Port district looking for salmon season relief

Local port officials were to meet this week to plan a strategy to go after emergency economic relief grants.

Constraints on the spring salmon season limited anglers to 12 days, and this led to a severe financial impact on the Elochoman Slough Marina. Manager Jackie Lea planned to have financial analysis to present at a town hall meeting on fisheries held last night after The Eagle was printed.

David Goodroe, executive director of the Lower Columbia Economic Development Council, told Port 1 Commissioners LeRoy Burns and Larry Bonds last Thursday that the governor's office is pushing for $50,000 grants to aid communities impacted by the restrictions.

The grants may be used for the development of infrastructure, he said, and they seemed designed for port districts. They require a $10,000 local match, he said, thereby creating a $60,000 project.

Burns and Bonds agreed with Goodroe's suggestion that Goodroe and Lea meet this week to brainstorm uses.

Possible uses for Port 1 would be to improve docks, to develop the camping area and install utilities along the peninsula separating Elochoman Slough from the moorage basin and to develop facilities for commercial fishermen down the slough at the port's rock pit property.

In other business at the port commission's May 8 meeting, owners of Bottoms Up Espresso expressed interest in purchasing a privately owned bait shop building at the marina and turning it into a coffee shop.

Port commisisoners expressed interest in the idea and invited the couple to present detailed plans for further consideration.