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About The independent. (Vernonia, Or.) 1986-current | View Entire Issue (May 17, 2000)
Page 2 The INDEPENDENT, May 17, 2000 Tho INDEPENDENT Serving the upper Nehalem River valley. Published twice monthly, on the first and third Wednesdays of each month, by Public Opinion Laboratory Ltd., 725 Bridge Street, Vernonia, OR 97064, as a free newspaper. Edi tors and Publishers, Dirk & Noni Andersen. Phone/Fax: (503) 429-9410. Opinion Trees are renewable but not very quickly It appears that trees are being cut down within the City of Vernonia at a much faster rate than they are being planted. Part of that perception may be because of the size of the trees being removed. Generally, they are older, big trees, so their absence is all too notice able. Fortunately, the city has planted a fairly large num ber of trees on Bridge Street, as part of the streetscape program, and around the new municipal buildings. Some of the trees planted are replacements for trees that had to be removed when the water dis tribution system was rehabbed. Unfortunately, the Vernonia Rural Fire Protection District has no plans, at least at this time, to replace the trees they have removed for a parking lot. The dis trict needs more parking space, that isn’t arguable, but large trees absorb more water and pollutants than lit tle trees. They also give off more oxygen than small trees, the same element that is regularly polluted by emissions from the vehicles that will use the parking lot. A plan for planting replacement trees in a location that wouldn’t impair parking would be greatly appreci ated. In the overall scheme, however, the city must take the lead, not just for municipal property, but for private property, as well. Other cities have managed to devel op workable programs that allow nuisance trees to be removed without doing damage to either the appear ance or the health of the community. True, it is still a strange concept to many, but there is value in the nat ural beauty of trees. Vandalism is a cowardly offense needing darkness Vandalism is an offense committed against an entire community. Destroying, defacing or stealing public property harms everyone in the community by wasting the taxpayers’ investment of money and time. When public employees must use their time cleaning up af ter vandalism, it hurts the people who are paying them to do a different job - the taxpayers. There is a standing reward offered by the Vernonia Chamber of Commerce and Vernonia Pride for infor mation leading to the conviction of vandals. This re ward has worked more than once and every time the money has been spent, the two organizations replace it. That will continue, because vandalism will not be accepted here as harmless mischief. — NOTICE — The INDEPENDENT is published on the first and third Wednesdays of each month. There are five Wednesdays in May, so there will three weeks be tween this issue and the first issue in June. Deadlines for the June 7 issue will be June 2, for both news items and display advertising, and June 5 for classified ads. IFUL Iko Says. . . By Dale Webb, member Izaak Walton League, Nehalem Valley Chapter The morning dawned with the clouds pouring their con tents to earth. “Looks kind of wet,” I muttered to myself as I picked up the phone to call Troy Horton, my kayaking part ner. We soon decided that wet is a relative term when you’re talking about the sport of kayaking, and we would go re gardless of the weather. Meeting at 1:30 in the after noon, we were surprised by bright sunlight that greeted us at our put-in location. Troy said he had found a better place to put-in than at the bridge that crosses the Nehalem River just before the Jewell junction with highway 202. Soon we were sliding our kayaks into Fish- hawk Creek just above its junc tion with Beneke Creek. These are both small creeks at this time of year, but joined togeth er they had enough water to propel us swiftly along. We thoroughly enjoyed the small rapids and wood obstacles as we traveled towards the mouth of the river. I did have one mo ment while maneuvering my 14+ foot sea kayak around an upturned root wad. Having a longer boat in such a creek can limit your ability to turn, and I thought I was going to plow into the root wad until the boat final ly swung its bow around just enough to avoid a head-on col lision, though I had to grab the root wad to prevent a hit to my ribs. I easily shoved my boat around the obstacle and was again on my way. A kayaker can get seriously hurt in situa tions like this and they should be avoided in higher flow situa tions. Soon, we burst into the Ne halem river and settled into our paced paddling strokes for long flat water. Troy and I both sa vored the excitement of the small creek environment as we felt the more powerful Nehalem under our boats. Having looked at my river map before this trip, I had noted a named rapids, Grand Rapids, and I felt a little concern as to what this un known rapids had in store for us. On our last trip in the river section above this one, we ex perienced the power of the riv er when we both took dunkings while playing on the only good rapids of the trip. We both lost our kayaks into a strainer (low tree hanging over the river that grabs boats or kayakers) which took us considerable time and effort to free them. We remem bered the experience and knew this seemingly tame river had a few tricks up its sleeve. The dunking experience was Troy’s first and I could see that he was relieved that the experience was in some small ways, al most fun. The sound of rushing water was soon heard from down riv er and I thought we had found Grand Rapids. We flew down into the wide rapids and over a small diagonal drop, then swung into a side eddy and beached our kayaks. The sun was shining so warmly that we had to shed some thermal tops. Gliding back into the river, we paddled back up under the di agonal drop and played. Troy decided to see what happened when he got parallel to the falling water: I could see what was coming, but was amazed when he saved his kayak from flipping over when he put his hand down into the water and pushed back upright off the ledge. Troy’s eyes were a bit wider when I looked at him! We turned downstream and silently glided over the water as ducks flushed out in front of us from the sides of the river. Salmon smolts dotted the water’s sur face like a light shower of rain as we continued through the slack water. Suddenly the deep water was replaced by an object fly ing up at us from the depths. It was the river bottom, and it was almost spooky to see the rock formations shoot up at the sur face as we descended the riv er. Once again, as we ap proached a curve in the river, we could hear rushing water. Troy and I both had started to recognize that most good rapids seem to start at a curve. As we rounded the corner, we realized we had found the Grand Rapids. The river chan nel was braided with many dif ferent routes and we tried to pick the most challenging one. The water was shallow and we bumped off rocks as we ran the rapids, then tucked into eddies behind rocks to scout the next rapids below us. The last de scent was all white water, with a boulder in the middle, yet our kayaks easily handled the wa ter as it crashed over our bows and onto our paddle jackets. We spent some moments play ing in the tricky currents behind the boulder, then continued down the now faster flowing riv er. Small riffles and rapids be came more constant and we played on a few standing waves as we continued to learn what we could do in these plas tic boats. Eventually we spotted a sec tion in the river that we had scouted from the road when shuttling our pickup rig down stream. The river was divided into three channels by an old lava formation that had formed two islands. We beached our kayaks and stretched our legs while scouting the small rapids next to the highway. When we turned, I noticed Troy’s kayak Please see page 10
