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Wetland Delineation
A wetland delineation has been scheduled for September 25 - 26. Allen Makinson, from NRCS will be over to mark actual wetland areas.
In Order to be wetlands, the soils need to meet three criteria. They need to be listed as a hydric soil. They need to have a preponderance of hydric vegetation, and need to have hydric moisture conditions. Hydric moisture conditions require the soil to be totally saturated for at least two weeks during the growing season for 50 out of the last 100 years.. In this portion of western Oregon, the growing season begins March first.
Allen Makinson is a certified Soil Scientist and a member of the NRCS state wetland cadre.
Once a proper determination is made, the Friends of Asburry Park and the County will be allowed to start park development.
Present plans are to develop Wetland portions of the property as "Natural" or nature study areas.
Despite the proposed West Side City Dahlgren Park, Soccer and Ball groups are still interested in working with the County to help develop recreational
facilities on the Asburry park site. In talking with them, I have been given to understand that the new park will not negate plans for Asburry. I was told that there will never be enough play areas to accommodate all the children in our area.
Dahlgren Park
The City has held Informational meetings on Dahlgren Park this last week at the Columbia Center. The are looking for public input.
The City Parks Commission was pretty much kept in the dark, and never consulted prior to the purchase of this property. This is not the first time. The last purchase of property was two years ago, when the city purchased a lot by the waterfront in St. Helens. The park Commission also learned about this purchase "after the fact". At that time they were in discussions with the County for possible development of Asburry Park. The county was planning to offer the property without cost to the city for Parks Development. The development of Asburry was put on hold, when the city informed the county that they had no money to develop a new park. They stated that they had spent all their money on the water front lot now named Dalton Park.
It is alleged by some that this property was purchased from a friend of the Mayor who was experiencing financial problems.
According to the Chronicle, the City will be spending $675,000 to purchase the new park site from the Dahlgren family. City officials are concerned about how this park site will be managed. The City has been buying parks but there are presently no plans being discussed about increasing the parks department staff.
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