ASTORIA, Ore. — They can grow to the size of a golf cart and weigh as much as 2,000 pounds. They have been on the earth with the dinosaurs. They’ve weathered meteors and ice ages. They’ve adapted again and again. Leatherback turtles are the largest living turtles in the world but try spotting them in…
Local News
OREGON COAST — The month of July saw at least four fatal car crashes on highways in Clatsop, Columbia and Tillamook Counties. Three of those crashes happened in just one week near the end of July. During the height of the coronavirus pandemic, Oregon saw a spike in serious crashes. Preliminary data from the Oregon…
CATHLAMET, Wash. — The town of Cathlamet and the Wahkiakum County Public Utility District are contemplating consolidating the town’s sewer and water systems under the PUD, a proposal that has left people with questions and concerns about the rates they would pay — and what the loss of revenue could mean for Cathlamet. At a…
CANNON BEACH, Ore. — When Tabea Goossen’s friend said she might have seen a sea otter at Ecola Point in early June, Goossen laughed and said, “Oh, no. It was a seal.” She knows — everyone who cares about these kinds of things knows — there are no sea otters in Oregon. Hunted to near…
The baby sea star looked like a strange gray flower, tucked in the dark purple “y” of an adult sea star’s arms A crowd of people crouched in the sand near the rocks for a closer look. They were volunteers with a sea star monitoring project in Oswald West State Park on the North Coast….
ASTORIA, Ore. — It’s official: Peace First Early Learning Center in Astoria, one of Clatsop County’s larger child care centers, will close this summer. The early learning center, which operates out of buildings owned by Peace First Lutheran Church, looked for alternative locations after the church decided it would list the property for sale —…
The fate of one of Clatsop County’s larger child care centers is in question. Peace First Early Learning Center serves more than three dozen children — ages 12 months to 12 years old — out of buildings in downtown Astoria owned by Peace First Lutheran Church. Now, the church plans to put the property on…
Here’s how Dean Fleck heard the news. The general manager for the Newport branch of Englund Marine and Industrial Supply was in his office when a skipper who does business with Bornstein Seafood showed up in a panic and asked, “Have you heard?” “And I said, ‘Well, no, what am I hearing?’ So that’s when…
CATHLAMET, Wash. — Tensions between Cathlamet leaders bubbled up again last week as a majority of town councilors expressed frustration with Mayor David Olson through a signed “censure” letter. The letter, written by Councilor Robert Stowe and provided to the mayor at the March 18 council meeting, does not carry legal weight or entail direct…
Donna Quinn interviews guest Elizabeth Hayes, the President of the ENCORE, about the classes their organization offers. These classes cover across a range of subjects in the interest of our elder community members. They discuss the importance and benefits of providing a place for seniors to learn and grow together.
ROSBURG, WASH. — At Ron Thielen’s house near the end of Oneida Road in Wahkiakum County, Washington, an engineered rainwater collection system is his source of water. He is not alone. There are no water facilities along this stretch of State Route 4 from the Wahkiakum County-Pacific County line to the Deep River Bridge just…
ILWACO, Wash. — On Monday, commercial crabbers in Oregon and Washington state started dropping baited circular steel crab pots into the ocean. On Thursday, they will start hauling them back up — hopefully full of Dungeness crab. It’s a critical and fast-paced time. The bulk of the crab caught in the lucrative fishery is typically…
ASTORIA, Ore. — A shallow, slow-moving landslide impacted seven houses in Astoria’s Uppertown neighborhood over the weekend. As of Sunday evening, five houses have been “red tagged,” meaning they are unsafe to occupy at this time, according to Jeff Harrington, public works director for Astoria. City Manager Scott Spence says the area moving near 27th…
ILWACO, Wash. — The cause of a massive fire that destroyed a seafood landing facility and thousands of commercial crab pots in Ilwaco on Monday is still unknown. Investigators from Pierce County and from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives were expected to be on scene Wednesday to conduct a routine investigation….
ILWACO, Wash. — A massive fire broke out at a crab-landing facility in Pacific County on Monday, inflicting significant damage on the facility and destroying fishing gear ahead of Washington’s commercial Dungeness crab season. Ilwaco residents were warned to stay indoors and keep windows and doors shut because of hazardous smoke from the fire. This…
NORTH COAST, Ore. —With winter storm warnings and advisories in effect across much of the state, county officials on Oregon’s North Coast are urging people to stay home. Clatsop County officials say the hazardous and icy conditions that arrived Saturday morning have made it difficult to apply treatments to roads and sidewalks. Local roads and…
JEWELL, Ore. — The water is safe to drink again in a rural neighborhood that has been living under a boil water notice for more than a year. State and county officials announced Friday evening that samples from the Evergreen Acres water system have come back clean of coliform bacteria, or E. coli. The system…
JEWELL, Ore. — A rural neighborhood on Oregon’s North Coast that has been living under a boil water notice for more than a year did not have any water at all for several days this week. Residents said Tony Cavin, who operates the Evergreen Acres water system that provides drinking water to around 100 people,…
JEWELL, Ore. — For more than a year, residents of a rural neighborhood east of Seaside have been living under a boil water notice. The water that pours from their faucets can be yellowish, sometimes slightly brown, even foamy. Laundry washed in the water smells bad even when bleach is used. One family started breaking…
ILWACO, Wash. — A Washington state judge has ordered that the owners of an RV park in Pacific County violated the customer protection act when they tried to illegally evict tenants last year. On Thursday, Judge Katherine Svoboda issued an order granting partial summary judgement in the lawsuit filed by the Washington Attorney General’s Office…
CANNON BEACH, Ore. — The puffins are early risers, but so is Tim Halloran. For the past 12 years, he has spent most summer mornings — and many sunsets — with his binoculars aimed at a tufted puffin colony on Cannon Beach’s Haystack Rock. Minute by minute, over a series of two hour shifts, Halloran…
ROCKAWAY BEACH, Ore. — The fatal shooting of a Rockaway Beach man by officers in September was justified according to findings released this week. In a lengthy statement, Tillamook County District Attorney Aubrey Olson detailed her review of the Clatsop County Major Crimes Team investigation into the incident, described the events leading up to the…
ASTORIA, Ore. — For years, kids in Astoria have known you get the really big candy bars at Coast Guard housing. The South Slope neighborhood attracts a truly astonishing crowd of trick-or-treaters to a relatively small area on Halloween: an actual sea of people surging together up and down the sidewalks. Often many families in…
ASTORIA, Ore. — One afternoon in July, motorists traveling on the Astoria Bridge from Washington to Oregon could have counted 13 dead cormorants on the roadside before they were halfway across. For several years now, the number of dead birds has acted as an informal indicator of the growing colony nesting on supporting structures below….
ROCKAWAY BEACH, Ore. — More details have been released about an officer-involved shooting in Rockaway Beach. The shooting on Sept. 7 left one Rockaway Beach man dead and the community with lingering questions. The two officers involved — a Tillamook County Sheriff’s Office deputy and an Oregon State Police trooper — have both been placed on…
SOUTH BEND, Wash. — Last week, the Pacific County Sheriff’s Office made a dramatic and unusual announcement. In a lengthy statement posted to Facebook, the sheriff’s office announced they would no longer work with the local newspaper, the Chinook Observer. “We understand that the media plays a crucial role in disseminating information to the public,…
CLATSOP COUNTY, Ore. — Jeff Carlsen and his wife thought they were ready to have the conversation. They’d been reading books about death and dying and thinking about how they wanted to approach this time of their life. They were older and the idea of their own mortality was becoming less abstract. They felt open…
CANNON BEACH, Ore. — Cannon Beach’s most famous landmark was closed all day Sunday after one stubborn and unusual visitor refused to leave. When Mylasia Miklas, the communications coordinator for the Haystack Rock Awareness Program, saw a picture of a cougar prowling around Haystack Rock, her first thought was that it couldn’t be real. She…
ASTORIA, Ore. — Nurses at Columbia Memorial Hospital are not on strike – at least not yet. But on Tuesday they held an informational picket in front of the Astoria hospital — a sort of prelude to a possible strike. The demonstration was an attempt to sway administration as the labor union, which represents around…
ASTORIA, Ore. — A year after a portion of Buoy Beer Co.’s waterfront facility collapsed over the Columbia River, the fate of the building remains in limbo. Buoy has no permits in front of city building officials for the structure located between Seventh and Eighth streets. “We’re waiting to hear from the property owners about…