The Columbia Press
May 20, 2022
5
Spring season wraps with many athletic highs
The Columbia Press
Cindy Yingst/The Columbia Press
His face covered in grime from pressure-washing, Commission-
er Tom Dyer stands in front of the station in this 2019 photo.
Brownfield: City considers options
Continued from Page 1
use for the property.
“Right now, I wouldn’t vote
to take it with a 10-foot pole
unless we got that assurance”
that taxpayers won’t be sad-
dled with a huge liability,
Dyer said.
The U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency notified
Clatsop County last week that
it will receive a $500,000
grant for cleanup and reuse
assessment of two properties.
The county’s grant appli-
cation identified two priority
sites: a 20-acre tract that in-
cludes the former Blue Ridge
housing complex near Tongue
Point, and a long-closed gas
station and repair shop in
Seaside that still contains un-
derground fuel tanks and pos-
sible other contaminants.
The money will fund envi-
ronmental assessments to
guide the cleanup process,
and supports planning toward
resale and redevelopment.
The county wants the proper-
ties cleaned up so it can facil-
itate development of a mix of
workforce housing, one of the
county’s goals.
Warrenton could apply for
grant money as well. The
grants are not available for
private owners, so the city
or some other public agency
would need to own the prop-
erty.
Four of the five underground
tanks have been removed,
Ziobron told commissioners.
“At this point, the city, if it
is interested in that site, has
the potential to do so” and be
in charge of the cleanup, Zio-
bron said.
The city could take on the
due-diligence portion of the
property acquisition, which
would include investigating
the likelihood of the property
receiving brownfield funding,
before actually purchasing it,
he said.
While there was no official
action taken by the commis-
sion, a cleanup is within the
realm of possibilities, Mayor
Henry Balensifer said.
“(We) have received the
presentation and are aware
of the possibility for making
that land less encumbered for
potential private redevelop-
ment,” he said.
Warrenton High School’s
athletics department has had
a good year.
Wrapping up the spring
season, the baseball team
clinched the 3A SD2 League
championship on Monday
with two big wins against
Taft High School.
Members of the track and
field team qualified for the
state championships in Eu-
gene after placing second at
the league district meeting
last weekend in Clatskanie.
Runner Zander Moha is just
18 and already he’s a record
setter. The senior set a school
record in the 3,000-meter
dash earlier this year. At the
league district meeting, Zan-
der broke his own record
with a time of 8:59.71.
Julia Dornblueth, an ex-
change student from Ger-
many, broke the high school
girls pole vault record with
an 8-feet, 1-inch vault. The
previous record had been 8
feet, set in 1998 by Meredith
Flynn.
Ian O’Brien, the school’s as-
sistant principal and athletic
director, received the 2022
state Award of Merit from the
National Interscholastic Ath-
letic Administrators Associ-
ation. The award recognizes
his dedication to students
and his ability to bring out
the best in them.
Zander Moha
leads the
pack in Clats-
kanie.
O’Brien