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About The Columbia press. (Astoria, Or.) 1949-current | View Entire Issue (April 12, 2019)
T he C olumbia P ress April 12, 2019 3 Fisher/cable cooperative gets industry honor The Columbia Press and news sources The Oregon Fishermen’s Cable Committee, an Asto- ria-based company, got some unprecedented national expo- sure this week. OFCC Chairman Scott Mc- Mullen presented a paper, along with co-author Rob Mu- nier, on sharing the seabed with fishermen at the SubOp- tic 2019 conference in New Or- leans. SubOptic is the longest running, most comprehensive submarine cable industry con- ference in the world. The Astoria company’s founding two decades ago helped place Oregon in the forefront of fiber cable place- ment across the ocean floor. Today there are 18 cables off Oregon, which has helped the country to connect via inter- net with the world. The four-day conference, which ended Thursday, April 11, had attendees from 75 na- tions. Being selected to submit and present a paper is a note- worthy achievement. The OFCC–A Successful Model for Sharing the Sea- bed, discussed the experiment of self-regulation and coop- eration between trawl fisher- men and cable system owners that became the OFCC. The cooperation between the two industries is the exception to the norm in other parts of the country and internationally. The paper’s analysis notes that OFCC results have been remarkable and commendable. The cables have exceptional- ly good burial, with over 99.9 percent burial of nearly 750 miles of undersea cable in the trawl fishing grounds off the Oregon Coast, a key to mini- mizing risk to both cables and fishermen. “The Oregon trawl fleet has been able to fish their grounds with few constraints and lit- tle uncertainty,” said McMul- len, who, in addition to being OFCC chairman, fished Ore- gon waters for more than 25 years. The high quality of the ca- Fire quickly extinguished in illegal camp off 101 The Columbia Press A homeless camp in the woods behind the Goodwill store caught fire Saturday evening, police and fire offi- cials reported. Officer Christopher Beem was among the first respond- ers on the scene. After check- ing to see if anyone was in- jured or staying in the camp, he helped slow the fire’s spread with a fire extinguish- er, Police Chief Matt Work- man said. Firefighters quickly got the blaze under control. “Even though there were no structures directly adja- cent to the fire, the heavily wooded area does extend to both homes and business- es, which created great con- cern,” Workman wrote on the department’s Facebook page. It wasn’t known whether the fire was intentional or ac- cidental. The area was cleared of homeless camps a few months ago, but some of the camps have been re-occu- pied. “This fire is one of the rea- sons the WPD, WFD, and the A topographical map shows the location of undersea cables off the coast. ble installations was achieved with the assistance, expertise and experience of local fisher- men working with cable route planners in the design phase. The few cable exposures are well marked on navigation data provided to commer- cial fishermen, who also re- ceive training in fishing safely around cables. “In the OFCC’s 20 years, there have been no … cable breaks caused by fishermen, a phenomenal achievement by global standards,” said Muni- er, a vice president at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institu- tion and an OFCC director. Because of the cooperation, Oregon is an attractive place to land cable systems and re- mains home to an important trawl fishery. Oregon’s economy has bene- fitted. Today, half of the cable landings on the West Coast are in Oregon. Oregon also has the largest trawl fleet on the West Coast. From the first relative- ly small capacity cable from Oregon to Alaska in 1998 to the ultra-high capacity cables used by Microsoft and Google today, the OFCC has evolved with the cable industry while maintaining its roots and sup- port in the fishing industry. Program hands out 1,000th book Courtesy Warrenton Police Department Officer Christopher Beem uses a large fire extinguisher on flames that broke out in a transient camp behind Goodwill. city have great concerns with people setting up camps in heavily wooded areas of the city,” Workman wrote. All of the property sur- rounding Goodwill, Costco, Walmart, Astoria Ford, the sheriff’s office, animal con- trol, Warrenton Kia, Fred Meyer, and the Shilo Inn is privately owned and none of the owners allow camping or trespassing. Police will do another sweep of the area soon to move out the campers and camps, ac- cording to Workman. Anyone spotting smoke coming from wooded ar- eas should call Astoria Dis- patch’s nonemergency num- ber at 503-325-4411. Call 911 for flames. Volunteers from SMART, Start Making A Reader Today, distributed the 1,000th book to a student in the program at Warrenton Grade School on Thursday. The program pairs adult volunteers with children for weekly one-on-one reading sessions. Volunteers model the joy of reading, while supporting the child’s efforts to read independently. The intention of SMART is to improve literacy through early reading support, access to books and community participation.