The independent., January 11, 1995, Page 2, Image 2

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The INDEPENDENT, January 11,1995
The
INDEPENDENT
Serving the upper Nehalem River valley. Published
twice monthly on the second and fourth Wednesdays of
each month, by Public Opinion Laboratory Ltd., 1206
S tate Avenue, V ernonia, OR 97064, as a free
newspaper. E ditors and Publishers, Dirk & Noni
Andersen, (503) 429-9410.
T t iC K E j,
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Hard to find source
of giardia outbreak
The answer about whether the giardia microorgan­
ism does or doesn’t exist in Vernonia’s filtered and
treated water depends on who is responding to the
question.
But first, an explanation for those fortunate folks
who haven’t been introduced to this microscopic
monster: Giardia causes severe intestinal gas and
watery diarrhea that can’t be controlled by over-the-
counter anti-diarrheal medications. It requires a pre­
scription medication for relief and is a common prob­
lem in the Northwest. Giardia is carried into the water
supply by anima, (beaver, coyote and other mam­
mals) feces and is sometimes called beaver fever.
The City’s public works director, Robyn Bassett,
considers talk of giardia in the water system a serious
and erroneous charge.
“I have contacted the Oregon Health Division and
no cases of giardia were reported to have affected
any Vernonia residents,” Bassett said.
She is outraged that Vernonia Health Center per­
sonne, have told city residents to boil their water be­
fore using it, pointing out that the VHC staff lacks
knowledge of both the treatment process used by the
city and how to operate it.
At the Health Center, Physician’s Assistant Laura
Nichols agrees that the state Health Division has no
confirmed cases of giardia among Vernonia resi­
dents.
“I don’t usually order the test that would confirm Gi­
ardia,” Nichols said, “because it’s expensive and un­
necessary. When over-the-counter medications can’t
stop diarrhea and it responds only to the prescription
medication that is used specifically for giardia, then
it’s giardia.”
The problem here is that both agencies involved in
this situation are correct.
The giardia microorganism is so small that it has
been known to pass through even the finest water fil­
tration systems, that’s one reason it’s such a common
problem. It also gets into well water. City water is test­
ed on a regular basis and there have been no de­
tectable contaminants in the water for many years.
We are all fortunate that Bassett takes this responsi­
bility so seriously. In spite of that, there have been
several cases of giardia in the city.
For reasons not fully understood, giardia seem to
thrive when the water is high, as it has been for sev­
era, weeks. It can come and go so quickly in a sur­
face water system like Vernonia’s that it sometimes
remains undectable, even with regular testing.
It’s likely that the only way we could know for cer­
tain how many Oregonians are afflicted with giardia,
would be through mandatory testing of each suspect­
ed case and, as Nichols said, that’s an unnecessary
expense; we wouldn’t recommend such an action.
Nevertheless, Bassett and Water Supervisor Tom
Helfly shouldn’t feel bad. They are doing everything
within their power to keep Vernonia’s water supply
clean and trouble-free.
Some things are just not within our power to con­
trol.
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By Dale Webb, member
Izaak Walton League, Nehalem Valley Chapter
One of my recent columns, about landown­
er responsibilities along streams, brought a
letter to the editor response from Scott Sword,
the former Mayor of Vernonia. Scott was cor­
rect on several accounts. He pointed out that
tim b e rla n d ow ners sho ulde r m ost of the
stream-side riparian protection through the
Forest Practices Act and, secondly, that over­
fishing of salmonid stocks is partly to blame
for the current condition of our local fisheries.
Sometimes, when writing these articles, I
forget that the reading public is not always in­
formed about things I assume they know. The
Forest Practices Act was adopted in 1971 and
regulates forest operations on private and
state lands. The act has been revised several
times, most recently in 1987 and 1991, in or­
der to provide more protection for natural re­
sources. The 1987 revision added new rules
to the riparian section requiring minimum lev­
els of snag retention, downed woody material
protection, canopy retention and, in Western
Oregon, conifer retention.
In 1991, the legislature passed Senate Bill
1125, w hich req uired the D epartm ent of
Forestry and the Board of Forestry to revise
the section on water protection rules of the
Forest Protection Act. This revision was finally
completed and enacted this year. The rules
are of course more complicated and generally
require that more conifers be left standing on
the stream banks. The maximum width of
stream side protection under the new rules is
100 feet on a large fish-bearing stream, not
300 feet as on Federal lands.
I try not to point my fin g e r at any one
landowner group, since this just seems to po­
larize people instead of helping them realize
that they are only one part of a complex prob­
lem. Nevertheless, the facts are that timber-
land owners are doing their part, but agricul­
tural and residential property owners are not.
Of course they are not mandated by law to
provide stream protection—yet.
Scott correctly mentioned the over-fishing
of salmon as a reason for a decline in current
salmonid populations. As with any resource
that is commercialized, there is always pres­
sures to maintain the status quo, even if it is
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not realistic (this sure sounds familar). Anoth­
er factor in this problem is the flawed method­
ology the O regon D e pa rtm e nt of Fish &
Wildlife was using to trend their fish popula­
tions, which didn't become apparent until
things got serious.
Scott also mentioned that he quit buying
fish at the market because he didn’t want to
add to the overfishing problem. This may be
noble, but is most likely not a factor in today’s
picture. Most fish in our markets are from ei­
ther fish farms or fisheries that are not suffer­
ing population depletions; i.e. Alaska. By not
buying fish, you may be causing further suffer­
ing for an Oregon commercial fisherman who
is fishing exclusively on hatchery-only stocks
or healthy wild Chinook runs. This is the same
as someone not buying wood products be­
cause there isn’t very much old growth timber
left, when in fact there are ongoing sustain­
able timber operations.
The phony issue of ODF&W introducing
bacterial and pathological agents into the river
is nothing but an old wives’ tale. It started from
ODF&Ws use of fish in their hatchery program
that were not resistant to a parasite called
Ceratomyxa Shasta. According to the tale, be­
cause the fish were not resistant to this para­
site, it became concentrated in them and ele­
vated the disease to such a high level in the
stream that even the wild salmonids became
infected and died. It sounds good but doesn’t
hold much water. Ceratomyxa Shasta infects
salmonids only down river of the confluence of
Humbug Creek with the Nehalem River. As
fish pass through this area, they are infected
and die if they are not resistant to the parasite.
ODF&W planted smolts in the upper Nehalem
that were not C. Shasta resistant and, once
they passed through the infected area, most
perished. Another reason this old story doesn't
hold water is that C. Shasta is not transmit­
table from fish to fish, so even if a smolt sur­
vived the first infection and was able to carry it
back upstream as an adult, it could not trans­
mit it to other fish-which most likely are carri­
ers of the parasite anyway. A third reason that
this is not a disease problem is that fish num­
bers have dropped dramatically, not only in
our streams but, coast wide.
On this subject, though, ODF&W District Bi-
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