Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About Seaside signal. (Seaside, Or.) 1905-current | View Entire Issue (March 3, 2017)
March 3, 2017 • Seaside Signal • seasidesignal.com • 9A How we get fi sh sticks Author studies why Oregonians don’t eat local seafood By Rebecca Herren Seaside Signal There is more to fi shing than simply choosing the right bait and reeling in the fi sh. The purest attribute of a true fi sherman is the ability to stretch the truth, from increas- ing the size and weight of the fi sh to delivering a lengthy monologue at the local brew- ery about the giant fi sh that got away; envisioning the pro- tagonist of the 1954 science fi ction fi lm “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.” Telling a tall fi shing tale certainly follows a time-hon- ored tradition, but this fi sh tale is of a different sort. It’s the one in pursuit of answer- ing the question, “Why Ore- gonians don’t eat enough lo- cally caught seafood?” This question and others prompted a conversation with Jennifer Burns Bright during a Feb. 16 Oregon Humanities Conversation Project program at the Seaside Public Library. Bright is an agriculture and travel writer. After moving to Port Orford, she wanted to do something different. She wanted to write about sea- food. “It’s been an aspect of our food system that I didn’t know much about and so little is known about our local sea- food.” REBECCA HERREN/SEASIDE SIGNAL Jennifer Burns Bright at the Seaside Library. The presentation “Fish Tales: Traditions and Chal- lenges of Seafood in Oregon” brought to light the relation- ship consumers have with the variety of products provided by the sea that some people may be unaware, cultural tra- ditions related to fi shing and understanding the ocean’s bounty and challenges. One attendee shared her experience on the diffi culty of buying fi sh directly from the docks. Bright explained how regulations have changed from years past; meaning in present day, the daily catch mostly goes to one buyer or company. “To sell directly, fi shermen need to have a re- sell license or they can buy their fi sh back from the folks who are buying the fi sh off the boats and sell that to local consumers.” Most fi shermen, she said, “don’t want to both- er because of too much red tape.” A slide presentation bal- anced the conversations with graphs and fi gures. Accord- ing to one, Oregonians eat about 15 pounds of seafood a year compared to 53 pounds of beef, 58 pounds of chick- en and 175 pounds of grain. A 2014 study indicated that in America, people eat 15 pounds of seafood per per- son: 4 pounds of shrimp, 2.5 pounds salmon, 2.5 pounds of mostly canned tuna, over 1.5 pounds of tilapia, followed by pollock, basa, cod, catfi sh, crab and clams. “Seafood consumption in the United States totals 90 percent imported,” said Bright. “Ten percent is do- mestic or both because there is no way to classify fi sh that’s caught locally to the fi sh that’s shipped out to Canada or China then bought back as ready-made cod fi llets or fi sh sticks,” adding that the per- centage could be higher and is impossible to track. Top countries the U.S. imports to are: China, Thai- land, Canada, Indonesia, Viet Nam and Ecuador. Shrimp being the greatest percentage at 33 percent followed by 22 percent for canned tuna and salmon; 45 percent fresh wa- ter fi sh, ground water fi sh, crab and squid make up the rest. Additionally, one half of the 90 percent of consumed imports are farmed — mostly from overseas. Bright explained the pro- cess of farming fi sh and how they’re grown, noting this type of farming is not always healthy as one slide of an overseas tilapia farm revealed a large algae bloom. “Often this results in polluted con- ditions and disease because the fi sh are grown very close together and the algae bloom depletes the oxygen in the wa- ter.” Currently, as Bright point- ed out, there’s some concern over imported farm salmon due to an epidemic of sea lice that has wiped out much of the salmon from the Nordic countries like Scandinavia and parts of Russia, creating a shortage. “Because of this, salmon will become more expensive and less available when purchased at grocery stores,” adding that this af- fects farmed salmon and eventually could affect all salmon. As a whole, the farm seafood industry was $1.4 billion in 2013, one-seventh of the total domestic sea- food market. Equally, the U.S. exports about 90 percent of its seafood to the global market. One third is exported for human consumption and two-thirds for other uses: ani- mal food, fertilizer, thickeners and calcium sources for sup- plements. “Our trade is dominated by a few large companies,” said Bright. Pacifi c Seafood and Pacif- ic Choice being the biggest making $1 billion dollars in 2015. They have 18 seafood processing plants in this area and are the sole buyers of sea- food in seven west coast cit- ies. “When the boats come in they can only sell to one buy- er. There’s one company that owns all the equipment, the trucks, the shipping contain- ers, the dock, the lift; so you don’t have a choice.” This, according to Bright, has created anti-trust law- suits including the recent crab strike. In 2015, Oregon’s sea- food exports to- taled $53.6 million to countries such as Canada, Japan, Ukraine, Malaysia and China. Ore- gon’s most valuable seafood is its “little pink shrimp, which is mainly grown here,” she said, fol- lowed by Dungeness crab, albacore, sable fi sh and rockfi sh. More conversations touched on subjects of where people buy seafood, market- ing strategies that appeal to consumers, healthy eating, ideologies and values. But the evening didn’t pass without hearing a few seafar- ing tales. Stories of catching a 10-foot thrasher shark or the one about catching nine bar- racuda off the coast of Mex- ico; a sturgeon so big it could feed a family for a year; an old fi sherman who taught children how to net, boil, peel and eat shrimp; and how to keep live carp fresh in preparation for Christmas dinner. And, lastly, the one about a young, inquis- itive girl who detested carp so much she needed to fi nd out what type of fi sh were really in fi sh sticks. Bright is scheduled to speak at the Astoria Public Li- brary on April 12. School board, architect Bark park gets formal debut Almost the entire park was made shape new campus using recycled materials Plans from Page 1A DAY CPM, a Beaver- ton- based Owner’s Repre- sentative consulting fi rm, was contracted in January to administer construction man- agement services on behalf of the district throughout the project. Before the school board meeting, the district hosted an informal meet-and-greet event for staff, administra- tors, board members and a few community members to make contact with the repre- sentatives from DAY CPM, who then gave a presentation during the meeting. The presentation included a history of the fi rm, which was established in 2002; a summation of the fi rm’s val- ues: and an overview of the fi rm’s experience with K-12 projects, which are “defi nite- ly part of our wheelhouse,” said Mike Day, bond program manager. Project planning and timelines Project Manager Mitali Kulkarni presented “just a snapshot” of the approximate timeline for the process, em- phasizing “there are several pieces that go into making the schedule from the start to the end.” As with any large-scale project, she said, “the foun- dation is good planning. So that’s what we’re going to start with.” Project planning and de- sign likely will take most of 2017, although some log- ging at the project site also is scheduled. In 2018, de- sign will progress and major construction — including a remodel and expansion of Seaside Heights Elementa- ry School — will start. The construction will continue throughout 2019, with ex- pansion fi nishing that year. Construction on the other fa- cilities should be substantially completed during the fi rst half of 2020, allowing the high school and middle school to start moving in. The goal is for the campus to open for the 2020-21 academic school year. “Once we get into more details, we will have the more complicated schedule pub- lished, but this gives you an idea of what the construction timeframe is,” Kulkarni said. A glance at the delivery method The district has chosen the construction management/ general contractor method for the school project. In this project delivery style, the construction man- ager provides input through- out the design process. As the design fi nishes, the construc- tion manager may become the general contractor through negotiations with the school district. ‘The foundation is good planning. So that’s what we’re going to start with.’ Project Manager Mitali Kulkarni The complexity of Seaside’s project, Kulkarni said, makes it well suited for the delivery method, which emphasizes col- laboration, fi scal transparency, eliminating overlap of services and providing the best overall value. Through the use of dynamic cost-control modeling, the proj- ect’s budget and expenditures are constantly updated and tracked, not only for real costs, but also for trends. The benefi t of doing so, Kulkarni said, is by detecting a negative upward trend early, “you have the op- portunity to correct the course and bring it down.” Portland-based Dull Olson Weekes-IBI Group Architects is providing design and archi- tecture services for the project. The next step is fi nding a gener- al contractor. A public hearing will take place at the board’s next meet- ing, March 21. After approval, the board can bring a contract manag- er and general contractor on board. Selection will be a col- laborative process involving DAY CPM and school board members, staff and community members serving on a panel. “This is a very important decision for the district,” Day said. Ron White, a community outreach coordinator with DAY CPM, said the fi rm intends to emphasize community engage- ment throughout the project. They brought surveys to the meet-and-greet event and the school board meeting to collect input from attendees. Future engagement may in- clude town hall and neigh- borhood meetings. The fi rm also intends to communicate through a project website that will run through the school district’s Web portal. In other news: • Hannah Sirpless, a senior associate with Pauly, Rogers and Company, presented via conference call results from the district’s 2015-16 audit. The fi rm issued an unmodi- fi ed opinion and concluded there were no signifi cant de- fi ciencies or material weak- nesses. “In short, it’s a clean audit,” Sirpless said. As part of their report, the fi rm of- fered a few best practices the district could pursue to help mitigate risk in future years. Best practices are not signif- icant defi ciencies, but sugges- tions on behalf of the fi rm, Sirpless said, adding, “it’s impossible to have everything perfect within a district, es- pecially a small district, so our best practices are just our comments and items we want the board and management to be aware of. “ • The board unanimously approved a resolution to adopt the Oregon Short Term Fund Board’s short-form invest- ment policy, which will allow the district to invest proceeds from the sale of its general obligation bonds for longer than 18 months. Since the project’s completion is sched- uled for beyond 18 month, adopting the policy lets the district make more profi table investments with some of the bond funds that aren’t needed up front, business manager Justine Hill said. The sale of the general obligation bonds – valued at about $99.7 million — was fi nalized Feb. 28 and the funds will be delivered mid-March. • The board unanimously authorized Hill and Super- intendent Sheila Roley to be signatories of a new local government investment pool account that will be set up for funds relating to the school construction project. The dis- trict has two other accounts through the pool, adminis- tered by the Oregon State Treasury. The new account “is going to be specifi cally for the bond,” to keep funds sep- arated, Hill said. By R.J. Marx Seaside Signal No more barking up the wrong tree for vis- itors to Seaside. Travelers and local residents with Fido in tow will be able to bring their pets to Seaside with a pit stop at the new dog park on U.S. Highway 101, just north of Broadway Middle School. The park received its offi cial ribbon-cutting Friday, Feb. 24, as Mayor Jay Barber wielded the scissors, joined by Public Works Director Dale McDowell. “We’re dedicating a fi rst for Seaside, our fi rst dog park,” Barber said. “A lot of us think our dogs are among our most important citi- zens in Seaside. It’s small, but it’s a beginning, where people can bring their dogs and have a place to let them run and play.” The park was conceived by McDowell, who was presented with a small area along the highway overgrown with sticker bushes and collecting garbage. With a location near Broad- way Middle School, the visitors’ center and City Hall, beautifi cation was in order. But the small park, owned by the Seaside School Dis- trict, the city, the Oregon Department of Trans- portation and housing some Pacifi c Power and Light utilities, defi ed easy categorization. “When I was on the Parks Advisory Com- mission, they were looking for a location for a dog park,” McDowell said. “So it was a matter of getting everybody to get together: what can I do to put a little dog park in here?” McDowell brought the concept to the Plan- ning Commission, the Parks Advisory Com- mittee, then the City Council for approval. “It took us six days to put it together,” he said. “It was just due diligence,” he said. “I wasn’t asking for the world.” R.J. MARX/SEASIDE SIGNAL Rinaldo investigates the “hydrant” in the dog park. Six weeks later, in late July, the plan was approved. The park will be maintained by the Public Works Department and patrolled by the city’s dog control offi cer. Cost was minimal. “The entire park, other than the gravel and the signage, and the con- crete for the post, is recycled material,” Mc- Dowell said. “All the fencing, the fi re hydrant, the benches, the garbage can is all recycled material. Last week, I went down to the spay and neuter thrift store and found the two dog dishes, and I brought those up here on Sun- day.” “I think the total cost was about $200,” Barber said at the dedication. “Dale’s a won- derful person to fi nd material that can be recy- cled and reused. People coming through town will see it and be able to stop and let their dogs run and play here. We may need to put some signage out on the highway. Coming in you can see the ‘Woof Waste’ placard. The best signage is to have a bunch of dogs running around.”