tillamook bay any dredgeing plans?

[White Willie]

While most of you were outside fishing the bubble i was inside pulling spinners in the tillamook river in front of the wilson and trask I got two silvers and saw several chinook caught [only 10 to 15 boats] there is not much room to fish there any more because of the sand bars. It seems like the whole bay is being filled up with sand it doesnt hurt the fishing but it makes it hard to get across the bay, is there any dredgeing plans in the future or the powers to be going to let it [the bay] fill up with sand. sooner or later the citys around tillamook bay will have to deal with the problem who will want to use the bay only at mid to high tide the people at the northern end of the bay love it because the have deep water in front and a nice boat basin what about the other end of the bay? Tillamook loses money everytime someone goes to girabaldi to launch instead of useing memaloose boat launch because they launch at low tide and have to stay in that area because it is very hard to get across the bay. In the last couple of years the people that fish this area has decreased because it is such a small area to fish because of the sand oh well Ive said my piece im done now.

[This message has been edited by White Willie (edited 09-19-2000).]

[ABL]

I hope so. I explored the Bay a little yesterday. I know that there is supposed to be channell down each side, but I had a heck of a time finding them and spent a lot of time struggling through a foot of water.

[garyk]

Ahoy WHite Willie, Glad to hear someone caught fish in our favorite, or at least most frequented area.

Regarding dredging, there was a post that the ramp at Oyster House had been dredged. As for the rest of the bay, I don't see it happening.

Here's why.....

I really hate smashing props. at $125 each but next time your there, between landing fish and dodging boats take a look to the east and what do you see? Essentially one massive clearcut, courtesy of Hampton Lumber and other private logging companys. (Funny how it doesn't look like those slick tv ads with the smiling forester and no stumps.)

As long as those hills and roads bleed silt in such massive quantities its a losing proposition. The Trask now runs mud after less than 2-inches of rain. We need to re-affirm property rights and pressure those landowners to keep their dirt on their property and out of the publics waters.

Ore. Dept. of Forestry isn't helping either. Their draft management plan called for a logging rate of 2% which they proposed as modest, and sounds it too, until you do the math and realize they're calling for logging every acre of the Tillamook Forest in only 50 years. They wouldn't committ to fully protecting even one acre. No wonder Gov. Kitzhaber, to his credit, stepped in and told them to give some thought to other values besides making stumps.

So against that brief backdrop is it likely for the Corp. of Engineers to committ to dredging, I think very unlikely.

And unless we can get the dirt to stay on those steep hills, we'll all be bank fishing at Oyster House and Sheep Pens and telling little kids how we used to drive boats across those what are now meadows.

[Pete]

I won't start in on the "source of the silt" thing...it just gets me agitated.

Two things. First, there's a great, recent aerial picture of the bay for sale at many spots (Tillamook Bait Co., Garibaldi Marina) that clearly shows where the channels are. It doesn't show how deep the channels are, but it is much better than the chart of the bay which is almost 20 years out of date.

The future of the bay is at least in some degree in the hands of the National Marine Estuary Project which is studying the bay and the ecosystems it depends on. Stop in at the project office at the Garibaldi Marina to understand the scope of their work.