Thank you for your interest in reading The Astorian. Here are a few stories that you might have missed this week:

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An effort to expand the welding program at Clatsop Community College is moving forward with support from industry leaders, who are aiming to increase the pool of qualified local welders.

Conversations between the college and local business leaders — including Bob Dorn, of Hyak Maritime, Willie Toristoja, of WCT Marine & Construction, and Greg Morrill, of Bergerson Construction — began several months ago under the direction of Mike Brosius. Brosius, a retired Costco executive, found that the businesses have a high demand for welders, but rarely hire from the college’s welding program.

The conversations illustrated a disconnect between education pathways and industry needs. The college’s welding curriculum has not historically aligned with the skills employers need, so instead of drawing from cohorts of locally trained welders, businesses have largely poached employees from elsewhere.

Now, industry leaders are hoping to bridge that gap. Dorn, Toristoja and Morrill, as well as former state Sen. Betsy Johnson and an anonymous donor, have contributed funds to the college to expand the welding program and offer scholarships for welding students.

See the story by Rebecca Norden-Bright by clicking here.

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Students in Clatsop County will have a new opportunity to develop their artistic talents next school year.

The Sitka Center for Art and Ecology, based in Otis, announced an expansion of its youth art program. The Sitka Center oversees monthly art workshops in schools in Tillamook and Lincoln counties. Starting next fall, it will bring professional art instructors to all five school districts in Clatsop County.

The youth program launched in two Tillamook County elementary schools in 2020. The program aims to fill gaps in arts access in rural parts of the state, where schools may not have the funding to sustain comprehensive arts programs.

Over the past few years, the program has continued to expand. During the most recent school year, the Sitka Center served about 2,000 students, with the addition of a pilot program in Lincoln County.

Now, with the expansion of programming into Clatsop County, the Sitka Center’s programming will reach approximately 5,000 students across three counties.

Read the story by Rebecca Norden-Bright by clicking here.

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On a recent May afternoon, Eric Owen shuffled through tall swaths of grass in a prairie near Surf Pines, approaching a sandy patch of soil dotted with native wildflowers.

The prairie — part of the North Coast Land Conservancy’s Neacoxie Prairie Habitat Reserve — might seem expansive, but it gives just a small glimpse into what used to cover the landscape.

“This is a good example of a remnant coastal prairie,” Owen said, looking out past a sprawl of western buttercups. “But it’s just that — it’s a remnant. You know, this might be going on for acres before we really disrupted the habitat.”

Owen, the stewardship manager for the North Coast Land Conservancy, is part of a growing effort to restore coastal prairies and the species that depend on them. At one point, coastal prairie habitat flourished across Clatsop Plains. Years of development and invasive species introduction, however, have left a fraction of those plant communities remaining.

Now, the land conservancy’s Surf Pines property and others nearby offer a fragmented patchwork of what once was.

That’s not good news for threatened species like the Oregon silverspot butterfly.

The silverspot was federally listed under the Endangered Species Act in 1980. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has since developed and revised a recovery plan and engaged in research on the species. Despite those efforts, the little bug is still fighting to survive.

The butterfly can still be found along the coast in select areas like Mount Hebo, Rock Creek and Cascade Head, but it’s been absent from Clatsop Plains since the 1990s. As an indicator species for Oregon’s dwindling coastal prairies, that decline also sounds the alarm for other species, said Samantha Derrenbacher, a wildlife biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

“If our Oregon silverspot is still doing poorly, then everything else that’s reliant on coastal prairies and that type of plant community is also at very high risk of being winked off the face of this planet,” Derrenbacher said. “Our ecosystem was built the way it was built for a reason. If you get rid of coastal prairies, you now just put your estuaries at risk. And now we’re going to have a salmon problem, too, or we’re going to have an elk problem.”

Take a look at the report by Olivia Palmer by clicking here.

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— Derrick DePledge