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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
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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.
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