10 years ago this week — 2014

Astoria proved Tuesday that, with a little patience and cooperation from the weather, it can accommodate two cruise ships and more than 3,600 passengers.

The Norwegian Pearl docked at the Port of Astoria’s Pier 1 at 10 a.m. Tuesday, dropped its passengers off and went to moor in the Columbia River near Tongue Point, behind a line of cargo ships already queued. Right on its heels was the Statendam, already scheduled to dock at the Port from noon to 8 p.m.

By the afternoon, a line of more than 2,000 cruise passengers from the Norwegian Pearl stretched more than a tenth of a mile from the 17th Street Dock and west down the Astoria Riverwalk to the Columbia River Bar Pilots’ office, under partially cloudy but dry skies.

“If it was raining, we’d be in deep trouble,” said Bruce Conner, the Port’s cruise ship marketer.

LEADBETTER POINT, Wash. — Decades’ worth of time and millions of dollars have gone into bringing back a tiny threatened shorebird.

As native plants reassert themselves, reshaping the dunes and opening up habitat, people who’ve devoted careers trying to rebuild western snowy plover populations are finally beginning to feel hopeful.

“It appears we’ve kind of turned a corner and our work has paid off,” said William Ritchie, a biologist at Willapa National Wildlife Refuge. The refuge has restored and maintains several acres of plover habitat, working in collaboration with Washington State Parks. This year, Oregon and Washington state, which are considered a single plover recovery unit by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, had a preliminary count of more than 250 breeding adults.

There’s still a ways to go — in 2007, the estimated cost for plover recovery efforts on the West Coast was nearly $150 million, with a prediction for delisting to occur by 2047.

Recovery units from Washington to California have yet to show that western snowy plover populations are stable, and intensive monitoring will likely continue for years to come, as will beach closures during the birds’ nesting season.

CANNON BEACH — An epidemic of sea star wasting disease, which has spread along the West Coast during the past 15 months, wiped out most of the sea stars at Haystack Rock during the 2014 beach season, according to Haystack Rock Awareness Program coordinator Samantha Ferber.

Though she hasn’t finished analyzing the data, Ferber estimates that more than 90% of the total sea stars in the lower intertidal areas of Haystack Rock succumbed to the disease.

“We get a lot of disappointed visitors because we don’t have sea stars to show them,” she said.

Scientists researching the movement of debris from the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan are asking anglers and beachcombers to be on the lookout for bright orange transponders appearing along Oregon’s shoreline.

These floating instruments are about the size of a 2-liter soda bottle and were set in the ocean from Japanese ports in 2011 and 2012.

Researchers are hoping to use data from the transponders to help determine the path and timing of the debris from the 2011 disaster.

50 years ago — 1974

The Columbia River estuary is vital to northwest Oregon and should be protected.

Clatsop County needs economic development that will provide year-round employment for county residents, but that won’t adversely affect the environment and livability of the area.

Forests should be viewed as a crop and forestry management concepts improved.

Steps can be taken to increase production from agricultural lands in the county.

Nobody wants to create more pollution in Clatsop County.

So went some of the comments Tuesday at the Land Conservation and Development Commission workshop on proposed goals the commission’s statewide planning effort should pursue.

Larry Freeman and his “harem” are off once, and sometimes twice a day for a quiet, relaxing ride along the back roads of Warrenton.

Some may consider Larry a lucky man with all those women. He’s outnumbered six to one, which is cause for the “harem” tag, but he’s also chief mechanic if anything goes wrong, and that requires a lot of work sometimes.

Larry and his group, who like to call themselves the “Senior Citizens Hot Rodders,” form a bicycle riding club which is rather unique in this area. Most of the group ride three-wheel bikes.

Frustration was at a premium Thursday as Columbia Memorial Hospital trustees and Astoria physicians wrestled with where to build a new hospital.

Trustees said they only had found one site — in Walluski — that was available and they could afford to build on. Physicians said the site was unacceptable. So trustees were told to reject the Walluski site.

Physicians then suggested alternate sites, but trustees and their advisers said building at those sites would be out of reach financially.

The situation appeared so unresolvable that at one point trustee Bob Hanson thumped his fist on the table and said, “We can’t overcome our problem. We can’t afford it.”

No one jumped up to disagree.

But nearly everyone seriously puzzled about what Columbia Memorial can do, and must do, if it is to conform with ever-increasing state medical care facility standards.

Columbia Memorial has many beds which are considered nonconforming to state standards. That doesn’t mean that medical care is substandard. But it does mean new equipment and new facilities are needed to meet changing health care methods.

Astoria High School’s varsity rally squad again took several honors in a summer rally clinic.

Ann Zafiratos, Dorene Perkins, Maggie Hunsinger and Kathy Kelly attended the International Cheerleading Foundation clinic at EXPO ’74 in Spokane, Washington, before school started.

Rally squads from Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Montana attended the clinic, in which Astoria girls won first place in overall evaluation and second- and third-place ribbons as well.

75 years ago — 1949

The Astoria Chamber of Commerce will fight efforts of Portland to get repair work in the local maritime commission reserve fleet away from the base here, secretary Al Hetzel said in a report to chamber directors here Friday.

Hetzel read a telegram from U.S. Rep. Walter Norblad telling how the maritime commission proposed to have the vessels dry-docked and surveyed, presumably in Portland, before calling for bids for repair work.

Ten or 11 vessels of the reserve fleet here are scheduled for repairs under a bill which has been passed by the U.S. Senate and is now before the U.S. House.

Hetzel told the directors that plans for a permanent reserve fleet base here call for the installation of an 18,000-ton floating dry-dock and that the chamber will urge that the dry-dock be installed and survey and repair work be done here.

Air and sea rescue work by the U.S. Coast Guard has often been publicized. Less well-known are the rigors of the daily routine.

The yearlong tasks involved in placing and maintaining aids to navigation are not so spectacular as the job of saving a storm-wrecked crew, or rushing a stricken fisherman ashore for an operation.

But this is the work of four vessels stationed at Tongue Point to keep guideposts placed and functioning properly in the waters of the Columbia and along the Oregon and Washington state coastlines.

Ivy personnel work hard, but they seem to like the duty.

“Good liberty, good brass and the best cook in the Coast Guard — we got ‘em all,” one of the crew said recently.

Astoria ranked eighth in total volume of building during August, according to figures from 19 major Oregon cities compiled by the statistical department of the Equitable Savings and Loan Association of Oregon this week.

During August, Astoria’s building volume totaled $3,201,380. Following Portland were Eugene, Salem, Grants Pass, Medford, Corvallis and Bend.

Astoria climbed from 12th in total volume in July.

First reports from deer hunters today indicated that hunting since the season’s opening Saturday has been good.

Officials at the Zero-Zone lockers, official weighing station for the county rod and gun club’s big buck contest, said they had already received about 50 deer brought in by county hunters.

Custer Waddell leads the big buck contest with a 198 1/4-pound buck.

SEASIDE — When a man forgets he has a wife with him on a trip, he’s headed for trouble.

Hugh Gibson, desk officer at the police department, picked up the ringing phone Sunday afternoon and a voice from Necanicum district said, “A man and his wife were just in here and bought some gasoline. His car had a run down battery, we all gave him a shove. The car started and he lit out for Portland.

That part was alright, but he added, “He forgot to take his wife back with him.” Last reports he hasn’t missed her yet.