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About The independent. (Vernonia, Or.) 1986-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 6, 2009)
Page 2 The INDEPENDENT, August 6, 2009 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 Jamboree a time of giving Jamboree is upon us, starting August 7 and running through Sunday, August 9. Banks BBQ is just around the corner, August 14-16. These community celebra- tions could not come about without the volunteer efforts of many people in the communities. Someone makes sure there are garbage cans, porta-potties, picnic ta- bles. People volunteer to pick up the garbage, man in- formation booths, help organize parades, and all the other necessary behind-the-scenes selfless tasks that go into making these weekends flow. Their efforts make it so the rest of us in the community, along with our friends and relatives who visit for the occasion, can enjoy the events that make for the good times. Thank you to all these volunteers. These community celebrations also provide the op- portunity for community organizations to raise at least some of the funds that go back into the community to make it a better place. Here are some, but undoubted- ly not all, of the ways to help support the community while enjoying the activities, in Vernonia; • Buy something (a brick, a book, a sticker) from the Jamboree information booth. That table is staffed by volunteers of Vernonia Pride whose agenda is down- town beautification. • Eat a Lions Club BBQ Beef or Pulled Pork sand- wich to help their good works. • Buy a book from the Friends of the Library book sale and support the library. • Enter an event at the Pet Party and your entry fee or donation goes to buy pet food for the local food bank. • Eat at the pancake breakfast at the Senior Center to help feed the hungry. Your money there goes to Ver- nonia Cares Food Bank. • Get a Booster burger, etc. by the grandstands be- hind the high school. The Boosters do great works to help the town’s children and the schools. • Have kids ages 13-20? Send them to the Teen Dance and help fund the Zach Rumbolz Memorial Scholarship. In Banks; • Eat at the “All You Can Eat Breakfast” and support the Lions Club. • Enjoy all the events that fund Sunset Park so it’s available for community activities free or at reduced rates during the rest of the year. Most of all, enjoy the celebrations. Be safe and please don’t drink and drive. Ike Says… By Dale Webb, member Nehalem Valley Chapter, Izaak Walton League Hopefully by the time you read this, the heat wave will be over with. While the heat wave may be over, the effects will be with us for a while, some permanently. Did you no- tice how a lot of people flocked to the rivers? Yep, it was a fine place to cool off for us humans and for many animals too. If you were a fish, well it wasn’t so cool. Fish are used to the water being cold. Fish breathe through their gills so they must be able to absorb oxygen in the water that passes over the gills. The trouble with warm water is that it doesn’t have the ability to hold as much oxygen as cold water, and when the water reaches around 75 degrees, the fish suffocate. I happened to be off work on the days leading up to the triple digit temperatures. Using a DEQ certified electronic measuring device, I took readings from our local streams. I sampled at the confluence of Rock Creek and the Nehalem Riv- er, one mile downstream of the confluence at the the green steel bridge, and a few random sam- ples around the area. On July 26th the Nehalem at the confluence of Rock Creek reached 76.6 degrees at 7:00 p.m. On July 27th, the same lo- cation reached 79.6 degrees at 7:00 p.m. Just a few feet upstream of the confluence, Rock Creek was 73.0 degrees, and at the green bridge – only one mile downstream – the river was an incredi- ble 80.4 degrees. Two days later the tempera- tures were even higher. Rock Creek at the con- fluence with the Nehalem was 77.0 degrees, the Nehalem at the same place was 82.1 degrees and at the green bridge the temperature was 84.1, absolutely terrible. I have done a lot of temperature sampling over the years, most of it with data loggers that monitored the rivers every hour for days on end, and never have I seen such high stream temper- atures. So what does this mean to us humans? Well, most likely any salmonids (Steelhead, Coho, Chinook) in the stream areas that reached lethal temperatures are now feeding the crayfish. If you take a walk along the Nehalem River in the Vernonia area, it becomes apparent that the stream is shallow and wide, with few holes, which are vital for these fish during an event like this; down deep the water can remain cooler. Since there is a lack of deep holes, the salmonids caught in these stream reaches sim- ply cannot move far enough, fast enough, to avoid getting caught in the hot water. So why are the Nehalem and the lower reach- es of Rock Creek so warm? It is the legacy of our forefathers who raised crops in the fields they cleared along the streams. Removing all the conifers from the stream banks and allowing only a thin strip of alders, maples and other shrubs to survive, the rivers are exposed directly to sun- light and heat up excessively. The good news is Please see page 16