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The INDEPENDENT, February 5, 2004
The
INDEPENDENT
Serving the upper Nehalem River valley. Published on the
first and third Thursdays of each month, by Public Opinion
Laboratory Ltd., 725 Bridge Street, Vernonia, OR 97064, as
a free newspaper. Publishers, Dirk & Noni Andersen. Editor,
Noni Andersen. Phone/Fax: 503-429-9410, e-mail:
noni@vernonia.com Display Advertising, Clark McGaugh,
e-mail: clark@vernonia.com Classified Advertising, Rebec-
ca McGaugh, e-mail: rebecca@vernonia.com
Opinion
How tough can this be?
Oregon public meetings law is quite specific about
how far in advance agencies must notify the press and
the public about meetings. In this area, lately, it seems
to have either been ignored or considered as difficult to
understand as advanced calculus.
There have been times when public officials just
plain didn’t want scrutiny, but that doesn’t apply in
these instances. They‘ve just blown it!
The transportation committee that has been studying
public transit in Columbia County recently had a
special meeting. A “special” meeting requires only 24
hours notice, unlike the 14 day notice of a “regular”
meeting. Seems easy enough, since it can be done by
phone, fax or email. Nope, notice arrived by fax 2-1/2
hours before the meeting.
We were assured that it wouldn’t happen again.
It didn’t. Notice of the next regular meeting arrived
two days in advance. Hey, they missed by only 12
days!
Vernonia had a similar problem. Notice of a public
hearing, which requires publication, went out in a
timely fashion, no problem there. Oops, the date was
wrong!
There have been a couple of meetings here, too,
where notification was timely and the date was right,
but the time was wrong!
Hey, folks, can we get this together?
Speaking of meetings…
Columbia County held a very interesting information-
al meeting in Mist a week ago to let people know what
was going on in regard to using depleted gas wells for
natural gas storage.
In the 1930s, when the great depression caused an
epidemic of tax foreclosures, the county ended up with
lots of land they didn’t want. When they eventually sold
it, however, they retained the mineral rights. Over the
years, the county has earned rents and royalties from
the gas fields.
Private landowners also own mineral rights in the
gas fields and can utilize the county’s negotiations to
stay on top of price fluctuations. But the meeting was
interesting because it is rare to see any county govern-
ment take staff, consultants and information to the
people without charge.
Columbia County earned a big bouquet.
Ike Says…
By Dale E. Webb, Member
Nehalem Valley Chapter, Izaak Walton League
A month ago you may
have noticed a man on the
Rock
Creek
bridge,
Hanging a metal contrap-
tion over the side. I
happened to be there that
day and a couple of us
were having fun with the
locals when they asked,
“What’s he doing?” We
had several people going with, “He’s fishing” and
“He’s counting fish.”
Actually, he was from the Oregon Water
Resources Department and was measuring the
stream flow because actual, physical measure-
ments are needed to verify and/or calibrate the
new gauge that was installed last summer on
Rock Creek.
Checking stream flows in the winter is no easy
task. It requires a mechanism that can hang a
heavy weight (60 pounds) into the stream, with a
device that can accurately measure the depth of
the weight in the water. The weight is torpedo
shaped, with fins so it does not spin in the water;
attached to the weight is a measuring device that
looks like a wind anemometer. Within the cable
that suspends the weight is an electrical wire
that transmits an electrical pulse back to the
operator, which he hears as a click each time the
cupped device makes a revolution. The operator
counts the clicks and the time. These numbers
are written down, along with at least 20 more
measurements across the stream, to come up
with a measurement of how many Cubic Feet
per Second (CFS) of water is flowing by.
Jim Buxton and I found out just how compli-
cated this procedure is when we took a lesson
from Greg Beaman, our District Watermaster.
Greg taught us how to use a hand-held flow-
measuring device that was purchased along with
the new gauging station on Rock Creek. The
hand-held device will be used during low flow
periods to verify measurements at the gauging
station and also to take readings in tributary
streams in our area.
We did our lesson in Bear Creek at City Hall
and, as we walked up to the stream, I joked to
Nehalem Watershed Coordinator Maggie Peyton
that we would probably see a salmon. Well, we
did – in fact, we saw four of them! While I was
standing in Bear Creek with the measuring
device, with Jim standing at water’s edge, a
Coho salmon swam right between my legs and
stopped just in front of us. Maggie was scram-
bling to get her digital camera operating while
Greg stood there in awe at seeing a salmon in
such a small stream. Within ten minutes, three
more salmon passed by us as we continued to
take measurements. This was a rare treat
indeed. Maggie was quite pleased because just
a week earlier she had people from the Oregon
Watershed Enhancement Board and ODF&W in
town viewing Bear Creek and several comments
were made by officials who questioned whether
Bear Creek was a salmon bearing stream. Well,
Maggie’s got pictures now!
Preliminary indications are that this year’s
Coho run was very good, with fish reaching up
very high into the tributaries, due to good stream
flows. These stream flows have stayed high due
Please see page 20