T he C olumbia P ress
1
50 ¢
C latsop C ounty ’ s I ndependent W eekly n eWspaper
April 13, 2018
503-861-3331
Vol. 2, Issue 15
New flagpole makes best of a bad situation
The Columbia Press
Five city employees were
honored this week for their
foresight in saving a piece of
history and, well, turning it
into something cool.
They came up with a plan
last July after Western Skies,
a fishing boat that had been
abandoned at Warrenton
Marina, sunk in its mooring
slip. They did an emergen-
cy vessel seizure, pulled the
boat out of the water, sal-
vaged what they could and
demolished what was left.
The mast was turned into
a flagpole, which was in-
stalled next to the marina
offices earlier this month.
Mayor Henry Balensifer
presented certificates of ap-
preciation Tuesday to Har-
bormaster Jane Sweet and
marina employees Mike
Olson, Kim Davis, Anthony
Wirt and Jessica McDon-
ald.
Photos courtesy city of Warrenton
Home prices up as
region struggles
to meet demand
B y c iNdy y iNgst
The Columbia Press
Home sales rose 22 percent countywide
during the past year, although sales in War-
renton and Hammond were down, according
to the Clatsop Association of Realtors’ multi-
ple listing service.
Some areas of the county, such as Arch
Cape and Surf Pines, saw huge increases
during the past year. Other areas, includ-
ing Warrenton and Hammond, show future
promise.
Home prices rose 16 and 15 percent in War-
renton and Hammond, respectively.
“Supply and demand is totally askew,” said
Pam Ackley, a real estate broker and mem-
ber of the Warrenton City Commission. “De-
mand is so much higher than supply. We
can’t keep up.”
She gave a report this week to the city com-
mission linking a lack of affordable housing
to plans for the Northwest Kinder Ready Pre-
school Collaborative, which aims to provide
free preschool for children from low-income
households.
Walmart, in the process of hiring 300 em-
See ‘Housing’ on Page 7
Oregon’s invasive tree could be boon for wood products market
B y N ick H outmaN
Oregon State University
An invasive tree that has spread
widely across parts of Oregon could
become a lucrative wood product
commodity, according to scientists at
Oregon State University in Corvallis.
They conducted tests on western
juniper lumber and the results were
accepted in February by the Ameri-
can Lumber Standards Committee,
a nonprofit organization whose ac-
creditation program forms the basis
for the sale of most softwood lumber
in North America. Acceptance means
that, for the first time, western juniper
will be listed in the National Design
Specification for Wood Construction,
the handbook used by engineers and
buyers to select wood for applications
from sign posts to houses.
Increased use of western juniper
could lead to new markets for the
trees that are being cut to restore
sagebrush and rangelands in the
West.
“I’ve gotten calls from people in
transportation departments who
wanted to use western juniper for
Photo courtesy OSU
A western juniper tree is silhouetted
against the setting sun near Madras.
signposts or guardrail blocks,” said
Scott Leavengood, director of the Or-
egon Wood Innovation Center at Or-
egon State. “But when they checked
the design specification book, they’d
discover that western juniper isn’t
even mentioned, so they couldn’t use
it.”
But now the testing has been done
and it’s listed.
Western juniper occupied about 1.5
million acres in Oregon in 1900 but
has expanded to nearly 10 million
acres today, said Dylan Kruse of Sus-
tainable Northwest, a nonprofit orga-
See ‘Wood’ on Page 4