Astoria gains unique fish cleaning station
June 26, 2012
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| The new fish cleaning station at Astoria’s East Mooring Basin is designed to
give anglers a clean, well-lit and sanitary place to take care of their catch.
Fish waste is delivered from the building to a barge which is driven out to the
main Columbia River channel and emptied, providing nutrients to aquatic life.Click for larger image |
ASTORIA, Ore. – Salmon and sturgeon anglers accessing lower Columbia River
fisheries from the East Mooring Basin now have a unique custom-built facility
where they can clean their catch. The new facility is designed with multiple
goals of improving the overall fishing experience, reducing indiscriminate
dumping of fish waste inside the boat basin and enhancing the aquatic food web
in the lower Columbia estuary.
The Port of Astoria, in cooperation with Oregon Department of Fish and
Wildlife, recently completed construction of the $130,000 facility with funding
and technical assistance from a cadre of partners. The majority of the
materials, supplies, and construction services used in the project were obtained
from within the local community.
The 20x16 ft. building is located at the end of 36th street between the
causeway and boat ramp at Astoria’s East Mooring Basin. The covered,
ADA-accessible structure has room for several anglers and features a large
aluminum fish cleaning table. The facility is equipped with Teflon cutting
boards, overhead lights, spray nozzles, waste receptacles, and a drop chute for
delivering fish waste into a floating barge stationed below the building. The
barge moored outside has a 2,500-gallon hold that when filled is taken out to
the main river channel and emptied in compliance with a permit issued by the
Oregon Department of Environmental Quality. The nutrients this material provides
is essential food for fish, crabs, invertebrates, sea lions, birds and other
aquatic life.
“Our goal is to enhance the fishing experience for the public who are
accessing fisheries from the East Mooring Basin,” said Troy Laws, ODFW biologist
and project coordinator. The facility gives anglers a viable alternative to
cleaning and indiscriminately dumping fish waste inside the boat basin where it
creates a mess. In years past, many anglers cleaned fish right next to the ramp.
“It was getting pretty messy around there at times,” Laws explained.
One of the facility design challenges was creating an operation that would
function during both low and high tides, which in Astoria can change water
levels by more than eight feet. Project engineers dealt with this issue by using
a suspended, 18-inch wide pipe over part of the span between the building and
the barge, which itself raises and lowers with the tides. One of the benefits of
using a barge as a receptacle is that by design it will keep sea lions off the
vessel until it can be driven out to the main river channel and emptied.
“People up and down the coast including other ports are looking at what we’re
doing here because there is interest in developing other cleaning stations like
this,” said Laws. “Fish waste disposal is a central problem for most entities
engaged in this activity at their facilities. Proper discarding of fish waste in
a manner that is beneficial to the environment is a win-win scenario for this
type of an operation.”
The Port of Astoria are the managers of this facility, which will be open
during daylight hours from spring through fall. It will be closed during the
winter. At 10 a.m. on Friday, June 29, the Port and ODFW will host a ceremony to
commence public use of the cleaning station.
