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The INDEPENDENT, August 7, 2008
The
INDEPENDENT
Published on the first and third Thursdays of each month by
The Independent, LLC, 725 Bridge St., Vernonia, OR 97064.
Phone/Fax: 503-429-9410.
Publisher Clark McGaugh, clark@the-independent.net
Editor Rebecca McGaugh, rebecca@the-independent.net
Mentor Noni Andersen
Printed on recycled paper with vegetable based dyes
Opinion
Bicycle Skills Park update
Remember the Bicycle Skills Park? There was a
groundbreaking in the Spring of 2007. There were only
one or two youngsters at the groundbreaking. After that
somebody drove a tractor around and ‘cut’ in a series
of trails, most of them along the trails already existing
from those who use the area ‘as is’. At that time, Parks
Committee Chair Scott Laird said that after that work
the trails would be “ridden in.” The cut-in portion just
gave the water somewhere to sit when it rained and
made a muddy mess, but then no one ever said the
Skills Park would be used when the sun wasn’t shining.
Later last year some wooden ‘features’ were added,
but they all washed away in the flood in December. The
city, apparently from grant money, paid over $5,000 to
Ric Balfour to ‘plan’ out the park. Then, he left.
The Skills Park Committee, small but mighty as we
only know of three members and most of the time two
of them don’t seem to be in the loop, then got approval
from council to spend $2,330 more to have Alta Plan-
ning & Design do more work on ‘the plan’.
This year, when the growing season started, weeds
reclaimed much of the Skills Park. Some trails have be-
come inaccessible due to weeds that have grown six
feet tall and obscure the trail.
Why are we bringing it up now? At the last Vernonia
City Council meeting, council approved the next
‘phase’ of development of the Skills Park. This phase
will cost $931, out of grant funds, for a football field
sized, bush enclosed ‘technical features’ area. Re-
member, after the flood the Vernonia Planning Com-
mission and Columbia County Flood Relief started re-
quiring a flood plain permit for any changes that might
impact water movement, like rows of bushes, for exam-
ple. When Laird was asked if the flood plain permit had
been obtained for this phase of development his re-
sponse was, “Not the design of it, but they’ve approved
the initial concept.” Apparently he hadn’t thought of that
because he said next, “I’ll have to check that out.”
Asked when this phase of the work is to begin, Laird re-
sponded, “It hasn’t been scheduled yet.” So, will there
be another year gone before there is anything out
there?
We question the wisdom of building the Bicycle Skills
Park when it may all wash away again, but mostly be-
cause there doesn’t seem to be any real community
support for it.
Ike Says…
By Dale Webb, member
Nehalem Valley Chapter, Izaak Walton League
The
Izaak
Walton
League fishing derby was
a good time for the youth
of the area as we helped
kick off Jamboree. The
turn out was a little on the
light side, but we had fun
regardless. As usual, the
fishing was slow, it always
is at this time of year. I
would like to thank our sponsor, The Indepen-
dent , and Vernonia True Value and Vernonia
Hardware for donating items used as prizes or
auction items.
The highlight for me this year was a young
mother and her daughter. I was making my
rounds, checking to make sure people were wait-
ing to start fishing at 5:00, when I encountered
the mother on the west dock. She had already
caught a trout and knew it wouldn’t count in the
derby, but said she didn’t know how to catch the
fish that would count in the derby. Of course I
had to give some pointers so I told her that the
fish were probably right under the dock they
were standing on, so if they used a small hook
and a small piece of worm they might do well.
The daughter heard me make the comment
about the fish under the dock and was soon on
her belly looking between the cracks in the
boards. “Mom! There’s a fish”, were the next
words out of her mouth. Next the mother was flat
on her stomach looking between the cracks and
saying she could see four fish. I wished I had tak-
en my camera; this was just priceless to see. I
will have to say, I have not seen a young gal that
had the fishing skills and know-how of this young
mother before. It wasn’t long before her daughter
had a fish on the end of the hand line she was
dangling under the dock. The bait? An egg, worm
and a little peanut butter! That’s a new one for
me!
I would like to recognize one of the original
charter members of our chapter, Ralph Berger-
son. Ralph was the driving force behind the for-
mation of our chapter back in 1968. (Many of you
probably remember Ralph as the local branch
manager of U.S. Bank.) Our chapter was formed
due to a common cause, the pollution of the Ne-
halem River by the Empire Light Rock Company,
which was illegally discharging a by-product of
its production of cinder blocks into the headwa-
ters of Castor Creek, which in turn flowed into the
Nehalem River. A blanket of gray silt would cov-
er the river bottom as it moved mile after mile
down the river. Local sportsmen banded togeth-
er to fight the pollution, but it soon became ap-
parent that they needed an organization behind
them, to have a chance. That organization was
the Izaak Walton League. With the formation of
the chapter these local sportsmen had some
weight behind them, a 60,000 member strong
weight. Back in late 60s there wasn’t much in the
way of environmental laws and getting agencies
to do anything about the pollution was like trying
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