful with our resources’
Continued from Page A1
The Port of Ilwaco left
the task force in 2015. In
2016, some Port of Asto-
ria commissioners urged the
Port to end membership.
The task force assists in
the development, manage-
ment and implementation of
habitat restoration projects
in the region.
Denise Lӧfman, the exec-
utive director of the task
force, encouraged c ommis-
sioners at Tuesday’s meet-
ing to maintain the Port’s
membership.
Lӧfman
pointed
to
the
longtime
relation-
ship, as well as the contin-
ued involvement of Clatsop
County and a number of cit-
ies, as selling points.
“I know that CREST has
not provided any support or
real assistance to the Port in
the last few years — as the
Port has staff ed up, you hav-
en’t really needed our help,”
she said. “ … The county
(and) all of the cities remain
members of CREST and we
would really, really like to
continue to have the Port
be a partner and be able to
assist where we can.”
Joshua Bessex/The Astorian
The Port is doing a study on a tide gate at Vera Slough near
the Astoria Regional Airport in Warrenton.
Lӧfman also mentioned
previous work the task force
did with sediment manage-
ment at the West Mooring
Basin.
Dirk Rohne, the commis-
sion’s president, noted that
the organization has done
important and benefi cial
work, but was skeptical if
their work was still of value
to the Port.
“We’ve got to be careful
with our resources,” he said.
Lӧfman noted that in the
mid-2000s, the task force
had a staff member working
“more than part time for the
Port.”
Will Isom, the Port’s
executive director , said the
Port has an environmental
specialist who fi lls the day-
to-day tasks that may have
been previously done by
outside contractors. Isom
did not give an opinion
about the agency’s member-
ship in the task force.
Commissioner
James
Campbell was the most
vocal critic.
“Can you point out to me,
in the last 10 years, what
they’ve done for us, for the
Port? It’s another layer of
government I don’t think we
need,” he said.
In recommending the
Port end membership,
Campbell cited the after-
math of a tide gate project at
the Astoria Regional Airport
in Warrenton.
Nearly two decades ago,
the task force worked with
the Port to make improve-
ments to the Vera Slough
tide gate, which included
raising the water levels to
add acres of wetlands. How-
ever, Port staff have indi-
cated that the water table is
too high, causing fl ooding
and erosion to some of the
airport’s infrastructure.
“I really got a bitter taste
in my mouth about that,”
Campbell said.
A grant obtained from
Business Oregon will allow
the Port to perform a study
on the tide gate.
Commissioner
Robert
Stevens and Commissioner
Scott McClaine agreed
with Campbell and Rohne’s
concerns.
“I don’t see anything
coming our way at all,”
Campbell said.
“If it does, we can go
back in,” Stevens replied.
quasi-extinction
thresh-
olds, she said. That will
likely increase to 77% by
2025.
DeCoteau asked the
committee to consider
developing federal fl ood
policies and guidelines to
ensure properly function-
ing fl ood plains and to pro-
tect and restore cold water
refuge areas to shelter fi sh
populations from warming
water.
“Tribes are dispropor-
tionately impacted by cli-
mate change due to our
high dependence on the
First Foods and relative
vulnerability of our infra-
structure. Yet tribes have
been inequitably funded in
natural resource and wild-
life conservation,” she
said. “Stable, long-term
funding streams are the
greatest tool available to
allow tribes to engage in
direct climate impact deci-
sion-making and allow
us to bring our traditional
ecological
knowledge
and contemporary science
capacities to the manage-
ment and policy tables
for the shared benefi t of
everyone.”
Tyler Bell, the d irec-
tor of the Rocky Mountain
region for Westervelt Eco-
logical Services, stressed
the importance of con-
servation within private
industries. The company
owns over 600,000 acres
of working forests around
the world and over 30,000
acres of conserved lands.
Bell asked Congress
to support the private res-
toration industry through
public restoration funding
and to develop streamlined
regulations and guidance.
She also asked that grant
language for restoration
and conservation projects
include the private sector.
Francis Chan, who
researches ocean chem-
istry and ecology at Ore-
gon State University, said
the Oregon C oast is in a
unique position to address
climate change.
“We’re ground zero,
which is a bad place to
be. But I think we’re also
ground zero for investiga-
tion,” he said.
Chan added that he
wants to expand the uni-
versity’s
collaboration
with local fi shermen, who
can deploy sensors and
provide observations.
In addition to oceanic
heat waves, he said cli-
mate change has increased
zones of water with low
oxygen levels. “Dunge-
ness crabs, the most valu-
able fi shery on the W est
C oast, can suff ocate in the
pots of fi shermen before
they’re brought to market,”
he said.
Chan asked for contin-
ual investment in ocean
research, innovation and
workforce development.
Elaine Placido, the
e xecutive d irector of the
Lower Columbia Estu-
ary Partnership, said the
program plans to expand
research, mapping and
monitoring eff orts using
funding from the federal
i nfrastructure law. Their
projects include fl ood plain
restoration near Clatskanie
and monitoring the mouth
of the Columbia.
Placido said adapt-
ing to climate change will
require new infrastructure,
integrating resilient native
plant species on shorelines
and identifying pockets of
cold water that could serve
as refuge for fi sh.
Bonamici highlighted
her Coastal and Ocean
Acidifi cation
Research
and Innovation Act, which
Congress passed as part of
the $280 billion CHIPS and
Science Act in late July. It
aims to increase invest-
ments in coastal research
and monitoring and study
the socio economic impacts
of climate change.
“We need to do more,”
the congresswoman said.
“Important actions we
could and should take
include investing in ocean-
based climate solutions
like blue carbon, building
a stronger blue economy
and bolstering the health
of our ecosystems to pro-
tect our coastal communi-
ties and marine industries.”
After the hearing,
Bonamici said there’s more
to do, and more to learn.
“I hope we can take
some good lessons back,
that addressing these ocean
health issues and address-
ing issues of healthy estu-
aries and healthy coast-
lines, it’s good for the
community, it’s good for
the economy and it’s good
for the planet,” she said.
Castor said she was
“very impressed with the
collaborations on climate
solutions happening in
Oregon. And you’ve got to
get out of Washington. You
really do. It’s impossible
to have your fi nger on the
pulse of what’s happening
across the country unless
you get out.”
Ballot title: ‘There’s a lot of facets to this industry, but we’re well entrenched in the area’
Continued from Page A1
Cities on the North Coast
have taken steps to restrict
vacation rentals. At the county
level, the debate has mostly
been dominated by the con-
cerns of people in wealthy
enclaves where part-time res-
idents and second homes are
common.
Impartiality
The referendum’s chief
petitioner, Charles Dice, of
Cove Beach, is challeng-
ing the way District Attorney
Ron Brown prepared the bal-
lot title.
Dice’s Portland land use
attorney, Daniel Kearns,
argues that the ballot title,
as worded, is not impartial,
fails to describe the purpose
of the measure and contains
emotionally loaded language
designed to persuade voters
to reject the measure, accord-
ing to the petition for judicial
review in Circuit Court.
Kearns asks the court to
invalidate the proposed bal-
lot title and certify an alterna-
tive one that he believes more
clearly spells out the primary
eff ect of the measure, which
would be to “reinstate the
prior land use regulations,” he
wrote.
The county’s development
code has specifi cally allowed
vacation rentals in Arch Cape
Lydia Ely/The Astorian
A house displays a sign advertising vacation rentals in Arch Cape.
since 2003. In a letter to the
county counsel last year,
Kearns wrote that a “funda-
mental (tenet) of land use
law that is important here is
the notion that uses expressly
listed as allowed in one zone
but not in another implies that
... those uses are prohibited in
all zones where they are not
specifi cally listed.”
Dice lives in an area
zoned Coastal Residential.
He and Cove Beach resi-
dents aligned with him have
retained Kearns, who wrote to
the community development
director in 2020: “Because
STRs are not listed as being
allowed in the (Coastal Res-
idential zone), they are pre-
sumptively not allowed.”
Kearns argues that short-
term rentals, never an explic-
itly mentioned use in the
county code except in Arch
Cape, were permitted in viola-
tion of that code.
Owners of vacation rent-
als have pointed out that peo-
ple have rented their beach
homes for decades. Adding
them to the 16 zones, they
argue, aligns the code with a
long-established practice and
precedent.
After county commission-
ers passed the ordinance, they
directed county staff to cre-
ate a plan to impose a limita-
tion on the number of vaca-
tion rentals allowed in specifi c
zones — a fact mentioned
in the ballot summary — in
response to worries that vaca-
tion rentals would continue to
multiply unchecked. In Cove
Beach, rentals make up about
30% of housing stock.
In the petition, Kearns
writes that the county’s men-
tioning these pending caps
is “irrelevant, manipulative,
emotionally charged, and
merely an attempt to calm
the concerns county voters
have about the proliferation
of unlawful STRs,” as well as
“an attempt to sway voters to
defeat the measure.”
In addition, Kearns takes
issue with the county’s claim
in the ballot summary that
the ordinance would lead to
“revoking the authorization of
all unincorporated STRs out-
side of Arch Cape” and the
loss of about $700,000 in lodg-
ing taxes — a fi gure based on
fi scal year 2021-22 data — as
vacation rental owners can’t
renew their permits.
“None of this is true; all of
it is emotionally charged lan-
guage by referring to specula-
tive tax and revenue implica-
tions that could theoretically
happen if the county takes (or
fails to take) future actions
unrelated to the measure,”
Kearns wrote, adding that the
claim is intended to “mislead
voters and prejudice them
against the measure with inac-
curate statements about tax
revenue.”
‘Social disruption’
A separate challenge to the
ballot title criticizes it from the
opposite direction.
Marie
Gwydir-Moore,
who works in the vacation
rental industry and owns a
rental in the unincorporated
Surf Pines neighborhood,
wrote in a petition that the
projected $700,000 loss, far
from irrelevant, understates
the “substantial economic and
social disruption that will be
caused to the entirety of Clat-
sop County” if voters approve
the measure.
Gwydir-Moore, who lives
on the North Coast part time,
elaborated in an interview:
“This is more than $700,000
that’s just going to the county.
Short-term rentals bring in
millions of dollars that trickle
(down) to the business own-
ers, the retail shops, the con-
tractors, the housekeepers.
These are real people that
are living in the community,
and if they’re struggling now,
what the hell’s going to hap-
pen to them when they lose
their jobs?”
The impact on the peo-
ple whose jobs depend on the
continuation of vacation rent-
als in unincorporated areas has
largely been lost in the conver-
sation, she said.
“There’s a lot of facets to
this industry, but we’re well
entrenched in the area,” she
said, “and if so many people
are involved in hospitality,
and you just wipe out all these
vacation rentals, what happens
to the economy?”
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