Page 2
The INDEPENDENT, January 2, 2002
Tha
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, Ver
nonia, OR 97064, as a free newspaper. Editors and Pub
lishers, Dirk & Noni Andersen. Phone/Fax: 503-429-
9410, e-mail: noni@vernonia.com
Opinion_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
fin QOYsserf
Missing checks illustrate
problems in postal service
Checks mailed to Columbia County, most of them
mailed from locations within the county, apparently
have been sent by the U.S. Postal Service to Colom
bia, a country in South America. We say “apparently”
because there is no actual proof of what happened to
those checks, but employees in the Portland regional
service center promptly say “Computer error,” as
though that were an excuse for mishandling mail.
If this were the only problem with the Portland ser
vice center, it would be forgivable, in spite of the mag
nitude of this foul-up. Unfortunately, the service from
the regional center is frequently a mess, and the “rea
son” given is usually “computer error.”
Before the postal service became so “efficient,” mail
sent from one Columbia County location to another
never left the county. For instance, a letter sent from
Vernonia to St. Helens went to the Scappoose Post Of
fice, which sent it on to St. Helens. It never took longer
than one full day for delivery.
Since the USPS eliminated the old-fashioned ways
for the sake of efficiency, a letter sent from Vernonia to
St. Helens still goes to Scappoose, then it goes to Port
land so it can be efficiently scanned by a computer and
efficiently routed back to Scappoose, then St. Helens.
This is usually accomplished within an efficient three
days.
Another element in the drive for efficiency is the drive,
itself. The old-fashioned way required traveling 28
miles to Scappoose then eight miles to St. Helens.
Now a letter goes 28 miles to Scappoose, 20-some ef
ficient miles to Portland, then 20-some miles back to
Scappoose and eight miles to St. Helens.
The USPS needs a new motto for the computer age:
GIGO. Garbage In, Garbage Out applies as well to
systems as it does to computers.
Volume 17, No. 1
This issue of The INDEPENDENT marks the begin
ning of our 17th year of operations.
Vernonia, Mist, Banks, the whole area, have under
gone some remarkable changes in the past sixteen
years. We have been privileged to observe and report
on them and, sometimes, participate in the process.
We hope to continue serving our community with the
information that is needed for an informed citizenry.
$
■=»
ìv w v iii rr 6RWG?-
\v I *A‘ 1
/ / / ✓ / ✓ / ✓ /
^7 jj'/ 'jq . p r r r i’i t
/ v
r \
Ike Says...
By Dale Webb, member
Nehalem Valley Chapter Izaak Walton League
Happy New Year! Another year has passed,
oh how fast! 2001 was a good hunting and fish
ing year. I am tired of eating Salmon and I need
to buy a deep freeze to store more game. What
will this new year bring for the outdoor enthusi
ast?
Steelhead fishing should be good again this
year, now that the water levels have receded to
fishable levels. Remember that this fishery is
catch and release for all wild steelhead.
The smelt run on the Cowlitz should be big
again this year. There have been some fish
caught in the Columbia already and some have
said that the ocean is so thick with smelt that it’s
interfering with the shrimp fishery. Maybe this is
why dad is saying I need that new deep freeze.
Trout season in local streams will begin on
May 25 and will be the usual catch and release,
with no bait allowed. It’s too bad we have not
been able to sway the Oregon Department of
Fish and Wildlife to allow a limited consumptive
fishery for cutthroat in the Nehalem, since it ap
pears that this fishery is very healthy.
Don’t forget about clam digging. At last word,
it has reopened on the Oregon coast. Clam dig
ging can be expensive. A co-worker found this
out the hard way up at Long Beach, Washington.
He noticed the clam diggers leaning into the
wind while he drove his pickup down the beach.
Not thinking, he stopped in a likely spot and
opened his door, which was abruptly torn from
his hand and from his vehicle. Oops! The repair
shop he took his vehicle to took one look and
commented, “You must have been clam digging.
We have several other vehicles in here from that
storm.” Well, at least my friend stopped his wife
from opening her door before it was too late.
It’s too early to tell what Deer hunting will be
like this coming year for the east side of Oregon.
This winter is shaping up to be, at the least, a
normal one, and if the snow persists into spring,
there could be significant mortalities. On the
west side, I feel there will be significant mortali
ties due to the hair loss syndrome. People are al
ready reporting hairless deer. The 34 consecu
tive days of rainfall we had in late fall will have
sapped a lot of the fat reserves from local deer
and make them vulnerable to the hair loss syn
drome. Deer numbers are already down and I
think that this next season will see a significant
decline in deer harvested in local units. ODF&W
has given no indication of backing off from har
vesting female deer, which will only speed up the
decline.
Elk hunting this fall is a question mark. East
ern Oregon is struggling with declining elk herds
in a lot of units and a tough winter will not help
the situation. Without an aggressive predator
control program, some units will never recover,
since they are apparently in a recruitment deficit
due to predators (including man). In the local
area, elk herds appear to be doing well, yet I am
puzzled by the lack of bull harvest both this year
and last (2000 = 309 bulls in the rifle season).
ODF&W has given no indication of backing off
from the cow harvest, which usually is about
equal to the bull harvest. I doubt that we will see
any significant increases in bull harvest this
coming year and, in fact, will experience dire
Please see page 3