NORTHWEST
East Oregonian
A2
Friday, May 17, 2019
Hand on doomed Oregon ship
texted, called wife before death
By GILLIAN FLACCUS
Associated Press
PORTLAND — A crew member
on a doomed Oregon crabbing ves-
sel that sank in rough seas, killing all
three aboard, sent desperate texts to
his wife just before his death saying
the seas were “real big” and he was
putting on his life vest, according
to testimony at a U.S. Coast Guard
hearing on Wednesday.
Denise Porter gave tearful testi-
mony about a series of texts and two
alarming phone calls from her hus-
band Joshua during the third day of
a weeklong hearing into the Jan. 8
shipwreck off the Oregon coast. The
hearing was held in Newport, and
livestreamed.
The Mary B II overturned in
waves up to 20 feet as it tried to cross
the Yaquina Bar near Newport after
a trip to collect crabbing pots during
the lucrative Dungeness crab season.
Toxicology tests found the boat’s
skipper, Stephen Biernacki, of Bar-
negat Township, New Jersey, had
amphetamine, methamphetamine
and alcohol in his system, but the
blood alcohol content fell below the
legal limit for intoxication. A toxi-
cology expert, Brian M. Bourgeois,
testified the levels of methamphet-
amine indicate that Biernacki, 50,
was impaired.
“I would call this mariner not
fit for duty and certainly not what I
would call seaworthy,” Bourgeois
said.
U.S. Coast Guard, File
In this Tuesday, Jan. 8, 2019, file photo, provided by the U.S. Coast Guard, a
U.S. Coast Guard boat crew responds to three fishermen in the water after
the commercial fishing vessel Mary B II capsized while crossing Yaquina Bay
Bar off the coast of Newport.
Chris Reilly, an attorney for Bier-
nacki’s family, did not immediately
return an email, text or phone call
seeking comment Wednesday while
he was in the hearing proceedings.
Biernacki’s relatives have said they
would not comment.
Biernacki had recently moved
to Oregon and had hired Porter, an
experienced fisherman from Toledo,
Oregon, to work on the Mary B II
for about a week during the intense
start of the Dungeness crab season,
Denise Porter testified.
Porter quickly noticed that Bier-
nacki didn’t seem to know what he
was doing and wouldn’t listen to
Porter or take his advice, she testi-
fied. He didn’t check the tides, for
example, and didn’t know how to use
some equipment and kept alcohol on
board, she said.
Her husband was concerned
about his safety, but continued to go
out because they had bills to pay and
he was only supposed to work a few
more days before taking a different
job, she said.
“Every time we talked about it, it
was like, ‘Why are you on there?’ He
said, ‘We have bills to pay.’”
On the day of the shipwreck, Por-
ter expected to be back in port by
2 p.m., she said, because bad weather
was coming. He called her shortly
after 2 p.m. to say he wouldn’t be
home until 4 p.m. Her husband told
her that Biernacki wanted to “go and
do two more strings,” she said, refer-
ring to pulling up more crab pots.
A short while later, Porter texted
his wife again to say the Coast Guard
was sending a boat to help the Mary
B II as it tried to cross Yaquina Bar, a
treacherous area where the Yaquina
River flows into the ocean current.
The Coast Guard had told the
crew that the boat that crossed the
bar before them had trouble, she said,
referring to her husband’s texts.
“In the midst of the texting back
in forth he called me and said, ‘I’m
scared, it’s really big out here, I’m
putting my life jacket on and I’m
putting my phone and wallet in my
pocket,’” she recalled.
“And he said, ‘I’ve got to go’ and
he hung up.”
Denise Porter, also an experi-
enced fisherperson, began to drive
to the jetty, all while texting her hus-
band. She saw flares over the water
and the lights from three boats in the
heavy surf.
“I said, They’re shooting up flares’
and the very last text I got from him
was ‘WTF. Who is?’ That’s all he
wrote,” she said tearfully.
She took off her glasses in the
fine drizzle, but still could make out
lights in the water and hoped one
was the Mary B II.
“That’s when I texted him, ‘Are
you guys through now?’ and then I
didn’t get a text back,” she said.
“Then there’s a series of questions
that I text him and I get no answer
back and I couldn’t figure out what
was going on,” she said. “And then I
saw the helicopter and I knew some-
thing bad had happened — and I
knew I’d never talk to him again.”
Forecast for Pendleton Area
TODAY
SATURDAY
SUNDAY
MONDAY
TUESDAY
A bit of rain this
morning
Mostly cloudy
Cloudy, showers
around; cooler
Mostly cloudy and
cool
Cool with periods
of rain
61° 41°
69° 49°
PENDLETON TEMPERATURE FORECAST
61° 47°
63° 45°
59° 47°
HERMISTON TEMPERATURE FORECAST
67° 45°
74° 52°
67° 51°
68° 48°
66° 49°
OREGON FORECAST
Shown is today’s weather. Temperatures are today’s highs and tonight’s lows.
PENDLETON
through 3 p.m. yest.
HIGH
LOW
TEMP.
Seattle
Olympia
57/49
54/39
64/39
Longview
Kennewick Walla Walla
63/46
Lewiston
59/48
69/46
Astoria
59/50
Pullman
Yakima 63/43
60/43
60/46
Portland
Hermiston
62/51
The Dalles 67/45
Salem
Corvallis
60/46
Yesterday
Normals
Records
La Grande
55/38
PRECIPITATION
John Day
Eugene
Bend
61/45
58/35
56/35
Ontario
63/40
Caldwell
Burns
0.10"
0.10"
0.59"
3.98"
4.91"
4.58"
WINDS (in mph)
59/40
57/29
Today
Sat.
Boardman WSW 12-25
Pendleton WSW 15-25
Medford
65/46
W 6-12
NNW 4-8
SUN AND MOON
Klamath Falls
55/35
Forecasts and graphics provided by AccuWeather, Inc. ©2019
Sunrise today
Sunset tonight
Moonrise today
Moonset today
5:22 a.m.
8:21 p.m.
7:09 p.m.
5:05 a.m.
Full
Last
New
First
May 18
May 26
June 3
June 9
NATIONAL EXTREMES
Yesterday’s National Extremes: (for the 48 contiguous states)
High 99° in Presidio, Texas Low 24° in Aspen Springs, Colo.
Governor reverses state’s
position on wolf delisting
By MATEUSZ
PERKOWSKI
EO Media Group
65°
50°
73°
47°
94° (1973) 32° (2002)
24 hours ending 3 p.m.
Month to date
Normal month to date
Year to date
Last year to date
Normal year to date
Albany
59/46
0.32"
0.36"
0.62"
8.12"
6.00"
5.73"
through 3 p.m. yest.
HIGH
LOW
TEMP.
Pendleton 51/36
60/46
24 hours ending 3 p.m.
Month to date
Normal month to date
Year to date
Last year to date
Normal year to date
Oregon Gov. Kate Brown has sent a letter to Interior Secre-
tary David Bernhardt, who oversees the Fish and Wildlife
Service, to “clarify and correct” ODFW’s position by op-
posing the delisting proposal for the state’s gray wolves.
HERMISTON
Enterprise
61/41
65/45
62°
49°
71°
47°
94° (2006) 32° (1910)
PRECIPITATION
Moses
Lake
61/46
Aberdeen
53/42
61/44
Tacoma
Yesterday
Normals
Records
Spokane
Wenatchee
61/51
AP Photo, File
ALMANAC
NATIONAL WEATHER TODAY
Oregon Gov. Kate
Brown is urging the fed-
eral government not to lift
Endangered Species Act
protections for wolves,
contradicting an earlier
position taken by state
wildlife regulators.
Gray wolves are cur-
rently classified as threat-
ened or endangered across
most of the country but
the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
has proposed delisting the
species because its “thriv-
ing on its vast range” and
doesn’t face imminent
extinction.
The decision initially
won the support of Curt
Melcher, ODFW’s direc-
tor, who wrote in a May
9 letter that Oregon’s wolf
population is projected
to continue expanding
regardless of federal ESA
status and that a federal
delisting is warranted.
Brown has now sent
a letter to Interior Sec-
retary David Bernhardt,
who oversees the Fish and
Wildlife Service, to “clar-
ify and correct” ODFW’s
position by opposing the
delisting proposal.
Although the “suc-
cess of wolf recovery is
unquestioned” and ESA
listing within Oregon
isn’t necessary, the state’s
efforts “cannot protect
imperiled wildlife beyond
our borders in other
states,” which necessitates
federal listing, accord-
ing to Brown’s May 15
letter.
“Unlike salmonids and
sage grouse, the principal
reason for the decline of
the wolf across the West-
ern United States was
deliberate
extirpation,”
she said. “We are not yet
far enough from that cul-
tural history to war-
rant confidence that wolf
recovery is inevitable.”
Representatives of the
Governor’s Office and
ODFW did not respond
to requests to explain
the discrepancy between
Brown’s and Melcher’s
positions as of press time.
Brown is known to
meet regularly with the
heads of state agencies,
so it’s not likely Melcher’s
support for delisting was
a surprise, said Jerome
Rosa, executive director
of the Oregon Cattlemen’s
Association. “I would
find that highly unusual
for her not to be aware of
that.”
Oregon
OKs largest
expansion
of federal
free lunch
program
By SARAH
ZIMMERMAN
Associated Press
SALEM — Oregon law-
makers have approved the
largest statewide expansion
of the federal free lunch pro-
gram, ensuring all students
living up to three times
above the poverty line will
have access to free meals.
It’s the first time a state
has offered to completely
take on school meal costs,
which can often run tens
of thousands of dollars for
individual school districts.
The move is expected to
provide hundreds of thou-
sands of students with free
breakfast and lunch.
One in seven Oregon
households is “food inse-
cure,” according to the Ore-
gon Center for Public Pol-
icy, meaning that families
have trouble putting food
on the table and often don’t
know where they’ll get their
next meal.
At least 174,000 children
have limited access to food,
more than the population
of Oregon’s second largest
city, Eugene.
“Hungry kids don’t think
about education nearly as
much as having something
in their stomach,” said Sen.
Arnie Roblan, a Democrat
from Coos Bay who helped
craft the legislation.
At least 62% of students
attend a school with high
federal poverty rates. These
schools can get federal assis-
tance to provide free meals
to all their students no mat-
ter their income levels under
the 2011 Healthy, Hun-
ger-Free Kids Act, a policy
championed by former first
lady Michelle Obama.
But even though these
schools may qualify for
assistance, not all of them
take advantage of it because
of low federal reimburse-
ment rates. Instead, they
only provide meals to those
living about two times
above the federal poverty
level.
Around a third of food
insecure students in Ore-
gon, however, live above
that poverty threshold
meaning they’re ineligi-
ble for free meals, accord-
ing to data from Feeding
America.
Tim Sweeney, a superin-
tendent in Oregon’s impov-
erished South Coast, said
that his district runs a deficit
because it chooses to take
on the cost of feeding all its
students. Even with federal
assistance, it costs around
$25,000 a year to provide
free breakfast and lunches,
money Sweeney said could
have gone to textbooks.
“Poverty is a huge deal
here and so many students
rely on schools to provide
them with food and a warm
place for shelter,” he said.
“Food service may not be a
winning game, but we know
it means the world to these
kids.”
Oregon will now be the
first in the nation to pick
up these school districts’
school lunch tabs, allowing
761 schools across the state
to provide free lunch and
breakfast to approximately
345,000 students.
Shown are noon positions of weather systems and precipitation. Temperature bands are highs for the day.
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showers t-storms
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rain
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