This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

An article in Oregon Public Broadcasting’s (OPB) on-line edition caught my eye the other day.

It dealt with the subject of dredging.

Dredging? 

Yes, it is a subject near and dear to me based on an achievement for my colleagues and myself as we lobbied for the Port of Portland at the State Capitol in Salem, Oregon, a number of years ago.

Our assignment was to work in the Oregon Legislature to gain appropriation of Oregon’s share of the multi-million dollar cost to deepen the Columbia River channel from 40 to 43 feet between Portland and the Pacific Ocean.

The new depth would allow deeper-draft ships to ply their way 90 miles upriver from the Coast to five ports – Portland, Vancouver, Longview, St. Helens, and Kalama – and then back out to sea again.  The deeper channel was a key to maintaining the maritime economy for Portland and Southwest Washington and, by extension, to both states because so many companies relied on import and export shipping.

But, once the channel was deeper, maintenance dredging would have to occur on a routine basis to maintain the depth.  Both in the riverbed and at the mouth of the Columbia River.

So it was that the OPB story dealt with this kind of dredging.

Here are excerpts from the story that appeared under this headline:  “Life aboard the boat that keeps the ‘Graveyard of the Pacific’ clear and Oregon’s economy moving.”

“Simply getting aboard the Essayons (the name of the ship which does the dredging) is a hairy proposition this time of year (as it focuses on keeping the mouth of the river open).

“The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers dredge ship stretches the length of a football field and surges through the surf.  To reach it, a motor launch pulls alongside, matching the Essayons’ speed, and two enormous hooks are attached.  Then the whole launch — passengers included — is hoisted up and out of the water.”

Ocean-going transportation is a key to Oregon’s economy.  For bulk products like wheat and cars, there is no more efficient way to get goods to market.  Last year, $22 billion worth of cargo was shipped through Pacific Northwest waterways.

“But,” the OPB story continues:  “Sand silts up many rivers, including the Columbia, making them dangerous to navigate.  That’s where the Essayons comes in, dredging up sand to maintain a 43-foot-deep navigation channel. During this time of the year, it’s working along the Columbia River Bar, a treacherous stretch at the mouth of the river known as the ‘Graveyard of the Pacific.’”

Why graveyard?

Some 2,000 vessels have met their demise here, where the river meets the ocean.

The problem is the mixture of bad weather, complex ocean currents, large volumes of water flowing out the Columbia River, and massive Pacific Ocean waves that have been building momentum for 3,000 miles.

On the Essayons, arms drag along the ocean floor, sucking up sand like two enormous vacuum cleaners.  They empty into cavernous holds on the vessel causing the whole ship to gradually — and rather ominously — sink toward the waterline as it fills.

The Essayons heads to the Columbia Bar during the fall because the weather is comparatively calm, and the crew is less likely to disturb migrating salmon.

But, nearly at the same time, the risk is that, as fall changes to winter, storms start rolling in.

“One of the main rules of dredging is you always have to be making headway,” reports a deck hand on the Essayons.  “If you go backwards, you could break a drag arm.  And when those swells get big enough, sometimes you go up a swell and come back down the other side.  That will make you slide backwards.”

When that happens at full power, it’s time to pack up for the year.

Back to our work lobbying work in favor of a deeper channel.

At the Capitol in Salem, the point I made above is worth emphasizing — we cast the project as one designed to improve Oregon’s and the region’s maritime economy.  It worked.  But, we also had to counter two issues:

1. One legislature is barred from committing the next legislature to an action.  But, the size of the financial request to deepen the channel would take more money than would be possible in one biennial budget.  So, our solution was to build into the first legislative bill a contract for future revenue.  While that contract also could be broken, it would be more difficult to do so.  The gambit worked.  The bill passed and it, essentially, remained in effect for three more biennia.
2. We also had to counter objections from the environmental lobby.  The approach here was to emphasize the clean quality of the sand that would be dredged and to indicate that it would be placed on acceptable land-based sites.  That’s where it could be sold, given its clean quality.  This approach worked to blunt environmental lobby opposition.

The OPB article brought all this back to me, a good thing because achieving the “deepen the channel” task was a proud day for me and for those with whom I worked to accomplish the objective.

The state of Oregon and the region are better for it.