I love to eat really fresh wild Columbia River salmon. It tastes amazingly good and it packs an energy wallop that makes me feel great for three to four-plus days. This is unlike the farmed salmon that looks pale, tastes similar to salmon, but lacks the energy boost. Likewise real crab is 100 times better than artificial crab.

We are so fortunate to have a river that provides so much excellent salmon, sturgeon and a mouth of the Columbia that provides crab, scallops and other fresh seafood. As a child, I ate frozen fish and fish sticks ad nauseum. Once a year we went to the coast to Anthony’s Fish Grotto to taste fresh fish, so superb.

The Columbia River smells good, looks tremendous with its blues to light gray, depending on the sky. After Mount St. Helens erupted, it was brown for a short period. The Columbia is great to behold.  Perhaps it was even more splendid to behold in Lewis and Clark’s day.

Not all rivers are as pristine as the Columbia. My father swam a few times as a young man in the Ohio River. He said it had a chemical smell, and a steel gray color, and he stopped swimming after a dead fish floated toward him. 

County Commissioner Dirk Rohne read from the liquefied natural gas proposal to the commissioners at the meeting July 16. The LNG industry proposes “to place a shield, which may or may not be proven to be effective, to protect the river and the environment” and it equates that with protecting the environment? LNG assumes no responsibility if it fails to protect. 

The other four commissioners voted to ignore this glaring failure in the proposed project, saying “other agencies will take care of the environment.” But Rohne said, “It is our responsibility as county commissioners to protect it.”  I think that Rohne then read something from the county commissioner’s job description to confirm his statement.

The Oregon Land Use Board of Appeals (LUBA) gave our commissioners two chances to stop the Bradwood LNG, by sending it back to them for re-evaluation, because the project does not fit the zoning of the Bradwood site, and the proposal fails to address the problems in protecting the environment.

We are an unstable earthquake zone topped with silt. The LNG projects confront us with great hazards and the ruination of our region. A “friend” would not authorize an LNG plant to be built in your backyard. If we don’t fight even harder, four county commissioners will stick us with what every other county is rejecting: slimy, hazardous, immense chemical LNG plant(s).

Recall. Establish accountable local government. 

MONICA TAYLOR

Astoria