Mixed views on wheelchair access throughout city
Justin Garrigus
For The Sentinel
Depending on who you talk to, Goldendale is either a great place if you get around in a wheelchair or it's literally the pits.
From the eyes of H. D. Hirsch, a local man who is attempting to sue the city, blockages to his wheelchair are everywhere, mostly in the form of pitted sidewalks. "There are no good sidewalks in town except those on Simcoe," he says. Hirsch has had an ongoing dispute with the city and the Public Works department on making Goldendale more accessible.
"I've sent documentation to the ADA [Americans with Disabilities Act] according to their instructions on how to proceed with a suit against the city," Hirsch says. "They're conducting an internal investigation to see what can be done. I'm not after money; I just want the city to take responsibility for the sidewalks."
City Administrator Larry Bellamy points out that sidewalks, by city ordinance, are actually the responsibility of individual owners whose properties abut the sidewalks. "As we do road improvements, we do improve the sidewalks," Bellamy states. "We make sure they meet code standards. But ultimately the city ordinance says that the sidewalks are the property owners' responsibility. We can cite them, but that process is mostly complaint driven."
Hirsch contends that's not good enough. "The city makes people clean up their yards and properties," he responds. "Why can't they do the same for the sidewalks? The city does nothing, and they have to make it happen."
Hirsch says that he can't get into his own bank, Riverview on Columbus, because it doesn't have automatic doors. The bank maintains it is in full compliance with ADA, which does not legally require installation of automatic doors.
Hirsch's biggest concern is that he sometimes has to go into the street because the sidewalks are broken apart. "Twice I have been almost hit by cars because of the impassable sidewalks."
But Hirsch does not speak for everyone in a wheelchair. "I would not want to live in any other town," says Lanae Johnson. Johnson has been in a wheelchair now for 12 years and says she feels great about Goldendale. She does admit that some sidewalks do need some work, but she says the city is working hard at trying to make the town as accessible as possible.
"The people are what make it so easy for me," she says, and she points to how helpful and attentive the community and businesses are to her. "But at the same time they are not overbearing," she says.
Johnson does not like going on the newer sidewalks because the expansion joints in the sidewalk jar her body and create a lot of pain for her, which limits her to using the older sidewalks in town on certain streets.
Both Hirsch and Johnson agree that Main Street is very tough to travel on, but Johnson is not worried. "The accessibility is not as important as the people who help me," she maintains. "In big cities, the accessibility is there, but the people aren't. I would not want to live in any other town."
- With reports by Lou Marzeles
Six million trout begin life at local hatchery
Don McManman
For The Sentinel
From now until early January, the guys at the state hatchery just west of Goldendale will begin life for literally millions of fish.
It's been going on that way since 1936 and, for all those years, it's been tough work.
Bruce Ault figures that he and Brett Jungwirth will produce about six million trout eggs. Only a small fraction will actually become fry in the Goldendale hatchery. Most fertilized eggs will be shipped out.
The hatchery is the primary source for trout eggs in Washington, producing 80 percent of all those used in state hatcheries.
It's important work, but it's also hard work. No way to candy-coat it: it's just plain, stoop labor.
You slosh around in cold water, bent over, while you try to corral salmon-sized brood trout. Then, you hoist each trout-generally several at a time, at 10 pounds each, in a net at the end of a long handle - from one pool to another, and then to another.
Yet, you have to be gentle. The hatchery has nurtured only about 750 brood hens that are four years old, and each holds 6,000 to 8,000 eggs. To accidentally kill one would be to waste four years of feed, care, and nurturing.
The process hasn't changed much for 73 years.
Select fish are held back from yearling and two-year-old classes, which go straight to local waters. Once fish reach three years old, they start supplying eggs and milt.
Aside from the four-year-olds, the hatchery holds 2,500 brood fish that are three years old. Each weighs about four pounds and can produce 4,000 to 6,000 eggs each.
Males are scooped up and massaged until they squirt milt into a bucket.
Management of the hens is vastly more complicated. Although kept in a single environment, each fish produces mature eggs at different rates. Some will be ready in October, some in January.
So each week, the first job for workers is to segregate ripe hens from other hens not yet ready.
Ripe hens are confined at one end of a raceway and, ultimately, caught in hoop nets-not a difficult challenge when there are a hundred fish swirling around your feet. But once only a few remain in the holding pen, there's plenty of room to run-or, in this case, swim.
Humans, clumsy in the water, lurch around, trying to corner a trout in its environment.
The hens, caught individually or a few at a time, are taken to a tub containing water and an anesthetic compound, where they stay until they're limp.
Then, workers pick up one hen at a time and very gently place each on a floating platform. There, workers push in a catheter attached to a hose with oxygen at a relatively low pressure. The needle goes into the lower abdomen
Pressure from the oxygen and, often, massage by the fish handlers starts eggs to flow. They spurt out in an even stream.
The next step is crucial: workers coddle each fish, holding it right-side up in the water, massaging its belly and keeping gills under water. If too much oxygen is trapped inside the hen, it will float upside down and ultimately die.
Finally, when each hen seems somewhat revived from the ordeal (being chased, caught, carried, anesthetized, yanked out of the water, pumped up, emptied out, handled even more), it goes into a regular recovery raceway, where they begin acting like fish again.
Such care isn't taken at salmon hatcheries. Each salmon, once it returns to spawn, is programmed to die. But trout can live to spawn many times.
The Goldendale Hatchery doesn't keep fish past four years old. Instead, the big fish are planted where fishermen, fisherwomen, and fisherkids will have an equally surprising and horrifying shot at a 10-pound rainbow on a light line.
It's pretty much the same program the hatchery has followed for the past 73 years.
But there's one exception: used to be, there were a lot of paid hands to help out. No more. The state has run out of money.
So, the first week of spawning at the Goldendale Hatchery happened only because Edward Johnson and Anthony Settler showed up to lend a hand.
They work at the Yakama/Klickitat Fisheries Project and are paid by the Yakama Nation.
In this case, it's to do grunt work-no charge-because a state agency couldn't afford to pay its own employees.
Hancock to donate fire wood
Hancock Land Management will open their forest to firewood harvest for the annual Trout Lake School fund raiser and donation of firewood to the public. The class of 2012 will issue firewood permits on Saturday and Sunday, Oct. 10-11, 8 a.m.-4 p.m. with donations supporting the sophomore class. The public is welcome to cut as much wood as needed with donations requested for each trip. Students will help load wood, but chainsaws are not provided.
Directions to the entrance are: north on SR 141 to Trout Lake, bear right at Chevron on Mt. Adams Highway, take the next right on Sunnyside Rd. Follow Sunnyside Rd. east for 4.5 miles to where it turns into Trout Lake-Glenwood Highway. Follow Trout Lake-Glenwood Highway east another 1/2 mile, turn left at the bottom of the Trout Lake Grade on King Mtn Rd. (gravel road, S-1700), follow signs 1.5 miles to the green gate entrance. Maps of the areas open for cutting will be provided.
Visit www.troutlakefirewood.blogspot.com or call Lucas King at (509) 395-2065 for more information. You may also call Hancock Land Management directly at (509) 364-3331.
|
