Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 6, 2022)
A2 THE ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 6, 2022 IN BRIEF County ends COVID-19 dashboard The Clatsop County Public Health Department has discontinued its COVID-19 dashboard that pro- vided updates on community outbreaks, coronavi- rus cases and vaccination rates. The department will instead provide links to coronavirus information from the Oregon Health Authority and federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The change refl ects a new stage of the pandemic, along with new guidance from the CDC, the depart- ment said. People can still make appointments to get tested for the virus by calling 503-325-1000. — The Astorian Group seeks endangered species protection for West Coast bull kelp An environmental group is seeking Endangered Species Act protections for underwater forests of bull kelp along the West Coast. The Center for Biological Diversity on Thursday submitted a petition to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to grant endangered status to the long stalks of kelp that are critical to Oregon coastal ecosystems. “Bull kelp face threats from climate change, sea urchin predation and coastal development,” said Mukta Kelkar, a science intern with the Center for Biological Diversity who co-authored the petition. “And so we’re asking that the federal government step in and protect them under the Endangered Spe- cies Act.” Bull kelp create balance in Pacifi c Coast com- munities of sea otters, urchins and sunfl ower sea stars. The towering brown algae also store carbon and support a vast array of marine life like salmon and abalone. Urchins eat kelp, but otters and sea stars histori- cally kept the spiky salad-eaters in check. However, sea otters largely disappeared from the subtidal ecosystem of the U.S. West Coast, as trappers went after their pelts in the 18th and 19th centuries. Warming oceans have also caused rapid spread of sea star wasting disease, which has decimated sunfl ower sea stars, another urchin predator. That’s led to a proliferation of purple sea urchins that are mowing down kelp forests, creating under- water wastelands and putting this vital ecosystem at risk. “Purple sea urchins take over the previous kelp habitat and graze very destructively on what’s left,” Kelkar said. “And after that happens, it’s very diffi - cult for kelp to recover.” — Oregon Public Broadcasting States weigh adopting California’s electric car mandate Seventeen states with vehicle emission standards tied to rules established in California face weighty decisions on whether to follow that state’s strict- est-in-the nation new rules that require all new cars, pickups and SUVs to be electric or hydrogen pow- ered by 2035. Under the Clean Air Act, states must abide by the federal government’s standard vehicle emissions standards unless they at least partially opt to follow California’s stricter requirements. Among them, Washington, Massachusetts, New York, Oregon and Vermont are expected to adopt California’s ban on new gasoline-fueled vehicles. Oregon regulators are taking public comments through Wednesday on whether to adopt the new California standards. — Associated Press PUBLIC MEETINGS TUESDAY Seaside Community Center Commission, 10 a.m., Bob Chisholm Community Center, 1225 Avenue A. Seaside Library Board, 4:30 p.m., 1131 Broadway. Clatsop Care Health District Board, 5 p.m., Clatsop Com- munity College, Patriot Hall, Room 207, 1651 Lexington Ave. Astoria Library Board, 5:30 p.m., Flag Room, 450 10th St. Cannon Beach City Council, 6 p.m., City Hall, 163 E. Gower Ave. Seaside Planning Commission, 6 p.m., City Hall, 989 Broadway. Astoria City Council, 7 p.m., City Hall, 1095 Duane St. WEDNESDAY Cannon Beach City Council, 6 p.m., work session, City Hall, 163 E. Gower Ave. Seaside Improvement Commission, 6 p.m., City Hall, 989 Broadway. Knappa School District Board, 6:30 p.m., Knappa High School Library, 41525 Old U.S. Highway 30. Gearhart City Council, 7 p.m., City Hall, 698 Pacifi c Way. THURSDAY Seaside Convention Center Commission, 5 p.m., 415 First Ave. PUBLIC MEETINGS Established July 1, 1873 (USPS 035-000) Published Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday by EO Media Group, 949 Exchange St., PO Box 210, Astoria, OR 97103 Telephone 503-325-3211, 800-781-3211 or Fax 503-325-6573. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to The Astorian, PO Box 210, Astoria, OR 97103-0210 DailyAstorian.com Circulation phone number: 800-781-3214 Periodicals postage paid at Astoria, OR ADVERTISING OWNERSHIP All advertising copy and illustrations prepared by The Astorian become the property of The Astorian and may not be reproduced for any use without explicit prior approval. COPYRIGHT © Entire contents © Copyright, 2022 by The Astorian. MEMBER OF THE ASSOCIATED PRESS MEMBER CERTIFIED AUDIT OF CIRCULATIONS, INC. Printed on recycled paper Subscription rates Eff ective January 12, 2021 MAIL EZpay (per month) ...............................................................................................................$10.75 13 weeks in advance ...........................................................................................................$37.00 26 weeks in advance ...........................................................................................................$71.00 52 weeks in advance ........................................................................................................ $135.00 DIGITAL EZpay (per month) .................................................................................................................$8.25 AR-15 style rifl e in Bend shooting is loved and hated Police say weapon purchased legally By GARY WARNER Oregon Capital Bureau The rifl e type used in the deadly Bend shooting in late August has enjoyed a pop- ularity boom among mil- lions of gun owners, while it is reviled by gun control advocates as an icon of mass murder. Police say a gunman fi red more than 100 shots at The Forum Shopping Center on Aug. 28 with an AR-15 style rifl e, killing two men in the Safeway supermarket. Offi - cers found the shooter dead at the back of the store from a self-infl icted gunshot wound, next to his rifl e and a shotgun. The police description of the rifl e hints at its convoluted history. Touted for its modern, military look, the AR-15 design is actually 66 years old. It inspired the design of the M-16 rifl e used since the Vietnam War, but the AR-15 itself is very rarely used by U.S. a rmed f orces. The AR-15 has been called “America’s Rifl e” by the National Rifl e Associa- tion. It’s been dubbed “Baby Killer” by gun control advo- cates for its use in mass mur- ders of elementary school children in Connecticut and Texas. The total number of AR- 15 style rifl es in the United States is diffi cult to tabulate. An estimate of 20 mil- lion is on the website of the National Shooting Sports Foundation, a fi rearms and ammunition industry trade group. It refers to the AR-15 variants as a “modern sports shooting rifl e.” Ryan Brennecke/The Bulletin A cluster of fl owers and candles for the Safeway shooting victims sat on the stage in Drake Park on Thursday. “They’re popular for home defense, recreational target shooting and hunting,” the foundation’s website says. Colt fi rearms bought the patents for the AR-15 in 1959 from ArmaLite — the “AR” stands for “ArmaLite Rifl e.” The design was the inspi- ration of the M-16 rifl e, the standard American military rifl e since the Vietnam War. The patent for the AR-15 ran out in 1977, allowing companies to build generic knock off s. But Colt retained the AR-15 trademark, so each of the more than two dozen gunmakers who have built copy cat variants has had to come up with their own name. Police call the alphabet soup of brands, names and numbers “AR-15 style.” The gun has proven so popular that no one can buy a new one. With the market fl ooded with competition, Colt announced in 2020 that it would no longer make the AR-15. But it held onto the name. The AR-15 is not a machine gun. While the M-16 is capa- ble of fi ring automatically — discharging all bullets with a single pull of the trigger — the AR-15 is semi-automatic. One bullet is fi red with each pull of the trigger, but it also feeds the next round into the chamber. The system allows for a higher rate of fi re than earlier bolt- or lever-action rifl es. Congress eff ectively banned new sales of the AR-15 in 1994, but allowed the ban to lapse in 2004. Hav- ing emerged from the prohi- bition, the AR-15 became a symbol for many gun rights groups. It’s often seen during open carry gun rights rallies in Salem and elsewhere around the nation. It’s been the prize in Republican rifl e raffl es in Portland and elsewhere. Despite its popularity and high political profi le, the AR-15 is a niche market in the American gun collection. The United States has a population of 333 million people who collectively own 400 million guns. The AR-15 accounts for less than 5% of the total. Most guns that Americans own are pistols. Pistols are also used much more frequently than rifl es or shotguns in crimes. But the AR-15 rifl e has played an outsized role in the highest-profi le mass shoot- ings, starting in 2007 when a gunman killed six people and himself in an apartment building in Crandon, Wiscon- sin. In May , a gunman using an AR-15 style rifl e killed 19 children and two adults at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. The COVID-19 pan- demic has fueled demand for the rifl e. Since 2020, an esti- mated 2.8 million semi-au- tomatic military-style rifl es have been sold, part of a pandemic-driven surge in gun purchases, according to Forbes magazine. Mass shootings have also surged over the same period. There have been 450 mass shootings in the United States so far in 2022, according to the Gun Violence Archive, a non profi t group tha has tracked shootings and gun deaths. The incidents are on track to break the record of 692 mass shootings recorded last year. A pistol is most often used, but the use of fi re- arms of all types are on the rise. Oregon voters will be asked in November to weigh Measure 114, a gun control initiative that would require permits, a background check and completion of a gun safety course before the sale of a fi rearm and ban ammu- nition magazines that hold more than 10 rounds. Police say that the Bend shooter had four 30-round magazines with him when he died. A preliminary investi- gation shows that the AR-15 style rifl e and other fi rearms were legally purchased. The Oregon Capital Bureau is a collaboration between EO Media Group and Pamplin Media Group. New study fi nds animal crossings can save money Research looked at the economics By TOM BANSE Northwest News Network Collisions between vehi- cles and large animals, like deer, are not only scary. The medical, car repair and cleanup costs really add up. That is according to a new study out of Washington State University that supports the case for building more wild- life crossings on highways. The Oregon and Wash- ington state transporta- tion departments are adding wildlife overpasses, under- passes and related fencing bit by bit, as scarce funding allows. The new study pub- lished in the journal Trans- portation Research Record by a Washington State doctoral student looked at the effi cacy and economics of those road safety improvements. Wisnu Sugiarto, of the Washington State School of Economic Sciences, tallied the number of serious ani- mal-vehicle collisions in the vicinity of 13 crossing struc- tures in Washington. He compared those numbers to a control group of highway stretches that didn’t have the wildlife safety features. The raw data came from crash reports fi led to the Wash- ington State Department of Transportation from 2011 to 2020. Sugiarto found a favorable cost-benefi t analysis. The study estimated each cross- ing structure could save soci- ety between $235,000 and $443,000 annually through collision reductions. The sav- ings varied based on structure size, design and location. “If you plan on a struc- ture having a 30-year lifes- pan, then there’s a lot of ben- efi ts,” Sugiarto said in an interview. “I hope that with this amount of benefi ts — in terms of quantifi ed benefi ts — can give some information for transportation planners to think about.” The study said the con- struction cost for a wildlife Washington State Department of Transportation This landscaped overpass allows wildlife to safely cross newly widened Interstate 90 near Keechelus Lake in the Washington Cascades. underpass can range from $500,000 to $2.7 million. The cost for an overpass can range from $2.7 million to $6.2 million. Often, the cost rep- resents an incremental add-on to a large highway improve- ment project. By Sugiarto’s analysis, the more expensive wildlife bridges were more eff ective in reducing collisions than cheaper culvert designs. This fi nding derives partly from which species prefer which structure design. Deer are by far the most commonly found carcasses along state high- ways in the Pacifi c North- west. Previous studies using wildlife cameras showed deer prefer airy, open crossings and shy away from enclosed culvert underpasses. On the other hand, tunnel-like pas- sages appeared popular with bears and amphibians. The Department of Trans- portation published a report of its own earlier this year on the benefi ts of wildlife crossings for road safety. Aside from matters of life and death, the department estimated the average vehi- cle-deer collision resulted in economic costs of $9,175. Hitting an elk ballooned the average cost per collision to $24,242 and a moose even more, $42,652 per collision. Notably, the bipartisan infrastructure package passed by Congress in 2021 created a new $350 million competi- tive grant program for states, local governments and tribes specifi cally to build more wildlife crossings over the next fi ve years. “A survey of close to 500 state and federal trans- portation agency represen- tatives identifi ed funding as the No. 1 barrier to mak- ing a national investment in wildlife crossing structures,” ARC Solutions executive director Renee Callahan said in a statement celebrating the bipartisan infrastructure package as “a crucial tipping point in improving human safety, reducing wildlife mor- tality, restoring connectivity and creating jobs.” ARC Solutions is a part- nership of groups seeking to promote road safety through wildlife passages. The decade long project to widen I-90 from Hyak to Easton, Washington, on the east slope of the Cascade Range includes a number of new wildlife underpasses. In addition, one prominent overcrossing was completed in 2018. A second overhead bridge solely for animals is planned and funded near Easton. On a diff erent stretch of highway, State Route 522 near Monroe, the state rebuilt a bridge with an increased span to accommodate wild- life crossings underneath. Highway 97 in Washington’s Okanogan Valley is another deer collision hot spot getting attention. Driving under the strik- ing, arched and landscaped animal crossing over the six lanes of I-90 is what origi- nally got Sugiarto interested in the topic. “I was really curious because, fi rst, it didn’t seem like there were any cars driv- ing on the bridge,” Sugia- rto said. “So, after I did some reading I learned that wild- life-vehicle collisions are an issue in many locations.” During the 2022 s ession of the Oregon Legislature, law- makers increased funding for wildlife crossing projects. The Oregon Department of Transportation has focused on Highway 97 south of Bend, which had a very high rate of mule deer versus vehicle col- lisions. ODOT has already lined miles of this highway with 8-foot-tall fencing to guide deer and other wild- life to underpasses for safe crossing. Those sections then experienced major drops in collisions. Meantime, Ore- gon’s Driver & Motor Vehi- cles Services agency started selling specialized license plates earlier this year to raise money for projects intended to prevent collisions with wildlife. The Washington State study did not attempt to quan- tify the benefi t of improved habitat connectivity, but acknowledged that this is another valid reason for pol- icymakers to justify spending on wildlife crossings. Major interstates such as I-90 and I-5 in Washington and I-405 in California sever the ranges of animals, such as cougars, and can consequently con- tribute to inbreeding within isolated populations. WANTED Alder and Maple Saw Logs & Standing Timber Northwest Hardwoods • Longview, WA Contact: John Anderson • 360-269-2500