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About The Columbia press. (Astoria, Or.) 1949-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 30, 2019)
T he C olumbia P ress 1 50 ¢ C latsop C ounty ’ s I ndependent W eekly n eWspaper www.thecolumbiapress.com August 30, 2019 Vol. 3, Issue 35 Old rules for burning in city go up in smoke Feds contend city still has much work to do on levees B y C indy y ingst The Columbia Press Two homes on South Main Avenue are among the problems standing in the way of Warrenton’s levee recertification. Both homes have addi- tions that were construct- ed into the sides of the barriers designed to pro- tect the city from a cata- strophic flood. Without the federal government’s recertification, residents will find flood insurance expensive or impossible to get. “Eighty percent of the city is below high tide,” Mark Kujala answers ques- tions about the city’s levees. said Mark Kujala, a coun- ty commissioner and Warrenton’s former may- or. He was hired as a le- vee consultant last year for $25,000 and has been working to help the city resolve the encroachment issues. In January, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers spent four days walking the city’s 10 miles of le- vees. They found 300 po- tential issues that needed to be resolved. The city has been work- ing to fix them and is down to 42 remaining items deemed unaccept- able, Kujala said. Most of what’s deemed unaccept- able are vegetation such as trees, bamboo and knotweed that can desta- bilize levee banks. Other issues involve depressions or ruts from vehicles driving on the levees and burrows made by nutria, otters and bea- vers. The corps also is requir- See ‘Levees’ on Page 6 Slash and commercial fires would be banned B y C indy y ingst The Columbia Press Cindy Yingst/The Columbia Press Bob Bingham holds the plaque given to him by Mayor Henry Balensifer Tuesday night. At right is Bingham’s wife, Debbie. City’s go-to guy for water issues retires after 31 years The Columbia Press He’ll be remembered as the guy who took a city proj- ect and ran with it. Bob Bingham was honored Tuesday night for 31 years of service to the city of War- renton. His city career started as a part-time trash truck driver, a caretaker of the Warren- ton boat basin and ended decades later as superinten- dent of the high-tech waste- water treatment plant. “He took over the multi-million dollar wa- ter treatment plant with virtually no training and learned the technical de- tails of this state-of-the- art plant,” Public Works Director Collin Stelzig said. “He was self-taught and became the go-to ex- pert on water rights, fish passage and has left us with a plant … we should See ‘Bingham’ on Page 6 States work on new approach to catastropic wildfires After several years of increasingly catastrophic wildfires, the federal De- partment of the Interior is implement- ing new preventive measures it hopes will limit the size and scope of the de- struction. President Trump recently signed two orders establishing a more coor- dinated look at wildfire risks across the states as well as equipment used to fight wildfires. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is analyzing an 11,000-mile stretch of fuel breaks running through portions of Oregon, Washington, Ida- ho, California, Nevada, and Utah. It’s hoped focusing on the 223-million acre area could help in developing a better plan to remove risks. “As stewards of one-fifth of the coun- try’s public lands, primarily in the West, we know that our ability to be prepared for wildfires and reduce their severity is paramount to protecting communities and saving lives,” U.S. Secretary of the Interior David Bern- hardt said. “In collaboration with local, state, and other federal partners, we are us- ing everything in our arsenal to pre- pare for wildfires this year, treating more than 1 million acres.” As part of the Department of Interi- or, the BLM, Bureau of Indian Affairs, National Park Service, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service contribute to a total workforce of 5,000 firefighting personnel, 151 smoke jumpers and 22 See ‘Wildfires’ on Page 4 Warrenton will have new rules soon governing the size and types of back- yard fires. The action came following a weekend last March, when a contractor working to clear property owned by the Kujala family off Alternate Highway 101 began burning piles of alder. The large hot fires created an inver- sion layer on the overcast day and the unseasoned wood gave off plumes of heavy smoke that wafted through the south part of town. Because it was the weekend, no one answered nonemergency phone calls at Warrenton Fire Department. Angry residents took their com- plaints to other city leaders, telling them the smoke aggravated respira- tory problems or forced them to stay indoors. “I just don’t want the air debris to bother the constituent again,” Commis- sioner Rick Newton said Tuesday night, as city leaders crafted new burn rules during a work session at City Hall. Mayor Henry Balen- sifer worried that too much structure in a Demers new ordinance would prevent people from keeping their yards tidy, especially after windstorms. Fire Chief Tim Demers found incon- gruencies between the city’s current rules and what’s restricted by the De- partment of Environmental Quality See ‘Burn rules’ on Page 6