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.”