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FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2023
VOL. 131, NO. 41 Serving the Lower Columbia Region since 1891
County’s gun safety ordinance ruled invalid JEREMY C. RUARK Country Media, Inc.
The Oregon Court of Appeals has invalidated a Columbia County ordinance that claims to nullify state and federal gun safety laws within the county. The ordinance was adopted by the Columbia County Board of Commissioners in March of 2021. It had been preceded by two similar voter-enacted measures. After adopting the 2021 ordinance, the county brought a legal proceeding asking the courts to determine whether the ordinance is valid. The Oregon Department of Justice (DOJ) argued that the ordinance violates state law and is invalid. “Oregon’s gun safety laws exist to protect all Oregonians. Local ordinances declaring those measures to be unenforceable put people at unnecessary risk and they are illegal! The opinion by the Court of Appeals makes it clear that common sense requirements like
safe storage and background checks apply throughout Oregon,” Oregon Attorney General Rosenblum said. “Hopefully, other counties with similar measures on the books will see the writing on the wall. But we have successfully fought these measures in three counties so far, and we will keep fighting them!” The trial court ultimately declined to rule on the measure, ruling that Columbia County could not instigate legal proceedings if it did not intend to defend the legality of its ordinance. What the ruling means In the Feb. 15 decision, the Oregon Court of Appeals first decided that the trial court was wrong to dismiss the matter. The purpose of validation proceedings is for state courts to decide whether local ordinances are valid, and a local government does not need to be confident its measure is valid in order to take advantage of the process.
Rosenblum said the Court of Appeals also determined that the Columbia County ordinance violates state law, as DOJ has argued all along. The county will now decide whether to seek review in the Oregon Supreme Court. But the decision of the Court of Appeals is a statewide appellate decision with ramifications for other similar ordinances in other counties. DOJ successfully fought similar nullification measures in Yamhill and Harney Counties, according to a release from Rosenblum’s office. Columbia County Public Information Officer Mark Pacheco told The Chief Wednesday afternoon, Feb. 15, that the county board of commissioners were currently reviewing the court’s decision. “The county hopes to issue a statement by the end of the week,” he said. Follow developments here online and in the Friday print editions of The Chief.
Metro Creative Connection
The Oregon Department of Justice (DOJ) argued that the county ordinance violates state law and is invalid.
City looking for $16.1M for new sewer plant JEREMY C. RUARK Country Media, Inc.
Jeremy C. Ruark / Country Media, Inc.
A diver returns to the surface of the sewer plant pool with debris pulled from the plant’s seal below the wastewater as part of a sprint 2022 plant repair.
Clatskanie City Manager Greg Hinkelman will be spending more time at the Oregon Capitol building in Salem over the next few weeks lobbying for $16.1 million dollars. Hinkelman said the additional state funding is needed to allow his city to replace its aging sewer plant. This follows Hinkelman’s successful work in gaining $10 million from the last Oregon Legislature to build the wastewater treatment facility and a $720,000 community development block grant for the engineering and design of the new plant that will be built at the same location of the current facility at 100 NW 4th Street in Clatskanie. In a published interview with The Chief in December, Hinkelman said the required geo tec assessment needed for the plant construction revealed that the soils at the site are liquifiable. “If we build on the existing the ground, the plant would likely not survive an earthquake, so we have to shore up the ground so that the new plant can meet seismic requirements,” he said. This week, Hinkelman told The Chief he has gained support for the funding from local legislators, but still needs to qualify as the legislature reviews its capital funding requests. Funding breakdown
Jeremy C. Ruark / Country Media, Inc.
The city’s sewer plant is located at 100 NW 4th Street in Clatskanie.
Hinkelman said the additional funding will include costs for phase two and phase three of the new plant.
“We have to do significant preparations to the site in order to build on it,” he said. “Right now, that preparation cost is approximately $6 million. The additional cost would be for phases two and three of the project. That will include building a new lab, a shop, a new facility for the ultraviolet lights, which are part of the treatment process to kill additional bacteria, and a new storage facility for the sludge.” The treated sludge, also known as cake, is the end process, which Hinkelman said is produced by pressing all the water from the waste material. “We apply it to city owned lands,” he said. “It works as a fertilizer.” Challenging history The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality issued a $2,800 fine to the City of Clatskanie in Dec. 2022, following repeated sewer plant failures. The violations are of the DEQ’s National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NEPDES) permit that regulates the city’s wastewater treatment plant. This fine is a result of two incidents that happened within weeks of each other earlier this year, according to Clatskanie City Manager Greg Hinkelman. “The sewer plant experienced failure of a seal within the clarifier that resulted in high levels of E.coli that were discharged into the Clatskanie River in January and March of this year,” Hinkelman said. Following the discharge, the city closed the Clatskanie River and issued warnings to the public
not to use the river on both occasions of the plant failure. The failure of the seal also impacted other categories of reporting that showed elevated levels of Effluent limits; Biological Oxygen Demand (BOD’s) and Total Suspended Solids (TSS), according to the DEQ. Hinkelman said the city conducted a thorough review of each failing and determined that excessive debris was getting into the treatment system, which was caused by issues with the debris removal system, also known as the headworks, that required adjustments to a screen-cleaning brush and the replacement of a gear box. Part of the fix included hiring a diver to go into the wastewater area of the plant to remove the debris from the seal. Next steps Hinkelman acknowledges that asking for more state funding will be challenging. “It is a pretty competitive process,” he said. “But inflation and supply chain issues are driving up costs. We are not the only entity facing such increasing funding challenges. COVID money has been appropriated, which means we now have to look for additional funding to cover the unanticipated soil issues and inflation.” Hinkelman said he is also reaching out to Oregon’s congressional delegation for federal funding assistance. Follow developments at thechiefnews.com and in the Friday print editions of The Chief.
Seed gathering effort to save Oregon Ash trees Crossword ................ A3 Opinions ................... A4 Classified Ads ......... A5 Legals .................... A5-6 Obituaries ................. A6 Sports.........................A8
Contact The Chief Phone: 503-397-0116 Fax: 503-397-4093 chiefnews@countrymedia.net 1805 Columbia Blvd., St. Helens, OR 97051
STAFF REPORT Country Media, Inc.
Oregon Department of Forestry (ODF) staff has completed what officials are calling an unprecedented effort to collect seeds from populations of Oregon ash (Fraxinus latifolia) trees throughout the Oregon portion of the species range. ODF officials said the collection was conducted before the Oregon ash trees are wiped out by an invasive pest. Between 2019 and the end of 2022, five ODF staff members collected more than 900,000 seeds from 245 mother trees representing 27 distinct populations from the Oregon Coast Range throughout the Willamette Valley and the western Cascade foothills, and south to the California border. The collecting effort was made possible by a federal grant from the USDA Forest Service. ODF Invasive Species Specialist Wyatt Williams coordinated the collecting and where the seeds were sent for safe storage and studies. “We learned from our counterparts that almost all the native ash
Courtesy from the ODF
Between 2019 and the end of 2022, five ODF staff members collected more than 900,000 seeds from 245 mother trees.
in infested areas in the eastern half of the country were killed within 10 years or so after the arrival of the invasive emerald ash borer,” Williams said. “We sought a grant to help us collect a representative sampling of seeds so we could preserve as much of the genetic variation in Oregon ash as possible before it was lost.” Williams said ash seed that was collected was cleaned and sorted at ODF’s JE Schroeder Seed Orchard facility in St. Paul, Oregon. A third of the seeds were sent to the primary long-term storage facility at the Center for Agricultural Resources
Research (ARS) National Seed Lab in Fort Collins, Colorado. Equal amounts were also sent to the USDA Forest Service’s Dorena Genetic Resource Center in Cottage Grove and to the USDA Agricultural Research Service’s North Central Regional Plant Introduction Station in Ames, Iowa. This will allow both sites to help facilitate research on Oregon ash, the only species of ash native to the state, according to Williams. “Researchers can plant some of the seeds in areas where emerald ash borer is present in significant numbers and see if any of the
seedling trees show resistance to the insect,” he said. The first two genetic trials of ash were planted recently, using seed collected by ODF and others, and will serve as sentinels for resistance as EAB spreads to those areas. “If some trees survive, those resistant trees could become the basis for reintroducing the species to western Oregon,” Williams said. “Resistant trees would be crossed with other Oregon ash to establish resistance while retaining genetic diversity.” USDA Forest Service Forest Geneticist Richard Sniezko at Dorena said such a process could take many decades, based on results from programs to breed white pine trees resistant to white pine blister rust or Port Orford-cedar trees resistant to Port Orford-cedar root disease. “We don’t know if we will find resistance or if we do, how durable it will be,” Sniezko said. “But by preserving the full range of genetic diversity in the species if we do find resistance we can ensure trees that
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